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I hate it when the attitudes of an area or city towards pedestrians are unfriendly and even hostile. I hate it when a city enacts legislation that practically forces me to use vehicular transport of some kind. I hate it when asshole drivers honk their horns or scream obscenities at me when I walk, because they in their gas-guzzling monstrosities are so obviously superior to my health-conscious, eco-conscious ways. I especially hate it when they try to run me over because it's so funny to watch me scramble out of the crosswalk. They won't think it's so funny when they murder a little old lady or a mobility-impaired person. *inhales* All right, on to the specifics.
Example A is a certain district where two of my friends live. This area has heavily commercial streets side by side with residential streets, mostly apartment buildings. Almost all of the residents shop in this area, but a barely majority percentage of their customers are from other areas. Traffic down the two main commercial streets is heavily congested, barely getting up to ten miles an hour. About a year ago, the mayor of this city (well, probably his advisors, but he was the public face) decided to get traffic moving by removing all of the pedestrian crosswalks from a two mile stretch of each road. You might think that he would then put pedestrian footbridges in, but no, that would make sense.
So there are no crosswalks at all. One cannot get from the McDonald's to the Starbucks immediately across the street without detouring for two miles. The local paper ran a series of articles at the time about the change, and the reporters asked him where pedestrians were supposed to cross. He hemmed and hawed and said at the traffic lights. Well, there are about six lights along this two mile stretch, and they're all side streets leading to the residential streets. The only times they're usually used is in the mornings and evenings, when the residents head to and from work. If anyone wants to go from the apartments to the shops, they just walk. These lights are so seldom used that they only turn if the weight sensor detects a car. Anyone who's been in this district for more than 15 minutes during the daytime or the evening could tell you that expecting pedestrians to cross here is completely unfeasible.
So what's happened here? Jaywalking has increased many times over. Traffic has slowed down even more, because they don't know where a jaywalker is going to cross. Pedestrians now step out into the street where ever they feel like it. One of my two friends cross at the side streets, where they're supposed to, but doesn't wait for the light. The other crosses where the crosswalks used to be. And what is the city's response to this comedy of errors? Put cops out there to ticket the jaywalkers, with quotas that they must meet. So now the cops are being villified for doing their jobs, and people are even more pissed off. I heard a rumor that they were planning to put crosswalks in at the side street lights, but I'll bet my gold fillings that the cycle will be too long for people to reasonably wait.
Example B is the city I grew up in. I walked either to the grocery store, to the movie theatre, or to my job about five days a week. And once or twice a week I nearly got run over in a crosswalk. Usually, it was someone making a lefthand turn (across oncoming traffic), but sometimes it was some guy noticing that the cross traffic was clear and deciding to run a red. Sometimes, the driver just didn't check for pedestrians. Other times, the asshole hit the fricking-fracking gas pedal. Almost every time, I had to scarper to save life and limb, and almost every time I got cursed at or flipped off.
I realize that this is a small and vocal minority, but it doesn't change the fact that in this city I take my life into my hands every time and everywhere I cross the street. So I jaywalk. It's easier for me to watch two directions than four. I jaywalk responsibly, of course, leaving plenty of room and time for the drivers. Usually, I've been walking on the opposite sidewalk for five or ten seconds before the car drives by. Is it illegal? Yes. Do I feel that it's justified? Hell yes. Every once in a while I think, "Surely these asshats have learned their lessons or moved away," and I start crossing at crosswalks. And the first time someone tries to kill me I go back to jaywalking. So far, when jaywalking I've never had a close call, but when crossing at lights I've never gone a full week without someone trying to kill me.
Example C is the intersections in my college city. They're not pedestrian friendly. The pedestrian lights at an intersection of a major street and a side street are all red by default. If a pedestrian hits the button, it waits until the beginning of the next cycle to change the pedestrian light to green. If the person is trying to cross with the flow of main street traffic, they could have easily and safely crossed thrice or more.
I've been in areas where the pedestrian lights changed with the traffic lights, and I loved it. Safe and efficient interchanges for all involved. The pedestrians know that the lights will change at the first safe opportunity, and they don't risk their safety crossing on a red signal. The drivers know that the pedestrians are far less likely to dart out into traffic, and they don't have to worry about hitting someone.
One intersection that particularly pisses me off is the one in the center of my campus. One road bisects my campus lengthwise, but doesn't lead anywhere else. The other road bisects my campus widthwise, and does continue on in both directions to the rest of my city. The city road separates the commuter student parking, the community center, two major-specific buildings, and a number of lesser buildings from the residential buildings and the rest of the classroom buildings.
