In May, two Lake Nona fourth graders won a Florida Department of Transportation art contest. Their prize: To see their designs painted on bike lanes outside their school.
The colorful images had a short shelf life. This week, Laureate Park Elementary School learned the state has ordered the youngsters’ street art painted over, part of a wide-ranging effort to remove “pavement art” and other roadway markings that Florida officials now say are unsafe.
The state’s new push led to the painting over of the rainbow crosswalk at the former Pulse nightclub in Orlando and has put about 400 more road art projects around Florida on a potential removal list. The Lake Nona kid-designed bike lanes are among 18 in the city of Orlando required to be removed by next week.
“When this came up, I said ‘Are we sure this is on the list?’” said Jim Gray, the Orlando city commissioner who represents the Lake Nona area.
Gray said he was surprised the state targeted the bike lane art — because it had sponsored the art contest.
He attended a spring assembly with the Laureate Park students, their parents and FDOT officials when the winners were revealed and said it was a “pretty big thing” for the kids.
The parents of the two girls whose artwork will soon be removed from outside Laureate Park could not be reached for comment.
Though Florida now insists road art is unsafe, the FDOT-sponsored art contest was part of a state initiative to reduce transportation injuries and deaths. The department posted photos of the students and their artwork to Facebook in May, celebrating their designs and FDOT’s collaboration with Orlando.
The school held an assembly to recognize the students and their artwork and shared the designs on social media, too. The student artwork is contained within the bicyclist symbol typically found in a bike lane, and contains simple shapes and colors. One design had a girl riding a bike with a flower-decorated helmet and wheels.
“As a driver, you definitely notice the colorful designs on the road. They are beautiful!” one parent commented on the school’s Facebook post congratulating the students in May.
Other student-designed school crosswalks must be painted over too, including dozens in Tampa. Gov. Ron DeSantis was unapologetic about those paint plans at a press conference Tuesday morning in that city.
“We have a representative system of government. People elect their representatives, they’re able to enact legislation with the governor’s signature,” he said. “I don’t think those kids were doing anything wrong, I think it’s just a change in policy.”
When the Pulse crosswalk was painted over, DeSantis went further, suggesting he did not like the message the rainbow conveyed.
“We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” he said.
That echoes the message of the Trump administration, which in July said it wanted consistent markings on the nation’s roads, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tweeted that “taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”
But now hundreds of other road projects with decorative paintings but no obvious political message are slated to be removed too.
FDOT Secretary Jared Perdue said Tuesday that pavement art was simply no longer allowed.
“Anything that was previously permitted, installed or awarded — anything you can bring up from the past is essentially irrelevant now, because we have a new law, and we have a new standard,” Perdue said.
Ryan Gillespie of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
