How Coldstream does a rainbow crosswalk

COLDSTREAM – Rainbow crosswalks are an international statement that a city is welcoming to alternative lifestyles through the symbolism of including every colour of the rainbow.

You can now add Coldstream to that club, only the newly-painted crosswalk at Kal Beach is a little different. It’s got blocks of the eight colours of the rainbow, but none of them are together.

Instead each colour is segregated by nine white blocks between them.

Located on Kalamalka Road, the other aspect that stands out: The crosswalk is crooked so the stripes don’t line up. District of Coldstream’s chief administrative officer Trevor Seibel says there isn’t much they could do about that because the existing crosswalk was always on an angle. The new colours were added to the existing crosswalk.

“All that was done was colours were filled within the white,” he says. “All the coloured bars did was highlight the angle.”

Councillors aren’t happy with how the crosswalk turned out — because it shows that angle — and they’ve asked to see if that aspect can be changed. They said nothing about the white bars in the rainbow.

Most if not all other rainbow crosswalks are colour-only rainbows. According to Seibel, this is how council wanted it.

“There were a couple options presented for how it could be done and that was the one chosen,” Seibel says.

The overall cost was roughly $11,000, although some of that was related to regular road maintenance.

Rainbow crosswalks in other cities:

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