City officials sent a letter to the Florida Department of Transportation last month seeking permission to restore a rainbow-colored crosswalk outside the former gay nightclub Pulse. The letter was sent a week after the state agency painted over the crosswalk in what Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer described as a “cruel, political act.”
State transportation officials claimed at the time that the painting over of the crosswalk was due to the enactment of a new department policy that aimed to ensure roadways “are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests.” The directive, adopted without state lawmakers’ approval, was shortly after replicated on a federal level by U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
“The Original Design of the Pulse Crosswalk was created and installed in 2017 to honor and memorialize the 49 victims who lost their lives in the horrific attack, then the most deadly on United States soil, at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando,” Dyer wrote in a letter to FDOT, dated Aug. 28, 2025. “The Original Design was not intended to be, nor do we believe it to be any form of political speech, nor does it include any words or messages or symbols.”
The rainbow-colored crosswalk outside of Pulse was indeed approved by state transportation officials back in 2017, according to documents obtained by Orlando Weekly. The state also pitched in money to repaint it last year as part of a broader Orange Avenue road improvement project.
“The design was carefully tailored to the location and was bounded by the required size and shape markings required by DOT design standards,” Dyer’s letter continues. He notes that city officials had consulted with the DOT during the initial design stages — evidenced by project documents the city provided to Orlando Weekly — and said that safety has actually improved at the crosswalk location since the rainbow crosswalk was first installed.
“In fact, since the installation of the Original Design in 2017, we haven’t had a single pedestrian accident at that intersection,” Dyer wrote, just days before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis himself claimed at a news conference that the rainbow colors posed a safety hazard.
The letter confirms the city is prepared to be “fully responsible” for funding the repainting and implementation of the crosswalk, should DOT approve their request for an exemption from the FDOT’s anti-rainbow policy. Back in 2017, the paint job cost the city a reported $2,500.
It’s been nearly two weeks since the city sent their letter to FDOT, and city spokesperson Ashley Papagni told Orlando Weekly the city has yet to receive a response to their request.
Even so, community members have taken it upon themselves to chalk over the crosswalk outside Pulse, leading to at least four arrests so far on charges of “defacing a traffic device,” according to WESH News. The Pulse crosswalk — which for years stood as one of the only indications of a memorial for the victims and survivors of the 2016 mass shooting — was one of more than a dozen road projects in Orlando targeted by FDOT as a result of the new street art policy outlined in FDOT’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
In the Tampa Bay region, Black Lives Matter and pro-police murals (including Tampa’s infamously ugly ‘Blok the Blub’ mural) were also painted over by the state agency, in addition to rainbow LGBTQ pride-themed roadway art in St. Pete. Across the state, other municipalities, including Delray Beach and Key West, have similarly seen road art painted over. The city of Ford Lauderdale filed a challenge at the state Division of Administrative Hearings Monday, the News Service of Florida reported, arguing that FDOT did not go through a legally required rule-making process. The city of Miami Beach filed a similar challenge just a few days earlier.
“Memorandum 25-01 (the June 30 memorandum) goes beyond mere interpretive guidance of applicable regulations and statutes,” attorneys for the city of Fort Lauderdale wrote. “Rather, it decrees specific design features non-compliant, directs their removal and mandates enforcement by district offices. It further authorizes the department to withhold state funds or directly remove installations if local governments fail to comply. In so doing, the memorandum imposes obligations and levies penalties not otherwise found in statute or rule, thereby altering the legal rights and responsibilities known to local governments.”
Meanwhile, Orlando City Council approved a $12.5 million spending plan for a permanent and more comprehensive Pulse memorial project Monday that will include a rainbow prism plaza, survivors wall and visitor center. Orange County will be contributing $5 million to the project over the next three fiscal years, as previously committed by the Orange County Commission, with stipulations for financial audits and refunds should the actual cost end up being less than originally estimated. City leaders on Monday also gave city staff the go-ahead to begin negotiating a construction contract with Gomez Construction Co., a Winter Park firm chosen by city officials to design and build the memorial.
Although an interim memorial has been set up outside of the former nightclub for years, the construction of a permanent memorial has been a troubled process, to say the least. A botched attempt by the now-dissolved nonprofit OnePulse Foundation — founded by former club owner Barbara Poma shortly after the shooting — was abandoned in 2023 after the nonprofit nonetheless managed to raise millions of dollars from public and private donors for its overly ambitious concept. The city of Orlando subsequently stepped in to take over the memorial project, buying up the former club’s property in October 2023 for $2 million.
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