Madrid will receive some traffic lights depicting same-sex couples as part of the city’s Pride festivities later this month.
The World Pride Festival is being held in Madrid from 23 June until 2 July, the event’s expected to bring a huge influx of visitors to the Spanish city.
The pride parade which is the highlight of the festival is expected to attract over 3 millions people.
Seventy two crosswalk lights will be transformed to gay and lesbian couples during the festival, and the city is also considering putting in some rainbow cross walks.
The installation of the new pedestrial crossing symbols has a budget of €21,747 but the festival itself is expected to bring in more than €300 million to the city.
Madrid is not the first city to install same-sex couples on traffic signals. Vienna adapted many of it’s lights while it was hosting Eurovision in 2015, and Munich did the same thing a few months later.
However, when a similar plan was implemented in London a local newspaper complained that tourists and people from the countryside would be confused.
A visiting Lancashire man told the newspaper he was perplexed when he tried to cross the road and an image of two women appeared.
“When the light went green I saw the two female symbols and I thought, ‘Oh right, so my missus can cross with my little girl but what do me and the boy do?’ the man told the newspaper.
Another visitor to London said he thought the plan was “bonkers”, while a woman from Leeds said she thought the lights meant different sexes had walk on different sides of the road.
The newspaper was inundated with complaints accusing it of a “beat up”.
OIP Staff, Image: Traffic Lights in Vienna by Stefan Steinbauer
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