The city of Moncton, New Brunswick says it is waiting for the results of a national report looking into the safety of rainbow crosswalks.
City spokesperson Isabelle LeBlanc says officials have ordered the study from the Transportation Association of Canada and must carefully review the results before they can allow any more pedestrian walkways to be painted purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.
This all comes after the city already began painting some of its crosswalks to show support for the LGBTQ community in 2017, but abandoned the project in 2018 after people expressed “safety concerns.”
Erica Andersen, a spokesperson for the Transportation Association of Canada, said that “additional research” still needed to be conducted on “non-standard colors and designs.”
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Yahoo! News reports:
She said that in April a group looking into “decorative crosswalk pavement markings” found there was insufficient data to reach a conclusion. Andersen said she expects a new research project will be proposed this fall to look at “impacts on driver perception/recognition … levels of driver or pedestrian distraction, effects on recognition by automated vehicles/driver assistance systems, and more.”
Anderson believes the results from that study “would likely be available sometime in 2021.”
But members of the Moncton area LGBTQ community aren’t buying it.
“There aren’t any other municipalities in our experience that have regressed on their practice of painting rainbow crosswalks,” Charles MacDougall, a co-ordinator with River of Pride, said this week.
“It’s a large bureaucratic process that is far too complicated for our liking. We feel this is extremely disappointing, even a little annoying.”
Meanwhile, LeBlanc insists the city has no ill will towards LGBTQ people and says it still intends to show its support for the community.
“Forty rainbow banners were produced last year to line up along Main Street,” she notes. “That initiative is continuing this year and likely for the next few as well.”
LeBlanc added the banners will go up shortly after July 7 and will remain until late August.
Because blocks and blocks of rainbow banners flapping in the wind are so much less distracting than a rainbow crosswalk.
Related: The Rainbow Flag Is Too Gay For West Hollywood’s City Hall
Brian
I absolutely believe that there are people confused by rainbow crosswalks because they look different from what they’re used to. I would also guess that these people aren’t the greatest at following crosswalk laws for non rainbow ones either.
Crosswalks are already dangerous, people get mowed down in them all the time. I doubt the rainbow stripes make much of a difference.
jrex100
“…people get mowed down in them all the time.”
Where, exactly, are all these people being mowed down?
Brian
All over the place, I assume. I’ve seen plenty of videos of it on Liveleak, and constantly hear stories about it happening here in LA.
Cam
Translation, some bigots tried to find an excuse to get rid of them.
Mack
I was thinking the same thing. Just more bigots complaining.
Billysees
You’re absolutely correct. Some more mean-spiritedness towards the LGBT Community, this time it’s about painted crosswalks.
Doug
This is absolutely ridiculous. It’s just an excuse for a homophobe to find a new way to discriminate.
Rocinante
I live in Boulder, CO; as liberal and overtly progressive as it is here, we have never had many Rainbows for Pride month as this year. It’s nice, even though I know it’s an accepting community, it’s great to see the level of participation I see this year.
It was the crosswalks that got my attention, and I didn’t see one person get confused and think it was a new road or sidewalk. Shocking that people can actually get around safely and drive over a colored crosswalk without running people over or crash into other cars.
Your right Cam, it’s pure bigotry. Bigots and racists don’t like to be called racists and bigots so they change the script, but the underlying reason never changes.
toddfashion
Stupidity for spending money on a ridiculous study motivated by bigotry
Hussain-TheCanadian
I’ve been to moncton several times, it’s a small/median city, the traffic isnt exactly heavy or hectic. The city counsel is trying to get people to move to moncton to build it up, so I fail to see what the “safety issue” is.
In my city, Halifax, its double the size of moncton, and the rainbow coloured cross walks are all over the city, no complaints at all.
There is more to this story.
jcoberkrom
The purpose of crosswalks are to aid in safely crossing a street. They should be uniform throughout a city (preferably throughout the word.) no exceptions.
There are better ways to bring attention to the wonderful rainbow that is our world.
Cam
Except they aren’t uniform between cities. Some have parallel lines, some have horizontal bars and some have a solid patch.
So there is no uniformity and trying to pretend that is the issue is foolish.
Rocinante
We have diagonal cross walks in front of my house. If that isn’t confusing nothing is. I had to have a 4th grader who attends the school it serves to explain it to me, so no that is not the reason they are questioning it.
I bet the religious freaks wouldn’t have any problems making the walkway a series of crosses.
LetsGetLit
Kimda reminds me of Trump and the Russia investigation.
rmthunter
I would think at this stage of the game, that stopping for pedestrians in a crosswalk is a no-brainer, no matter what color it is.