Roadway art like Wellington’s rainbow crossing can be a cheap way to improve inner-city vibrancy and pedestrian safety.
Windbag is The Spinoff’s Wellington issues column, written by Wellington editor Joel MacManus. Subscribe to the Windbag newsletter to receive columns early.
Wellington’s rainbow crossing at Cuba Street and Dixon Street opened with pomp and circumstance on October 10, 2018. The date marked the birthday of Carmen Rupe, the local celebrity drag queen whose silhouette appears on the green pedestrian lights along Cuba Street.
The mayor at the time, Justin Lester, helped to paint the crossing. After the ceremonial cutting of the rainbow ribbon, drag performers strutted over the rainbow to cheers from an assembled crowd.
Rainbow crossings became a global trend after the first one was installed in West Hollywood during Pride Month in 2012. LGBTQ+ communities embraced them as a symbol that said we are here. Cities – and specifically, liberal politicians within those cities – introduced them as a way to say we welcome you. That’s exactly what Lester said in his speech: “Everyone’s welcome in Wellington.”
Of course, painting a rainbow on the road costs money, and every use of public funds is open to criticism. Wellington’s rainbow crossing cost $26,844 to install and $5,314 to repaint in 2022. That’s about 20% more than a standard zebra crossing. But there are other examples where they’ve become boondoggles – such as a recently abandoned rainbow intersection in Dunedin, which blew out to an estimated $276,000.
Comparing the cost of the rainbow crossing to a zebra crossing is slightly misleading, because a rainbow crossing is not an official pedestrian crossing. In a legal sense, it’s just paint on the road.
Still, paint on the road makes a difference. Compared to multi-year, multi-million-dollar transformations like the Golden Mile upgrade, a lick of paint is a cheap and quick way to add a bit of flair and personality to an otherwise dreary bit of concrete. It also helps to add a sense of pedestrian priority by acting as a colourful reminder to drivers to look out for people crossing.
From the moment rainbow crossings arrived in cities, anti-LGBTQ+ groups opposed them. Often, they couched their opposition in costs or safety concerns, but the underlying message was clear: we don’t welcome you.
That’s why Destiny Church members painted over the Karangahape Road rainbow crossing in Auckland. And it’s why a group of individuals affiliated with Destiny Church launched a judicial review against Wellington’s crossing on Cuba Street earlier this year.
The challenge was on narrow legal grounds. They argued that the rainbow crossing breached the NZTA guidelines for road markings because it could be confused with a standard pedestrian crossing. There was some basis for this; emails from 2017 and 2018 showed that NZTA Waka Kotahi officials told Wellington City Council that a rainbow crossing would not comply with traffic control rules.
The rules were changed in 2020 under transport minister Phil Twyford to introduce the concept of “roadway art”, which is allowed as long as it is in a “lower-risk environment” and doesn’t resemble a standard road marking.
NZTA Waka Kotahi’s Handbook for Tactical Urbanism in Aotearoa says road art may be used to create a sense of place, highlight pedestrian crossings, encourage slower vehicle speeds, show support for a community, or enhance the streetscape by contributing to liveability and vibrancy.
Justice Jason McHerron found that Dixon Street was a “lower risk environment” based on the 85th percentile vehicle speed of 24km/h. On the matter of whether people inaccurately believed the rainbow crossing to be a legal pedestrian crossing, a Stantec report showed that the vast majority of pedestrians crossed during the green light, showing they understood it did not function as a zebra crossing.
McHerron ruled that the rainbow crossing was allowed under the 2020 rules and also would have been acceptable under the previous rules. It was a win for the council and the LGBTQ+ activists who requested it in the first place.
It also helps to set a precedent that should give councils far more confidence to do creative stuff with their streets. The rainbow crossing case was only marginal because of its horizontal stripes. Any roadway art with vertical stripes, geometric shapes, patterns or pictures can be safely assumed to be legal, as long as it is in an appropriate location.
Riddiford Street in Newtown could use a spruce-up. Some roadway art at the pedestrian lights on the corner of Constable Street wouldn’t hurt. The same goes for Bay Road in Kilbirnie, Aro Street in Aro Valley, or countless other streets in suburbs and towns across New Zealand that might want a splash of colour in their community.