So this intersection is crossed at least twice a day by residential students who have a 101 course in one of these buildings for their Gen Ed requirements, or who are members of an extra-curricular activity, and by commuter students who have courses in the other buildings. It's crossed anywhere from two to ten times a day by residential students who are one of these two majors. And in the middle of the day, the pedestrian lights take five minutes to change. Five or ten minutes before classes start, it is a very common sight to see a group of twenty or thirty students in each direction cross against the light.
Example D is the assholes who honk or scream at pedestrians who are minding their own business. I get this mostly in the college city. One particularly vivid example for me is a day when I was walking back to campus after a futile six mile walk with ten pounds of books on my back. It was hot and humid and I was cranky, sticky, and tired. So I was plodding along, looking at the ground, and I hear a loud car horn right next to me. I jumped out of my skin and whirled around to see who was honking. Surely they were warning me to get out of the way, surely there's some sort of danger? No, it's just four drunken teenagers laughing their asses off at me as they drive by in a jeep with the top off. It took everything I had not to cry. I'd had a really bad day, and I did not deserve to be scared on top of it. Now I've got a tougher skin about this sort of harassment, but it still bothers me.
What I'd like to see done is better maintaince of sidewalks and more consideration of pedestrians when programming traffic lights. Those would be easy for a city to implement. I'd like to see people who run an occupied crosswalk get fines or jailtime, depending on the severity, and I'd like to see those laws enforced more consistently. This would be harder to implement. I'd suggest an unmarked cop car at several foot-traffic-heavy intersections for a few weeks or months. Violations would probably drop sharply after that. Anyone who hits the gas and kills a pedestrian should face a murder charge, not just a vehicular manslaughter charge.
And I'd like to see a major overhaul of social attitudes towards pedestrians. It's not funny to harass people; it's not funny to risk their lives. This might improve in the near future as gas prices rise and more people convert to bicyclism and pedestrianism, but a cynical part of me suspects that self-absorbed and egotistical people are always going to believe that they are better than the little folk and act accordingly.
Example A is a certain district where two of my friends live. This area has heavily commercial streets side by side with residential streets, mostly apartment buildings. Almost all of the residents shop in this area, but a barely majority percentage of their customers are from other areas. Traffic down the two main commercial streets is heavily congested, barely getting up to ten miles an hour. About a year ago, the mayor of this city (well, probably his advisors, but he was the public face) decided to get traffic moving by removing all of the pedestrian crosswalks from a two mile stretch of each road. You might think that he would then put pedestrian footbridges in, but no, that would make sense.
So there are no crosswalks at all. One cannot get from the McDonald's to the Starbucks immediately across the street without detouring for two miles. The local paper ran a series of articles at the time about the change, and the reporters asked him where pedestrians were supposed to cross. He hemmed and hawed and said at the traffic lights. Well, there are about six lights along this two mile stretch, and they're all side streets leading to the residential streets. The only times they're usually used is in the mornings and evenings, when the residents head to and from work. If anyone wants to go from the apartments to the shops, they just walk. These lights are so seldom used that they only turn if the weight sensor detects a car. Anyone who's been in this district for more than 15 minutes during the daytime or the evening could tell you that expecting pedestrians to cross here is completely unfeasible.
So what's happened here? Jaywalking has increased many times over. Traffic has slowed down even more, because they don't know where a jaywalker is going to cross. Pedestrians now step out into the street where ever they feel like it. One of my two friends cross at the side streets, where they're supposed to, but doesn't wait for the light. The other crosses where the crosswalks used to be. And what is the city's response to this comedy of errors? Put cops out there to ticket the jaywalkers, with quotas that they must meet. So now the cops are being villified for doing their jobs, and people are even more pissed off. I heard a rumor that they were planning to put crosswalks in at the side street lights, but I'll bet my gold fillings that the cycle will be too long for people to reasonably wait.
Example B is the city I grew up in. I walked either to the grocery store, to the movie theatre, or to my job about five days a week. And once or twice a week I nearly got run over in a crosswalk. Usually, it was someone making a lefthand turn (across oncoming traffic), but sometimes it was some guy noticing that the cross traffic was clear and deciding to run a red. Sometimes, the driver just didn't check for pedestrians. Other times, the asshole hit the fricking-fracking gas pedal. Almost every time, I had to scarper to save life and limb, and almost every time I got cursed at or flipped off.
