{"id":504951,"date":"2026-01-10T00:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/504951\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T00:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T00:47:09","slug":"judge-denies-bid-to-block-pride-district-rainbow-sidewalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/504951\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge denies bid to block Pride District rainbow sidewalk"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bexar County judge on Friday denied a lawsuit that sought to temporarily block the City of San Antonio from installing rainbow-themed sidewalk art<\/a> and removing the rainbow crosswalks in the city\u2019s Pride Cultural Heritage District.<\/p>\n

After a preliminary hearing, Judge Christine Vasquez-Hortick of the 225th District Court denied a request from plaintiffs \u2014 including Pride San Antonio and the Texas Conservative Liberty Forum \u2014 for a temporary restraining order that would have paused the city\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit<\/a>, filed Thursday, argued the city lacked authority to proceed without additional City Council approval, asserting that Public Works funds may not be used for what plaintiffs described as expressive or artistic projects rather than construction, maintenance or repair.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you do not approve the temporary restraining order today, the rainbow crosswalk at Main and Evergreen will be destroyed on Monday,\u201d Attorney Justin P. Nichols, representing the plaintiffs, told the judge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City attorneys countered that Public Works is authorized to proceed through appropriations already approved in the FY 2026 budget and through existing task-order contracts, and that no separate council action was required.<\/p>\n

City officials also said they must bring the crosswalks into compliance after the Texas Department of Transportation determined the markings do not meet state standards. Failure to act, they said, could put roughly $80 million in transportation funding tied to about 20 projects at risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in this room might agree that this is a functional crosswalk,\u201d Bonnie Kirkland an attorney retained by the city said. \u201cThe state has said it\u2019s not, and we have to bring it into compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vasquez-Hortick said she did not find evidence the city violated a statute, ordinance or funding requirement by proceeding under its existing budget authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on what I have in front of me today, I don\u2019t see that there was any additional requirement that the City of San Antonio needed to comply with that they did not,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I respectfully deny your request.\u201d<\/p>\n

In denying the request, Vasquez-Hortick said the court\u2019s role was limited to determining whether the plaintiffs identified a specific legal requirement the city failed to weigh in on the political merits of the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a political mess that\u2019s been brought into this city,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it is not the job of this court or any other court to involve itself in political issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the ruling, the plaintiffs\u2019 attorney Nichols said he respected the judge\u2019s decision and that it remained to be seen whether his clients would pursue further legal action.<\/p>\n

Nichols said the denial of the temporary restraining order does not necessarily end the case, noting plaintiffs could still request a temporary injunction hearing with additional notice. But he acknowledged the timeline may limit those options as the city moves forward with its plans.<\/p>\n

City officials welcomed the ruling, saying it allows San Antonio to move forward while balancing state funding requirements and the intent behind the Pride District crosswalks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city tried its best to balance the interest of the public at large while making sure that we get the funding necessary from the Texas Department of Transportation to do the projects for the community at large, while still recognizing and respecting the spirit of the intent behind the crosswalks, \u201c said Debbie Klein, who oversees litigation for the city. \u201cWe feel like we\u2019ve struck that balance and by the judge\u2019s decision today, we\u2019re hoping we can move forward and get past this and have a good resolution.\u201c<\/p>\n

Klein said work to remove the rainbow crosswalks remains scheduled to begin Monday and is expected to take about a week. Portions of the crosswalk are expected to be salvaged for future artwork, she said.<\/p>\n

Members of the city\u2019s LGBTQ+ Advisory Board said the ruling allows the city to move forward with plans to enhance the Pride Cultural Heritage District, even as the community prepares for the loss of the rainbow crosswalks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited in regard to the sidewalks, because we can now go forward with that,\u201d said Maria Salazar, chair of the advisory board. \u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to working with the community to enhance the LGBTQ+ Historic District on Main Street.There is no argument that we\u2019re all disappointed that the crosswalk has to come down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

While no legal requirements would stop the installation of the rainbow sidewalks, a Thursday message from city manager, Erik Walsh, indicated that the project would be paused until a briefing could be given to council at executive session over concerns raised by council members earlier this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bexar County judge on Friday denied a lawsuit that sought to temporarily block the City of San…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":504952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7288,226229,226230,226231,5310,226232,27146,226233,5603,224470,226234,3009,149673,191225,113212,149674,7202,7203,358,226235,58252,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-504951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bexar-county","10":"tag-bexar-county-court-house","11":"tag-bonnie-kirkland","12":"tag-christine-vasquez-hortick","13":"tag-city-council","14":"tag-debbie-klein","15":"tag-erik-walsh","16":"tag-justin-p-nichols","17":"tag-lgbtq","18":"tag-lgbtq-advisory-committee","19":"tag-maria-salazar","20":"tag-pride","21":"tag-pride-cultural-heritage-district","22":"tag-pride-san-antonio","23":"tag-rainbow-crosswalk","24":"tag-rainbow-sidewalk","25":"tag-san-antonio","26":"tag-sanantonio","27":"tag-texas","28":"tag-texas-conservative-liberty-forum","29":"tag-texas-department-of-transportation","30":"tag-top-story","31":"tag-tx","32":"tag-typedaily","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-of-america","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","37":"tag-us","38":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504951","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=504951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}