Downtown Austin’s Pride crosswalk is gone.
On Sunday night, city of Austin crews covered the rainbow crosswalks at Fourth and Colorado streets, the last major street art installation slated for removal under a Texas Department of Transportation directive. Austin transportation leaders previously said the city would use black thermoplastic to cover the rainbow markings and comply with the order by the end of July.
Earlier this month, city of Austin transportation crews paved over the “BLACK ARTISTS MATTER” mural on East 11th Street and the giant “TEXAS” letters on Guadalupe Street in West Campus. All three installations were targeted under a TxDOT order requiring the city to bring the locations into compliance with state traffic-marking standards or risk losing transportation funding.
Pedestrians cross 4th and Lavaca Street as rain falls in Austin, Tuesday, April 21, 2026. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman)
Gov. Greg Abbott last year warned Texas cities they could lose state funding if they did not remove what he called “political ideologies” from roadways, echoing calls from U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to eliminate rainbow crosswalks that he said could compromise safety. TxDOT originally gave cities until November to comply.
Austin sought an exception to preserve the three major installations and several smaller ones, but TxDOT in May ordered most of them removed. Street art created by children, including the Zilker neighborhood’s Fairy Alley, will be allowed to fade naturally.
In response, the City Council-appointed Public Spaces Task Force explored new ways to celebrate Austin’s diversity. In June, the group held public events marking the retirement of the street art, and community members painted a new Pride mural between Colorado and Lavaca streets near the former rainbow crosswalk.
A man runs past a new rainbow mural on Fourth Street in downtown Austin, Monday, July 20, 2026. The mural was created in June to commemorate the now-removed rainbow sidewalks on the street. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman)
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said in a recent newsletter that the city plans to unveil an LGBTQ historical marker at Fourth and Colorado in August.
“The choices made by the state were meant to be mean, create chaos, and cause sadness,” Watson wrote. “The choices we’re making to celebrate our diverse communities again shows that Austin can and will rise above negative efforts and always look for opportunities to create joy and belonging.”
This article originally published at Austin’s rainbow Pride crosswalk removed from downtown intersection.