No plans to cover Lexington's rainbow crosswalk despite Trump official's memo

Amancai Biraben, Lexington Herald-Leader on Aug 21, 2025

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Lexington has no plans to cover its rainbow crosswalk despite a recent federal request.

The Trump-appointed U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a memo last month requesting that state transportation departments coordinate with city officials to identify roadways with “distractions” and to report their findings to the Federal Highway Administration within 60 days.

The Kentucky Transportation cabinet has not found issues with any such roads, says Gov. Andy Beshear’s Communications Director Scottie Ellis.

“If any city or town created crosswalks like these to support or lift up their residents, Gov. Andy Beshear supports their locally controlled decision,” Ellis said.

Lexington first painted its rainbow crosswalk downtown in 2017 for Pride month, and again in 2021. Federal Highway Administration directives had flagged, but later dropped, traffic safety concerns following the original artwork.

“We have no plans to cover it,” said City of Lexington Communications Director Susan Straub. “When we put it in, we were careful to use a design that did not cause traffic concerns. We feel it meets the federal requirements regarding crosswalks.”

A 2022 study from Bloomberg Philanthropies found that asphalt art actually improved road safety.

According to the findings, the 17 study sites saw the total crash rate average drop by 17.3% after the street art was installed. Similarly, the average of pedestrian, cyclists and other vulnerable user crashes dropped by 49.6%, and injury crashes dropped by 36.5% after art was installed.

In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is also pushing to eliminate such crosswalk art — including outside of Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where a rainbow crosswalk commemorated the 49 people killed in a 2016 shooting.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer issued a statement Thursday morning, after the city awoke to find that crosswalk stripped of its rainbow, blaming the state for repainting it black and white. He called it a “callous action” and “cruel political act.”

“While the state works to erase the memory of the victims of the Pulse tragedy by painting over the crosswalk, our community’s commitment to honoring the 49, and completing the memorial, will never waver,” Dyer said in the statement, according to Orlando news station WFTV Channel 9.