Rainbows don’t belong on streets
I believe painting rainbows on public crosswalk property is problemmatic on a number of different levels. For one thing, the cost of this frivolous expenditure should take a back seat to much needed work down town. 100 elderly, long term tax paying people had to actually petition the City to build a plan to smooth out and remove obstructions on the sidewalk system so they could navigate with their scooters without tipping and falling.
Many more would sign up if they knew about it. The rough patchwork nature of the sidewalk system is deplorable. You are providing painted bike lanes for able bodied, healthy people instead of considering handicapped seniors! We begrudgingly accept that because it involves safety issues for vehicles, and all drivers of bikes or cars need to know they are driving vehicles. That leads to my second point: safety. Crosswalks are designated to guide pedestrians to a place where they are legally protected from harm from vehicles.
Concurrently, drivers are warned to watch out for crosswalks because there may be pedestrians in them. This is so important that you sometimes even place flashing strobe lights there to further warn drivers. Lives are at stake here, and City liability may be incurred if someone misunderstands your signage. That brings up my next point. What if a tourist or other visitor tries to navigate our streets. They will be tested enough to comply with all our signs if they are familiar with the standards. But what if they get confused and miss one, and someone gets hurt. In court they may be found not guilty due to confusing signage. Is the city going to pay for victim recovery costs?
Then comes enforceability. If the police catch someone blowing through the rainbow, do you think they will be wanting to spend precious time in court to lose a case due to frivilous signage. I doubt it. Then there is the idea that one shopkeeper can incite awhole region into endorsing an inclusivity question that is already settled in federal law. Also, you surely have public signage laws controlling signs on businesses.
That is where rainbows belong, under your signage guidelines, and not on the streets. What if all the special interest and other minority groups ask for their cause to be recognized on a public street. If so, how about we start with the tax paid up, voting seniors and their sense of exclusion on our sidewalks.
Bruce R. Matthews
Duncan