Austin Submitted Its Crosswalk Removal Plan on Deadline Day and Got Nothing in Return

Austin chose compliance over community

June 22 was the deadline. The City of Austin submitted its removal plan to TxDOT, agreeing to erase six sites of public art from city streets. No legal challenge. No coalition with other Texas cities.

No public hearing before the council voted to comply. Mayor Kirk Watson told reporters in May: “We’re going to comply with the law.”

The city never disclosed whether its own attorney reviewed whether TxDOT has the statutory authority to condition unrelated project funding on crosswalk removal. Courts have struck down similar preemption tactics in other states. Austin did not test that question.

What the city agreed to remove

Site	Location	What it represents	Installed
Rainbow Pride crosswalk	4th & Colorado (Bettie Naylor St)	LGBTQ+ community, eight-year volunteer effort	Oct 2021
”Black Artists Matter” mural	East 11th Street	Black artists and community history, 70 volunteers, $55K project	June 2020
Burnt orange “TEXAS”	Guadalupe Street near UT campus	University of Texas identity	2024
River-themed crosswalk	Lake Austin Boulevard	Nature art depicting the Colorado River	Recent
Fairy Alley artwork	Zilker neighborhood	Neighborhood community art	Recent
Non-standard crosswalks	Lamar Square Drive, South Austin	Yellow crosswalks not installed by city	Unknown

TxDOT’s May 18 letter to Austin Transportation Director Richard Mendoza stated these markings are “not acceptable” under the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The rule cited: painted colors like “rainbow or other non-standard hues” cannot appear on crosswalks.

What Austin stands to lose

The funding threat TxDOT used to force compliance:

$175 million in current Austin Transportation and Public Works grants
Road maintenance and utility relocation agreements
A $25 million Lady Bird Lake boardwalk project
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport funding
Project Connect transit funding

Watson proposed banners along Bettie Naylor Street and painted sidewalks as alternatives. Banners on poles instead of pride in the pavement where everyone walks.

“It feels like a slap in the face to the community. I don’t understand why this is political. It’s a rainbow crosswalk. It’s certainly not a safety hazard.”

Micah Andress, President of Austin Pride, via FOX 7 Austin

The timeline of erasure

The city already removed three experimental crosswalks overnight in February after the FHWA terminated its own safety study. Those were at Morrow Street, Manor Road, and Pedernales Street. Today’s compliance plan covers the remaining six. Austin went from 16 identified art sites in October 2025 to zero by summer 2026.

The rainbow crosswalk at 4th and Colorado was installed on National Coming Out Day in 2021. Austin Pride spent eight years campaigning for it. It survived exactly four years and eight months.

The “Black Artists Matter” mural on East 11th was painted by 70 community volunteers in 2020. Both will be ground off and replaced with standard white lines.

The stated justification is safety. A Bloomberg Philanthropies study found colored crosswalks cut pedestrian crashes by 49.6%. The safety data says the opposite of what TxDOT claims. Read the full breakdown in our Texas crosswalk erasure brief.

What you can do now

Write your state legislators and ask whether they support using transportation funding as leverage against public art. Text RESIST to 50409 or use Resist Bot.
Contact Austin City Council and demand a public hearing on whether the city should have challenged TxDOT’s legal authority before complying. Find your council member.
Ask TxDOT to cite safety data supporting removal of nature-themed crosswalks in Kerrville that have nothing to do with politics. TxDOT contact page.
Document what existed. Photograph these sites before crews arrive. The history of these installations belongs to the community, not to the state’s paint grinders.
Share the safety evidence. The Bloomberg study showing 49.6% crash reduction is the single strongest counterargument to TxDOT’s rationale.

This connects to the broader pattern of state preemption documented on our LGBTQ Rights hub and the Texas state page. For the full safety data and statewide context, read the Texas crosswalk erasure brief.