And then there was the Pride Crossing

Organisations do this kind of (at best) tokenistic EDI stuff because it’s easy to spend £10k on painting a rainbow on a ramp or who knows how much on sticking a different shaped cut out on the traffic lights for pedestrians. And hugely visible. And they can pay themselves on the back for being so great and inclusive.

Who cares about the hard, meaningful and often invisible to people who aren’t affected work of making places accessible to unglamorous groups like people with dementia? Stick a flag on it instead.

You’ve totally missed the point.

The crossings are a safety measure designed in a specific high contrast way. Painting them in rainbow colours makes them LESS SAFE for vulnerable road users and puts them at considerable risk.

Meanwhile, the rainbow paint benefits the LGBT+ community in no way at all. It’s a way for councils to show ‘inclusivity’ or ‘support’ without actually doing anything tangible.

So it’s a lose/lose all round.

They shouldn't be used as a zebra crossing, but with a traffic light controlled crossing which has all of the other standard markings in place alongside it. (That's not to say all roads authorities have worked that one out as they are non-prescribed, you are right!!)

There are tons in Chiswick. I think they're ugly. (I don't live in Chiswick, I'm not wealthy enough).

There was on in Waterloo, Canada that had tyre tracks on it and the local police were investigating the damage as a hate crime 😂.

The bottom line is that road safety is too important to dick around with like this.

Even non-visually impaired people will be used to the 'cue' of seeing black and white stripes in the road as part of the overall mental image alerting them to the crossing ahead.

Yes indeed.

And also difficult for people with cognitive impairments.

Inclusion for some but not others.

So much energy wasted on wanting to make life difficult for visually impaired people and guide dogs. But you do you.

Guide dogs are trained to recognise black and white ones; and black and white is easier for visually impaired people to recognise. I don't think we should be, potentially literally, throwing these people under a bus.

These crossings genuinely cheer me up when I see them and my kids love deciding which colour stripe they are going to cross the road on! If you can’t stand the queer community (as all of you clearly can’t), can you not just enjoy the happy colours? So much energy wasted on disliking a perfectly lovely inclusive thing when there is so much to actually dislike in the world.

I find these lights very confusing. Even though the walk colour is still green my brain doesn’t seem to easily interpret the image as “walk”. I guess if I was using it all the time I’d get used to it but there will be so many tourists up there, and that roundabout is pretty dangerous, you’d think it would be extra important to make it clear when to cross.

Thanks. That is helpful to know.

Slightly OT but I suspect the real reason Cheltenham have said no is due to the appalling condition of the roads. Honestly, if they invested in a rainbow over fixing the many many huge potholes, I think there would be riots! 😆

@WhereYouLeftIt ”Grubby” is very apt

😂

This is in my town, done in 2021. This photo from Google Streetmap was taken just months afterwards, and already it looked faded and grubby. It looked far tidier before.

All these crossings were a no show in my area this year. Pride was very low key on the whole. June was distinctly less colourful!

I find the signals on The Strand quite confusing, especially because they include signals for cyclists as well as pedestrians. You don't get a lot of time to cross the road so there's no time to wonder if the lights are for cyclists or pedestrians.
https://metro.co.uk/2016/09/18/gay-and-here-to-stay-lgbt-traffic-lights-wont-be-removed-6135953/

No different to a zebra crossing really. And any risk pales in comparison to the fucking great potholes everywhere. Our local roads look like the Battle of the Somme frankly.

NHS hospital spent £11,801 on rainbow ramps at the entrances.

I'm sick of this expensive virtue signalling.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/paintedrainboww_ramps#incoming-2018857

Jay-Jay Potter-Peachery? Oh my

I'm not a dude but I did used to wear knock off Raybans back in the day.

All road marking material should pass the Skid Test. If I was still in the trade I'd potentially pop one one one of these crossings and see if it met the minimum requirements for the current day.

Oops, quote fail. @AlisonDonut and all you cool dudes out there.

Why did i picture you putting on a pair of raybans after you said that?