By Edmond Ortiz
The city looks to keep installing rainbow-colored sidewalks along a segment of North Main Avenue in efforts to replace rainbow street crosswalks, whose removal were ordered by state officials.
However, for some city and community leaders, controversy remains on how local officials let go any further debate around the rainbow crosswalks and opted instead to proceed with similarly themed sidewalks.
What is happening
Crews started a rainbow sidewalk project on Jan. 5 in the Pride Cultural Heritage District, the result of talks among city officials, the city’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Board and community members.
Many members of the local LGBTQ community expressed disappointment before the end of 2025 when city staff confirmed that the Texas Department of Transportation denied the city’s request for an exemption to keep rainbow crosswalks that were installed at North Main Avenue and Evergreen Street in 2018.
Gov. Greg Abbott last October threatened the stoppage of state or federal funding to cities allowing the presence of rainbow crosswalks or other public road features that he said carried social, political, or ideological messages.
Abbott’s order follows a directive issued last July by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy regarding an initiative to make roads safer by eliminating what Duffy called “distractions,” such as politically oriented messages or artworks on roadways.
Local LGBTQ community leaders railed against both Abbott as well as city leaders. Representatives from the organization Pride San Antonio claimed neither Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones nor other city officials fought hard enough to save the rainbow crosswalks.
However, TxDOT Traffic Safety Division director George Villarreal messaged the city in late November, saying the city’s application for an exemption was inadequate because it did not contain a traffic engineer’s determination that the rainbow crosswalks met state road safety standards or the new federal initiative.
With the city complying with the state’s request to remove the rainbow crosswalks, local officials pledged to implement a replacement of sorts – rainbow sidewalks, which will stretch from the corner of North Main and West Park Avenue to past Crockett Park, spanning four blocks in all.
City representatives said the $170,000 rainbow sidewalk project should be finished by the end of February, with funds coming from public works department operational monies.
Stumbling blocks
Nonetheless, two City Council members and a conservative advocacy group took exception with the installation of rainbow crosswalks.
District 10 City Councilmember Marc Whyte and District 9 City Councilmember Misty Spears, two of the council’s most conservative members, issued a Jan. 7 press release. They voiced concern about the absence of public discussion or council action to spend city money on rainbow sidewalks, which the elected representatives claimed are more about freedom of speech and less about maintaining safe public infrastructure.
”Districts 9 and 10 believe taxpayer funding must remain focused on streets, drainage, and sidewalks, not individual viewpoints. Free expression is a fundamental right, but public funds should prioritize essential services that benefit all residents,” Whyte and Spears stated.
District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez promptly replied that Spears and Whyte’s remarks “reinforce bigotry and hate” and said the two council members for saying nothing while state leaders repeatedly attack the local LGBTQ community.
McKee-Rodriguez also said Spears and Whyte overlooked the city being told by the state to spend public funds to remove rainbow crosswalks that had been deemed safe by authorities, and that had not been the site of any pedestrian or vehicular accident since the crosswalks’ installation years ago.
“By installing rainbows on the sidewalk, we are abiding by all regulations by demonstrating even greater, more permanent and visible support to the LGBTQ+ community,” McKee-Rodriguez added in his statement.
Meanwhile, a local judge recently and briefly mulled legal attempts to force a council decision.
District Judge Christine Hortick on Jan. 9 denied a temporary restraining order that would have halted the crosswalk removal and the sidewalk installation.
Hortick made the ruling after a court hearing on a lawsuit filed against the city by an attorney who serves both Pride San Antonio and the Texas Conservative Liberty Forum, an organization that serves some LGBTQ community members.
Pride San Antonio claimed that city leaders should have had a more transparent, open discussion about efforts to preserve the rainbow crosswalks. TCLF charged that city leaders should have been open about using public discretionary funds to install the rainbow sidewalks.
“Without proper deliberation of the funding of either the crosswalks project or the sidewalks project the specter of secret backroom dealings loomed over the process,” Pride San Antonio representatives said in a Facebook post.
What’s next
The lawsuit filing on Jan. 8 prompted city officials to temporarily suspend work on the rainbow sidewalks.
“I have put a pause on the painting of the sidewalks until we have the opportunity to brief the council in an executive session and to continue working with the LGBTQ+ Advisory Board and the community on implementation,” City Manager Erik Walsh said in an email to council members.
Walsh also told the council that the city will maintain its scheduled removal of the rainbow sidewalks, which should be completed around Jan. 15.
Members of the city’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Board asked the city to preserve parts of the original crosswalk for archival purposes and/or for inclusion in a potential public art project in the future.
