decorated crosswalks<\/a> are gone after city crews painted over them Friday to comply with a new state mandate.<\/p>\nThe Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) directed cities across the state to remove street art and non-standard crosswalk markings, citing uniformity and road safety. Jacksonville covered up six intersections in one day \u2014 including a student-designed mural at R.L. Brown Elementary and a popular geometric design at Pearl and 9th.<\/p>\n
Local muralist David Nackashi, who led both projects, says the removals are painful and unnecessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI comply with all the rules. Flat geometry only, nothing to confuse drivers,\u201d he said. \u201cI told these kids the paint would last their whole time in school. It didn\u2019t even make it through the summer, because of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n
At R.L. Brown, a custodian described the removal as erasing memories.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a shame. They\u2019re taking away kids\u2019 handprints from something they did,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen they grow up, they can\u2019t tell their kids, \u2018I did this,\u2019 because the city took it away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters of the new directive, including Florida\u2019s Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, argue that decorated crosswalks can be distracting and should not carry political messages. \u201cThere should not be political signs or messages on any of these crosswalks \u2014 we should have one uniform code,\u201d Ingoglia said.<\/p>\n
But critics point to studies showing decorated crosswalks can actually improve pedestrian safety. Nackashi said replacing them is not only misguided but costly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not fiscally responsible, it\u2019s not safer for kids,” says Nackashi. “It\u2019s just big government imposing its will on small communities. It makes no sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city of Jacksonville says it will comply with the law to avoid losing state transportation funding, but leaders are exploring ways to preserve public art by moving future projects onto walls or private property.<\/p>\n
Florida cities have until next Thursday to meet FDOT\u2019s deadline to strip away decorated crosswalks, as the debate over safety, symbolism, and community identity continues statewide. As of Friday, Aug. 29 half are painted over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city of Jacksonville says it will comply with the law to avoid losing state transportation funding, but…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":185808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-185807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115114633017158109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}