On Tuesday, a road crew started the morning covering up one of San Antonio’s most colorful landmarks, leaving seemingly no trace of the city’s rainbow crosswalks by noon. The only remnants of the crosswalk were cylinders extracted from each color of the rainbow, to be saved by the city for historical purposes.
For state and federal transportation officials, scrubbing the intersection at North Main Avenue and Evergreen Street meant removing “political” imagery from San Antonio’s tax-funded streets — an initiative they threatened millions in transportation funding over in cities across Texas.
For local advocates and members of the LGBTQ+ community, paving over the centerpiece of San Antonio’s newly anointed Pride Cultural Heritage District was a physical manifestation of what they feel is an increasingly hostile climate in the state toward gay and transgender people. That animosity has also influenced San Antonio’s proposed alternative to paint rainbows on the sidewalks near the intersection where the crosswalk was.