I realize that this is a small and vocal minority, but it doesn't change the fact that in this city I take my life into my hands every time and everywhere I cross the street. So I jaywalk. It's easier for me to watch two directions than four. I jaywalk responsibly, of course, leaving plenty of room and time for the drivers. Usually, I've been walking on the opposite sidewalk for five or ten seconds before the car drives by. Is it illegal? Yes. Do I feel that it's justified? Hell yes. Every once in a while I think, "Surely these asshats have learned their lessons or moved away," and I start crossing at crosswalks. And the first time someone tries to kill me I go back to jaywalking. So far, when jaywalking I've never had a close call, but when crossing at lights I've never gone a full week without someone trying to kill me.
Example C is the intersections in my college city. They're not pedestrian friendly. The pedestrian lights at an intersection of a major street and a side street are all red by default. If a pedestrian hits the button, it waits until the beginning of the next cycle to change the pedestrian light to green. If the person is trying to cross with the flow of main street traffic, they could have easily and safely crossed thrice or more.
I've been in areas where the pedestrian lights changed with the traffic lights, and I loved it. Safe and efficient interchanges for all involved. The pedestrians know that the lights will change at the first safe opportunity, and they don't risk their safety crossing on a red signal. The drivers know that the pedestrians are far less likely to dart out into traffic, and they don't have to worry about hitting someone.
One intersection that particularly pisses me off is the one in the center of my campus. One road bisects my campus lengthwise, but doesn't lead anywhere else. The other road bisects my campus widthwise, and does continue on in both directions to the rest of my city. The city road separates the commuter student parking, the community center, two major-specific buildings, and a number of lesser buildings from the residential buildings and the rest of the classroom buildings.
So this intersection is crossed at least twice a day by residential students who have a 101 course in one of these buildings for their Gen Ed requirements, or who are members of an extra-curricular activity, and by commuter students who have courses in the other buildings. It's crossed anywhere from two to ten times a day by residential students who are one of these two majors. And in the middle of the day, the pedestrian lights take five minutes to change. Five or ten minutes before classes start, it is a very common sight to see a group of twenty or thirty students in each direction cross against the light.
Example D is the assholes who honk or scream at pedestrians who are minding their own business. I get this mostly in the college city. One particularly vivid example for me is a day when I was walking back to campus after a futile six mile walk with ten pounds of books on my back. It was hot and humid and I was cranky, sticky, and tired. So I was plodding along, looking at the ground, and I hear a loud car horn right next to me. I jumped out of my skin and whirled around to see who was honking. Surely they were warning me to get out of the way, surely there's some sort of danger? No, it's just four drunken teenagers laughing their asses off at me as they drive by in a jeep with the top off. It took everything I had not to cry. I'd had a really bad day, and I did not deserve to be scared on top of it. Now I've got a tougher skin about this sort of harassment, but it still bothers me.
What I'd like to see done is better maintaince of sidewalks and more consideration of pedestrians when programming traffic lights. Those would be easy for a city to implement. I'd like to see people who run an occupied crosswalk get fines or jailtime, depending on the severity, and I'd like to see those laws enforced more consistently. This would be harder to implement. I'd suggest an unmarked cop car at several foot-traffic-heavy intersections for a few weeks or months. Violations would probably drop sharply after that. Anyone who hits the gas and kills a pedestrian should face a murder charge, not just a vehicular manslaughter charge.
And I'd like to see a major overhaul of social attitudes towards pedestrians. It's not funny to harass people; it's not funny to risk their lives. This might improve in the near future as gas prices rise and more people convert to bicyclism and pedestrianism, but a cynical part of me suspects that self-absorbed and egotistical people are always going to believe that they are better than the little folk and act accordingly.
. he hit us both(lightly) and got a very shocked look on his face when we pounded the hood of his truck(he didn't even look our direction at all before pulling out. We got a partial plate number(6 out of 7 numbers the last one was one of two possibilities 3 or an 8), make and model, and a witness, after he peeled out. Called the police, they sent us a self reporting form and told us because we didn't have the full plate number there was nothing they could do. And they refused to send a patrol car because they were too busy. The truck hit us hard enough to leave bruises, and broke my cell phone screens. So running a red light and hit and run vs. pedestrian isn't worth sending the police in my town.
(Unless you count the corner convenience store, heh)
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