The City of Moncton will not be painting rainbow crosswalks until a study is completed on whether they pose a risk to drivers.
Communications Director Isabelle LeBlanc says crosswalks on provincial roads follow guidelines from the Transportation Association of Canada, the group doing the study, and therefore must be white.
“Once they come back with the recommendations whether we can or cannot, we’ll certainly make a decision,” says LeBlanc. “If they’re allowed, I would highly assume that council would want to put them back in but until those recommendations come back we are going to follow the province’s recommendation for provincial designated highways.”
She was asked if the city would be painting rainbow crosswalks on municipal streets instead.
“Well our position has been that if it poses a potential safety problem on Main Street, it is likely to pose a problem elsewhere in the city, so our comfort level right now is to paint them all white until that recommendation comes in,” says LeBlanc.
She adds that decision will remain in effect notwithstanding a social media post from Premier Brian Gallant that reads ‘municipalities are allow to paint rainbow crosswalks – and they are encouraged to do so as an expression of pride and inclusiveness.”
LeBlanc was unable to explain the apparent contradiction between the premier’s social media post, and the information they received from the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure.
She says they’ve been working with River of Pride, the local LGBTQ+ organization on this issue.
“They are actually coming out with a plan of what they recommend cities could do in replacement of, and I would say that amongst things that they are suggesting we are already doing, so we are pretty happy,” says LeBlanc. “And we’re going to see if there are other things we can do in addition to that.”
LeBlanc says the city hosts a popular Pride Parade each year, and also has a flag raising at City Hall.
