The state didn’t succeed the first time to entirely remove Delray Beach’s rainbow crossing, so workers returned the next day to finish the job.
The original paint job to remove the city’s colorful LGBTQ+ pride intersection was thwarted by cars and rain — leaving a smeared mess of paint on the street that raised safety concerns. The workers were back by Wednesday to completely remove the street-art display as part of a statewide crackdown on street markings.
A work crew, with the Florida Department of Transportation, sandblasted the intersection at Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue, city spokesperson Gina Carter wrote in a statement. This process pushes out sand using compressed air or steam to clean surfaces.
In recent weeks, the street-art saga of both local and statewide proportions has kept unfolding. The city’s LGBTQ+ display may now be gone, but the legal battle continues.
Outraged over removal
A crew initially took a trip to Delray Beach’s intersection around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday to paint over the intersection, much to the surprise of city officials, who did not know they were coming.
By mid-morning on Tuesday, the scene was “discombobulating,” as City Manager Terrence Moore put it. Black paint was smeared messily across the intersection as more than half of the mural poked through smudges that had been wiped away from cars driving through and on-and-off rain.
A driver crosses the intersection of Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue in Delray Beach on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. In the morning, passers-by found the rainbow-colored intersection, at the Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue, was only partially covered with black markings. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel)
City officials were outraged not only with the state’s “covert” action, as Moore called it, but also because the remaining black paint was slippery and unsightly.
Tuesday’s middle-of-the-night surprise came against city officials’ expectations that they’d have more time to argue that the LGBTQ+ pride intersection should be allowed to remain.
Delray Beach officials already had opted to participate in what the state had offered: An informal Sept. 2 hearing where a decision would be made about the removal of the markings. During that hearing, the attorney representing Delray Beach, Howard DuBosar, pushed back on the state’s rationale for removing road markings, oriented around safety.
FDOT “has stated in conclusory fashion that it’s safer to remove such art as what we are talking about today where there are significant studies that show the opposite,” DuBosar said during the hearing. “We were prepared to put on actual records from the City of Delray Beach showing traffic incidents which would also show that from a public safety perspective, it’s actually beneficial to have art of this type.”
After a botched paint job a day earlier, workers set out to completely remove the rainbow-colored pride display at Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue in Delray Beach on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. Their process involved painting the crossing black and sandblasting the road. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel)
That informal hearing didn’t persuade the state. So on Tuesday night, after the botched paint job, the city decided to take further action.
The city agreed to file a petition against FDOT’s memorandum from June 30 about removing the road markings. In doing so, Delray Beach officials are following in the footsteps of Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach, where officials also have filed similar challenges.
Fort Lauderdale’s challenge contends that the state’s memorandum constituted rules under state law that FDOT needed to go through a formal process to adopt them, such as opening up the issue to public comment. A majority of Delray Beach city commissioners agreed with this premise, saying they felt the state didn’t give them a fair shake.
“All I want is our day in court,” Vice Mayor Rob Long said at Tuesday evening’s meeting.
City officials on Tuesday weighed what should be done about the smeared paint at the pride intersection. Hours later, after the city’s meeting concluded, the state apparently stepped up with its own plans.
According to WPEC-CBS12, FDOT workers were at the intersection about 11 p.m. Tuesday, only a few hours after Delray Beach city commissioners had agreed to file a petition challenging the state’s orders. By Wednesday, the workers were busy sandblasting to finish the job.
