Austin removed three experimental crosswalks from neighborhood streets Wednesday after federal officials shut down a safety study, a decision that followed the Trump administration's push to eliminate what it calls "political messaging" from America's roads.
The three crossings were among 15 decorative pavement markings the city recently identified as potentially subject to state scrutiny. City officials concluded a sixteenth artwork, a mural at Onion Creek Metropolitan Park commemorating deadly 2013 floods, didn't violate the state's directive.
But unlike the other crosswalks, the three removed this week were part of a federally approved research project and had been ordered removed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
Two featured rainbow designs. A third was painted to resemble brick pavers. They were located at Morrow Street at Watson Street, Manor Road at Leona Street and Pedernales Street at Webberville Road. All were installed in October 2024 as part of an FHWA study testing whether colorful or patterned pavement markings affect pedestrian safety.
Austin was one of several cities that applied to participate in the pilot program, along with Raleigh, North Carolina; Columbus, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. The study had been scheduled to run through 2026.
The FHWA ended the experiment in November, citing "adverse safety concerns" and ordering the city to restore the sites to standard white markings.
In his termination letter, FHWA Director of Transportation Operations Mark Kehrli wrote the aesthetic treatments "were found to degrade both the detection and recognition of the crosswalk as a traffic control device for pedestrians with low vision."
A final technical report is expected in the spring, Kehrli said.
But city officials' own reporting to the federal government last year, obtained by KUT News under the Texas Public Information Act, described the findings as mixed.
In a biannual progress report, the city's researcher told the FHWA that some aesthetic treatments appeared to improve how often drivers stopped to let people cross.
The same report said the colorful crosswalks also "caused confusion," making it difficult for pedestrians with low vision to detect street edges or interpret the meaning of the colors, the city found. Slightly more than half of low-vision participants said they preferred the standard white crosswalk stripes.
Crash data at the three Austin sites showed little change, in part because there were so few crashes at the neighborhood intersections to begin with.
In a separate email to KUT News, the city said it compared five years of prior crash data with 375 days after installation and found annualized crash rates declined "from 0.2 crashes per year to zero," with no crashes involving pedestrians before or after installation.
Randy Machemehl, a professor of transportation engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said crash counts alone can miss what such safety studies are trying to measure.
"Pedestrian crashes are somewhat difficult to work with because they're so few in number compared to automobile crashes," Machemehl said. "But nevertheless, they're a real problem."
He said federal rules allow cities to request permission to experiment with new designs precisely so they can be studied under controlled conditions.
Pavement art has become increasingly popular around the world as a way to reflect local cultures in public spaces. But the safety effects have not been widely studied by the federal government, which establishes standardized rules on roadway markings in a publication known as the Manual on Uniform Control Devices (MUTCD).
Prematurely ending such federally funded carries real consequences, according to Stefanie Seskin with the National Association of City Transportation Officials.
"Any study that happens in an urban jurisdiction that gets canceled is a real disappointment for cities," she said. "There's definitely an aspect to this cancellation that can be politically interpreted."
Last July, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pressed states to scrub pavement of such "distractions."
"Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork," Duffy said.
In response, Texas tightened its own rules even further than the national road-marking manual.
Following months of public input, the Texas Transportation Commission was set to approve the first major update in more than 15 years to the Texas version of the MUTCD last October.
Before the vote, a new sentence was inserted banning road markings that include "political or advocacy messages of any nature."
The new rule mirrored a directive Gov. Greg Abbott issued to cities and counties on Oct. 8, ordering TxDOT to enforce a ban on any roadway markings that do not direct traffic.
"Texans expect their taxpayer dollars to be used wisely, not advance political agendas on Texas roadways," Abbott said.
Austin is still waiting to hear back from TxDOT on whether it can keep the remaining 12 decorative pavement markings identified as potentially in violation of new state rules.
The remaining road art includes a rainbow crosswalk at Fourth and Colorado streets, a "Black Artists Matter" mural on East 11th Street and an all caps "TEXAS" painted on Guadalupe Street next to the university campus.
