• grue@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    If rainbow sidewalks were actually unsafe, the engineers would know it already (because that’s their fucking job) and wouldn’t need a goddamned politician to tell them.

    That’s 100% proof by itself (as if we needed any more) that Abbott is a bigot and a liar.

    • PorkRoll@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Whatever happened to that “libertarian” way of thinking? Used to be that they wouldn’t listen to no goddamn politician now every one of those gadsden flag touting fucks are on their knees awaiting their favorite politician to tell them to say “ah”.

      • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        Politics are more tribal than ideological. Most people just repeat the slogans of their political tribe without putting too much thought into it. So calling out hypocrisy does nothing, most of politics isn’t really about having a consistent ideology.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Actual libertarians support people like Bernie Sanders. (Yeah, he’s big on social programs, but he’s also bigger on civil liberties than most Democrats, let alone Republicans.)

        • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          One of the corner stones of the libertarian movement was opposing global banking, and the surveillance state that bush set up. And then black president and then poof, we’re now the party of Sarah Palin?

        • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          The main stream libertarian voice and narrative was stolen in 2010 and alas we never really got them back, even in the time of tyranny. No one in power wanted us on the sidelines talking about the importance of balancing liberty and security through policy. Certainly not fiscal discipline, or accountable government. I’m appalled by the people I meet who call them selves libertarian. Most of who are just conservatives that started smoking weed after seeing Joe Rogan do it.

          • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            I’m appalled by the people I meet who call them selves libertarian. Most of who are just conservatives that started smoking weed after seeing Joe Rogan do it.

            I thought that was the joke about Libertarians since…forever - “Republicans who smoke weed”.

            • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I mean they are a type who is attracted to the political ideals. Perhaps that type took over the party. Idk I hold a pretty rigid standard on who gets to call themselves libertarian. You gotta be ready to put your life down for someone else’s liberty. The dudes that volunteered to help Ukraine? Those are real libertarians. Putting your life and liberty at risk to defend the next man’s.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      They technically are unsafe. They screw with Seeing Eye Dogs. That being said, it’s just as easy to hang Pride Flags at cross walks.

          • wavebeam@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            I don’t want to dispute this, because it’s just provably true, but I have never been able to figure out why my dog’s favorite color was red. It was definitely 100% his favorite color, even when there were balls that looked identical in every other way except were green, which should have appeared like pretty much the same color to him. And it wasn’t just a single favorite ball. He preferred red for several different toys that came in packs of multiple identical units except for color.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        https://www.rnib.org.uk/news/multi-coloured-road-crossings-pose-a-threat-to-people-with-sight-loss-warn-charities/

        RNIB Scotland Director, James Adams, said: “Traditional black and white pedestrian crossings offer high contrast, which is essential for people with low vision to detect and cross roads safely. Designs and colours which are not consistent with traditional designs could cause confusion to people with sight loss, and to guide dogs which are trained to stop at crossings.

        You’ll also have to train dogs to recognize both approaches because the starting color will be different.

      • bss03@infosec.pub
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        6 months ago

        They technically are unsafe. They screw with Seeing Eye Dogs.

        I think this might be true. Do you know of any published studies on this?

      • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        His sycophants would carry him on a large palanquins and only the poor would suffer. It’s a shame you can’t make him suffer the fate of his disabled peers. These people will probably never be punished under their own rules unfortunately

    • Pavidus@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      So there’s this daycare down the street from me. It has had a rainbow colored access ramp for as long as I can remember.

      It’s now painted black.

      It could be completely unrelated, but I highly doubt it.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You should complain.

        Or at least, the non-bigoted daycare parents should. A huge part of this problem is caused by a relatively few assholes going full Karen about their own fucking hangups and making them everyone else’s problem. The solution is that decent people need to get EVEN LOUDER AND MORE PISSED OFF than they are, so that decision makers understand whose opinion actually matters here.

        • Pavidus@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I just had a very similar conversation last night with some family and friends. There was a time when I would ignore shitty people’s opinions… After all, neither of us will change each other’s minds. However, that’s exactly how we got here. Those seemingly fringe, hurtful opinions now decide things for everyone. I’m not quiet any more.

      • Boomer Humor Doomergod@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If it had grip sand integrated into the paint it would make sense that it needed repainted, and getting one color of deck paint is cheaper, and black paint absorbs more sunlight so they need to salt less.

        Still sucks, but it’s the same reason we can’t have cool cars anymore.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I’d go even further: public money is perfectly justified in painting it exactly one color, the color chosen for visibility. Beautifying the street, Adding color, character, interest to the neighborhood was privately funded and that should continue to be encouraged

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Lol I’m sure this is about safety and not a guy trying to feed a bunch of haters red meat so they don’t look at the death rates in texas hospitals

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Look. I don’t disagree on the safety thing. We chose white reflective lines for high contrast and visibility for what it is. We don’t paint our stop signs brown or green, and we don’t wear blue high-vis vests.

    The crosswalk is a bad thing to colour up. I like what the Iceland solution was:

    Anyway, here I’ve gone and agreed with a Republican and suggested safety markings should be consistent, so get with the downvoting.

    Edit: I love the new math where I can agree with a time a republican was accidentally sensible while celebrating AN ENTIRE RAINBOW ROAD painted by people in one of the best countries in the world, and I’m fielding downvotes. Don’t ever change, redd-uh, Lemmy.

    • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The crosswalk in the photo has reflective white paint intact, and according to standard. Do you think sidewalk chalk is bad for safety too? Should we ban kids from using sidewalk chalk? Should we just ban color combinations and outdoor art?

    • Floodedwomb@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You definitely can wear blue high vis vests. I have them in orange, yellow, blue ,green, pink, red and white.

    • balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one
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      6 months ago

      I’m going to downvote you but only because you didn’t even glance at the article.

      The pictured approach is clearly one in which the safety markings remain visible and contrast sufficiently with the bright rainbow colors.

      Something someone did in Iceland isn’t relevant. Maybe in their culture it’s considered polite to mow down pedestrians, there’s no way to know.

  • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    “Texans expect their taxpayer dollars to be used wisely,” which apparently means removing already existing crosswalks and making new ones, for no other reason than the manbaby is afraid of rainbows.

    • k0mprssd@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      dont forget about the state freezing over each year, people dying, and the govt not doing shit to negate this problem for next year.

  • JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Also, unmarked crosswalks are perfectly safe because drivers know pretty much every intersection has an implied crosswalk whether marked or not. This comment has been brought to you by the letter S and viewers like you.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      You must have missed the post the other day, where some idiot texting ran over a girl in a crosswalk, then got out of his car to yell at her

  • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I wish my town had a gay cross walk, so then there would be more gay people. Rainbows make people gay and gay people throw great parties and have nice communities. I need that shit in my town.

    • IndridCold@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Be the gay you need. Once you get the gay it will spread and make more people get gay. Gay the fuck out of the place. Gay that mother fucking town up!

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    6 months ago

    Damn right they’re a safety issue.

    I was crossing one the other week. Boom. Gay. Just like that. Had to get a divorce and everything.

  • tal@olio.cafe
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    6 months ago

    I kind of suspect that it’s not safety driving his concern — this isn’t exactly something that would warrant state-level concern — but I do think that it’s a bad precedent to be modifying street markings for political reasons.

    • I doubt that this particular incident is likely all that risky, but if it becomes normalized to modify street markings, someone sooner or later is going to do something that they think is clever and really does muck up drivers.

    • This stuff goes both ways. If you have the left modifying street markings and it’s let stand, it’s not as if streets are some sort of left-exclusive forum. You can be pretty sure that if this sort of thing is let stand, then the right is going to do so too. I’m pretty confident that if someone started painting anti-LGBTQ markings on streets, plenty of people here would be pretty unhappy. I don’t really want political discourse to wind up being who is willing to throw more graffiti down.

    It should be possible to find plenty of places in Austin that are okay with putting up signs or murals — things that aren’t street markings — that are pro-LGBT messages. That avoids the whole issue that they’re arguing over.

    kagis

    https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/08/inclusive-church-turns-hateful-graffiti-into-pride-mural-we-make-beautiful-things-out-of-the-dust/

    After an LGBTQ±inclusive church in Austin, Texas, was vandalized on Thursday, the community came together to transform the act of hate into something beautiful.

    The vandals tore down the Pride flag at Life in the City UMC and graffitied “Pride was the 1st sin” on the front of the building. Afterward, volunteers joined the church for a “creative restoration project” to transform the graffiti into a mural featuring two Progress Pride flags flanking the church doorway.

    I really think that this is a better approach if one wants to put out a message.

    EDIT: Also, on purely-pragmatic grounds, I suspect that the road surface is probably about the most wear-heavy place to paint something. Like, paint something on a wall, and it doesn’t have vehicle tires tearing it up and requiring frequent repainting to look decent.

    EDIT2: You can even see a mural on a building about ten feet behind the rainbow crosswalk in the article’s picture. Which one looks in better condition to you, the crosswalk or the mural?

    • Spankerton@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I think something people might be missing here with painting the crosswalk is that paint can make the crosswalk much more visible. Streets murals, and crosswalk paint can cause drivers to slow down. Going further paint can be used to create an optical narrowing effect which causes drivers to subconsciously be more cautious and thus slow down. Slower speeds makes streets safer which directly saves lives. It’s not just political, it’s proven - Look up daylighting and optical narrowing.

      • balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one
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        6 months ago

        In general agree, the small counterpoint is that it makes the surface slicker – so long stretches is bad. Within the crosswalk should be fine, I just wouldn’t make a 40ft painted stretch in front of the crossing, you know? Sudden change in grip is bad.

        (This is anecdotal, I assume it’s feasible to make a sufficiently grippy paint, it’s just something I notice when driving)

              • balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one
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                6 months ago

                Your vibe is “reads really far into things without actually explaining what they think is going on”

                Does my post not acknowledge, in the plainly written text, that there’s likely other varieties that are appropriate?

                So I ask again, what argument are you trying to make, emphasis on the trying?

                • TronBronson@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  “Texas governor” “rainbow walk way” it’s a fucking stretch to even begin to consider this mandate came from a safety concern and not a culture war concern. It’s a further stretch to then hypothesize on the consistency and texture of the dried paint. Trying to validate this as a realistic safety concern in a state that regularly cooks/freezes residents to death is comical and horrible.

  • SarcasticMan@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Good riddance, those rainbow crosswalks jumped me stole my wallet, and dressed me up as a woman 6 times last week.

    • MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net
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      6 months ago

      Maybe you should have worn something less provocative. Rainbow crosswalks will be rainbow crosswalks, after all.