Downtown Austin\u2019s Pride crosswalk is gone.<\/p>\n
The rainbow crosswalks at Fourth and Colorado streets, the last major street art installation slated for removal under a Texas Department of Transportation<\/a> directive, have been covered. Austin transportation leaders previously said the city would use black thermoplastic to comply by the end of July, and the work appeared complete by Monday morning.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, city of Austin transportation crews paved over the \u201cBLACK ARTISTS MATTER\u201d mural<\/a> on East 11th Street and the giant \u201cTEXAS\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Gov. Greg Abbott last year warned Texas cities they could lose state funding if they did not remove what he called \u201cpolitical ideologies\u201d 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, will be allowed to fade naturally.<\/p>\n