When’s the last time you thought about true love or marriage equality while crossing a street? When’s the last time you looked up and smiled at a sign telling you not to cross yet? Here in the States, most of us stand impatiently, one foot half off the curb, thinking about how much we have to do while pressing the walk button over and over again, as if this will make the light change sooner.
City planners in Vienna are hoping to make things different there. The city has introduced new same-sex and opposite-sex themed crosswalk signals. Instead of a single gender-neutral person, the new light-up signs feature couples, both gay and straight, holding hands as they wait or walk, a little heart between them.
Of course, we’re sure that there are plenty of homophobic people out there who will now find themselves even more irritated while they wait to cross the street. Not only do they have to stand there for an entire twenty seconds, they also have to spend that twenty seconds being reminded that the world is changing and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. Just like pressing that crosswalk button a hundred times doesn’t change a thing.
According to the mayor of Vienna, the new signals, which have been installed at forty-nine crosswalks throughout the city, are “a sign of openness and tolerance.” We’ll drink a dark and yeasty Austrian beer to toast that!
Here are two more signs…
