And then there was the Pride Crossing

[SamphiretheTervosaurReturneth]

I hardly ever start posts here and yet here I am, 2 in less than an hour!

Cheltenham says no to Pride crossing... cos it' too expensive, and they had a lot of negative comments about the one in Gloucester.

Tides are a-turning

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck5908wd00wo

Yes indeed.

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.

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 😂.

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!!)

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.

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.

And, BTW, it's not just Pride/rainbow crossings, it's all colourful crossings that are expensive and problematic.

Those, to quote Transport Fof All and the other organisations, where the pedestrian crossing on the road is painted over with brightly coloured, often abstract, artistic designs.

What's "the queer community"?

And here is an example to illustrate my point.

It’s not about cheering up the road or amusing children.

indeed, arguably, the fact your children view these as fun is a safety issue. There are very good reasons why we don’t want road crossings to feel like a playground to children.

So let’s add that to the list of reasons not to do this.

Local authorities are welcome to paint fun designs on the ground in playgrounds if they like.

Although they should consider the effects of that on ND or visually impaired children too and do far more ensure playgrounds are much more accessible to all children than they currently are.

So the letter to tfl, link further up, that says it's terrible for so many groups of people. Including sight impaired (of which I am one) autistic, dementia sufferers and more. What do they do while you and your kids show off how inclusive you are by picking a colour?

Are we to literally throw people under the bus? Because I cant use colourful crossings. My choices are limited.

But never mind me and all the others, the important people have an utterly useless to them crossing. Yay.

You’ve certainly cheered me up with your post.

I’m actually just flabbergasted at the ‘you miserable cows all just hate queer people’ argument bolstered by ‘my kids love to play on these crossings’ on a thread about safety issues.

Could you have missed the point any more completely?

Hehehe, I am that childish too.

No. It’s pretty spectacular. We all teach our children to have fun and play while crossing the road 🤦‍♀️

Lesbian, gay and bisexual people, are the LGB.

Queer people are straight otherwise they would be included in the LGB.

So, you think we hate straight people?

What, all of them? Because we don't want people to die or be injured on a crossing?

All those years I spent making sure roads were built to standard, testing roads and the ground they were built on? When I could have just rainbow washed everything and made people smile at the pretty colours?

AlisonDonut · Yesterday 15:38

I used to test it for a living.

Does Threlkeld microgranite mean anything to you? Or the microgranite from a Hebridean island, the name of which escapes me...

Interesting. I actually drove across the Gloucester one without seeing it (there was no one on it!), when I went to a funeral in the cathedral a couple of years ago. It was daylight but raining heavily and the crossing was really hard to see against the wet tarmac.

Ah well, fuck partially sighted people then. And the blind, whose guide dogs can't recognise them as crossings. As long as your kids are happy.

Crossing the road doesn't require a specific rainbow to enable it. You simply move yourself with legs or wheelchair from one side to the other . How you see yourself doesn't affect any of that. It is virtue signalling bollocks to spend public money making the road LGBTQ+ friendly. If you are any of those categories or none you don't need the world to 'allow you' or overtly welcome you. You just step off the kerb and there you go.

The granite and limstone in tarmac/asphalt is usually named from the quarry that it came from so that it can be traced back to source if anything is wrong with it. And it is usually from local quarries to the site, and I don't think any of my projects were as far as the Hebrides.

Threlkeld microgranite. Oh my! Think I've found my new username

@turbonerd Childish? How very dare you 🤣

Well, we all know only one type of inclusion is on the radar really.

Having said that, surely the “plain rainbow” crossings are not inclusive at all, because they don’t have the progressive arrow thingy? 🧐

SaysRelaaxxx well done for making the arguments against these crossings so clear. Your kids get to 'play' on a crossing which is supposed to be there for safety reasons and you get to feel good about your love for the straights who want to be special.

While you are teaching your children to have 'fun', are you also teaching them to be truly inclusive to all those people with unfashionable conditions like the visually impaired, those with dementia etc..?

Thought not.