Workers in San Antonio, Texas, began removing four rainbow crosswalks in the city’s Pride Cultural Heritage District on Monday after a district court judge denied a request for a temporary injunction to halt the project late last week.

The removal of San Antonio’s rainbow crosswalks, which were originally installed in 2018 with the help of nonprofit Pride San Antonio, follows Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) October 8 order directing the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to remove “any and all political ideologies” from streets across the state.

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In early November, San Antonio requested an exemption from the statewide order, which TxDOT Traffic Safety Division Director George Villarreal denied in a November 25 letter, according to San Antonio Report. Prior to the TxDOT decision, out San Antonio mayor Gina Oritz Jones (D) drew criticism for comments she made in late October in which she seemed to indicate that she was unwilling to fight to maintain the LGBTQ+ street art.

“There are a number of ways that we can show our pride, make sure our community feels seen and heard, and we are not inviting unneeded retribution against the most vulnerable in our community,” she said, alluding to Abbott’s threat to deny transportation funding to cities that did not comply with his order.

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Last month, the city announced a plan to install rainbow sidewalk art at another intersection near the one at North Main Avenue and East Evergreen Street, where the rainbow crosswalks were set to be removed by January 15. A city spokesperson told KSAT that the new sidewalk art would “recognize and support the LGBTQ+ community,” while city council member Sukh Kaur said she hoped the community would recognize that the city was “not just completely taking off the crosswalk without showing any kind of pride in that area.”

But last week, a pair of unlikely allies filed a lawsuit against the city, aiming to halt both the crosswalk removal and sidewalk art installation. As the San Antonio Express-News reports, Pride San Antonio and the Texas Conservative Liberty Forum alleged in their complaint that the city’s approval of the $170,000 project without input from the public amounts to “unlawful expenditure of unappropriated public funds.” KSAT reports that neither group took a position on the merits of the crosswalk removal or the sidewalk art in their lawsuit. However, according to the Express-News, Pride San Antonio hopes to block the removal, while the Texas Conservative Liberty Forum aims to block the sidewalk installation.

“While Plaintiffs may desire different ultimate outcomes on this issue, they agree on one thing: they (and the citizens of the City) deserve the right to make their case to their elected officials, and have the issue resolved by the political and legislative processes – not be silenced by bureaucracy seeking to handing the mayor a perceived political win,” the lawsuit reads, according to both KSAT and the Express-News.

On Friday, however, a district court judge denied the two groups’ request for a temporary restraining order, allowing the city to move forward with the planned removal of the rainbow crosswalks on Monday, the Express-News reported.