Last summer, city workers erased colorful artwork from streets and sidewalks across Sarasota, including rainbow crosswalks downtown, painted sea creatures near Mote Marine Laboratory on City Island and nearly 300 sidewalk panels created by local artists in Burns Court as part of Sarasota’s Avenue of the Arts initiative.
The artwork disappeared within days as Sarasota raced to comply with a Florida Department of Transportation directive requiring cities to remove nonstandard markings from public rights of way or risk losing state funding. For Sarasota, $67 million was at stake.
Nearly a year later, in late June, the city quietly installed a brick-pattern crosswalk using preformed thermoplastic — an adhesive material used as an alternative to paint — on Orange Avenue and Oak Street.
The new crosswalk raises a basic question: What makes this design different from the artwork Sarasota removed at FDOT’s direction last year?…