Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert says that the city’s request to keep its “nonstandard” crosswalks is still in stasis. As you may recall, in October, Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Transportation Secretary/former MTV Real World roommate/Airport Sartorial Choice Critic/Human Jock Jams CD Sean Duffy announced that specialized crosswalks are “distractions” in the roadway. Abbott took the whole thing a little further by telling cities that if they didn’t get rid of their rainbow crosswalks and other happiness-inducing hazards, they might lose TxDOT funding for various projects.
On November 6, two days before Abbott’s deadline, the city submitted a request to exempt 30 crosswalks from the order. Those crosswalks include five along Cedar Springs, three in Uptown, and some Black Lives Matter crosswalks near MLK Jr. and Malcolm X boulevards. A little less than a month later, TxDOT requested that the city’s exception request be signed by a traffic engineer confirming that they conform with the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. In a memo Friday, Tolbert said the city responded that “available data supports the safety performance of the intersections,” but it is unable to obtain a traffic engineer’s sign-off stating that the markings meet the code. The city instead asked the state to review its application “based on the compelling justification rationale.”
The state was due to begin reviewing exception requests last week, but it doesn’t sound like this will be fruitful. Tolbert told the council that a team from the Office of Arts and Culture will begin working with neighborhoods to explore other options “to express their unique community identity.”…