Paint on the Ground, Panic in the Air

Coffee, croissants, chaos.

Wednesday morning was supposed to be routine: catch the mayorโ€™s interview on RTL, jot down a few notes, move on with life. Instead, our phones exploded. Why? Becauseโ€”somehowโ€”asking for a map of paint on the road had morphed into a full-blown โ€œcritical-infrastructure security threat.โ€ Terrorism! Blackouts! Sewer sabotage!

If youโ€™re new here, hiโ€”Iโ€™m Francesca from Zentrum fir Urban Gerechtegkeet (ZUG). Weโ€™re the mildly stubborn bunch who counted 475 non-compliant zebra crossings in Luxembourg City. The City insists itโ€™s only 37. Stalemate? Nope. We filed an FOI request in 2021, won in front of the CAD in 2022, then again at the Administrative Tribunal in 2024. The City appealed, and here we areโ€”still crossing streets and fingers.


Letโ€™s bust the โ€œcritical infrastructureโ€ myth โœ‚๏ธ

We have never asked for sewer layouts, electricity cables, or the mayorโ€™s Netflix password. Our FOI request is laser-focused on one map layer:

Pedestrian crossings, parking boxes next to them, and other paint you can see with your own eyeballs.

Thatโ€™s it. No spies required. The idea that releasing this data would aid terrorism isโ€ฆ creative, but also nonsense.


Fear sellsโ€”but safety matters more ๐Ÿšธ

Every day youโ€™ll find a fresh news blurb: car hits pedestrian here, SUV flips there. Our Safe Crossing project was born because we love our city and prefer not to get flattened while fetching pastries. Instead of talking about that, the radio discussion veered into cloak-and-dagger territory. (Plot twist: the real danger remains the poorly marked crossing outside your bakery.)


A tale of two victories nobody mentions ๐Ÿ†๐Ÿ†

โ€ข 2022: The Commission dโ€™Accรจs aux Documents says โ€œGive them the map.โ€

โ€ข 2024: The Administrative Tribunal echoes, โ€œSeriously, give them the map.โ€

Yet the City is still appealing. Imagine a referee blowing the whistle twice and the other team just keeps dribbling. Welcome to our world.


โ€œCome over, look for two hoursโ€”no photos!โ€ ๐Ÿ“ท๐Ÿšซ

Yes, we met Mayor Polfer and Alderman Goldschmidt. No, we didnโ€™t storm out in a huff. We sat in good faith, waited for the grand revealโ€ฆ and got offered a two-hour, no-copies, lawyer-supervised peek at 37 highlighted crossings on paper.

Fun fact: checking 475 points in 120 minutes means 15 seconds per crossing. Even Usain Bolt couldnโ€™t audit that.


Why this fight matters (hint: democracy) ๐Ÿ—ณ๏ธ

Public data should be publicโ€”unless itโ€™s genuinely sensitive. Luxembourgโ€™s transparency law is clear on that. Classifying an ever-changing map as an โ€œeternal draftโ€ just to keep it under wraps is the bureaucratic equivalent of โ€œthe dog ate my homework.โ€

If we let that slide, whatโ€™s next? Budget spreadsheets? Air-quality sensors? Climate data? Opacity spreads faster than potholes.


Soโ€ฆ what do we actually want? ๐ŸŽฏ

1. Publish the pedestrian-crossing layer.

2. Fix the dangerous crossingsโ€”whether itโ€™s 37 or 475.

3. Stop using thriller-novel scare tactics. Paint isnโ€™t classified.

Thatโ€™s all. Release, repair, relax.


How you can help ๐Ÿ™Œ

โ€ข Share this post. The more voices, the harder it is to ignore.

โ€ข Tell us your crossing horror stories. Photos, anecdotes, near-missesโ€”send them to info@zug.lu.

โ€ข Stay tuned. Appeals court hearing is coming. Popcorn optional but recommended.


Final thought

Luxembourg is famous for chocolate, not cloak-and-dagger intrigue. Letโ€™s keep it that way. We promise not to ask for the cityโ€™s secret tunnelsโ€”just the map that shows where we can cross the street without getting run over.

See you on the (safe) side of the road!

โ€”

Francesca, Federico, Thorben & the entire ZUG crew

X