Florida Cities Race to Save Rainbow Crosswalks As the State's Deadlines for Removal Loom

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Fort Lauderdale city leaders will host an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss how to respond to the state's order to remove rainbow-colored crosswalks and other street art throughout Florida or risk losing millions of dollars in funding.

The Department of Transportation under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered communities to remove the crosswalks and other street art by early next month. Many of the painted crossings celebrate gay rights and LGBTQ+ pride, while others are tributes to Black people and the police.

Critics say it's the latest attack on the LGBTQ+ community by the DeSantis administration and Republican-controlled Legislature, including restrictions on gender-affirming care and Florida's so-called Don't Say Gay law, which banned classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades.

In Tampa, a “Back the Blue” mural on the street outside police headquarters is tagged for removal, city spokesman Joshua Cascio said. Also on the list are painted bike lanes outside of an Orlando elementary school that were designed by two fourth-graders who won a Florida Department of Transportation art contest.

Miami Beach was given a Sept. 4 deadline to remove its rainbow crosswalk on Ocean Drive — a time frame similar to those given to other Florida communities.

"They can't strip away our pride and they can’t strip away our values of inclusivity,” Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez said in an interview this week.

Fernandez plans to suggest appealing the mandate during a meeting next Wednesday, one day before the state's deadline.

Among the first crossings to be removed was a rainbow-colored one marking the 2016 massacre outside the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, where 49 people were killed. It was painted over in the middle of the night last week by work crews, angering community members. Critics of the move restored its rainbow colors, but a Department of Transportation crew repainted it black and white last weekend.

Removal of the Pulse crossing put the dispute in a spotlight. It happened several weeks after a July 1 directive from U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who gave the country's governors 60 days to identify what he called safety improvements.

“Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork,” Duffy has said.

DeSantis is the first governor to aggressively carry out the federal guidance. “We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” he said recently on X.

The state Department of Transportation said it has a duty “to ensure the safety and consistency of public roadways and transportation systems.”

“That means ensuring our roadways are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests,” it said.

Efforts to remove the artwork are “clearly an anti-LGBTQ push on behalf of both the federal government and the copycat version from the state government,” said Rand Hoch, founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council.

Despite the directive from the U.S. transportation secretary, there's no indication of any widespread actions to remove rainbow crossings outside of Florida. The Sunshine State is often the vanguard nationwide in fights over what some call the culture wars of politics. Those include battles over the removal of library books deemed inappropriate by DeSantis and other Republicans.

Local officials who challenge the governor’s interpretation of state law do so at their own risk. DeSantis has used his executive authority to remove multiple local leaders from office, and his administration has leveraged the threat of suspension to compel compliance, especially from Democratic-led cities, counties and school boards.

In Key West, state transportation officials said that if pavement markings in its historic downtown aren't removed by next Wednesday, the state will do it for them.

In St. Petersburg, officials looked at all possible options for keeping their street murals, but saw no path to saving them, Mayor Kenneth Welch said. At a recent news briefing, the mayor mentioned having new flags, banners and installations that he called “new, even more powerful expressions of who we are, expressions that cannot be erased.”

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Martin reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporters Mike Schneider in Orlando and Kate Payne in Tallahassee contributed to this report.