Under state orders, Orlando’s painted crosswalks are going away , but the eye-catching swans, citrus wedges and rainbows made the city a safer place to walk, reducing incidents where drivers slammed on the brakes, swerved or crashed as pedestrians crossed, city traffic data shows.
The city added bright murals and decorative crosswalks at four intersections on Orange Avenue in downtown last year. Since then, foot traffic nearly tripled at those sections of the busy road, yet the rate of conflicts with vehicles plunged about 65%, according to an Orlando Sentinel analysis of city data.
And at the rainbow crosswalk by the former Pulse nightclub — painted in 2017 to help honor the 49 people slain there a year earlier — there were just four crashes in the eight years since the colors were pu