Keep the button, but for goodness sake stop letting cars drive through crosswalks in the "walk" phase.
It would be so much safer to do a pedestrian scramble. There aren’t a lot of pedestrians at this intersection, maybe one every 4-5 cycles, so it’s not going to slow traffic much if at all to have a 30-45second dedicated time where we can walk all the way across.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2018/11/27/a-pedestrian-...
I think that author likes to make up words, like "Stroad".
I regularly see 4+ year-olds sitting in a stroller playing phone games or just looking bored and disengaged, while the adult pushing the stroller otherwise completely ignores them, and it always makes me cringe.
One thing I've noticed, they don't walk very well while taking a nap. And you just get so much more out of a day when you don't have to return home in the middle.
There is a pretty big difference between using a stroller to help get a toddler (less than 5 years old) around and using it to pacify a 5 year old. In my experience, somewhere between 4 and 5 is when I expect them to be able to walk at a sufficient pace and distance to never need strollers.
Not Just Bikes popularized it (I think) https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM
It is a well accepted phrase too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble
There are many references since the 2010s, but i also found references to it in a 1955 traffic engineering book: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Sqh-alGvdoYC&q=%22pedest...
I don’t get the sense from “scramble” that the pedestrians would not know where they are going. Scramble can mean a sudden act of motion, like “they scrambled the jets” or “once we have stopped we all scrambled off the coach”.
There is an alternative meaning where it is used to signify that something is intentionally mixed up or even encrypted, such as “scrambled egg” or “can’t intercept their plans anymore, they scrambled the signal”. Maybe that is the meaning you are thinking about?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad
You can ignore new terms if you wish, but it is useful for describing a common street pattern in North America. The term is increasingly being used by urban planners.
The only people who use that word are insufferable choads who want me to give up my car and live in a tiny apartment because of their misguided belief that if everyone lived like they do in Manhattan global warming would end and the world would be a Utopia
"Stroad" is a shibboleth that tells me you're someone with an opinion that is not worthwhile
Street example[1]: a road in a city or town that has buildings that are usually close together along one or both sides
Road example[2]: a long, hard surface built for vehicles to travel along
A street in this case is a type of road. A stroad is another type of road (where buildings are not “close together”, f.ex.)
1: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/street
I live in NY now and though the traffic laws are roughly the same, I almost never fear for my safety when crossing like I regularly did in SF.
While you’re asking for better pedestrian infrastructure, consider asking for protected bike lanes as well.
No right turns on red is a huge improvement. Don't the five boroughs have that?
This goes for us in Canada too. I tell my kids to "be quick or be dead, but be safe". Probably kind of morbid, but an intersection is not a place to hang out.
Sounds like Naples
Sarcasm?
And I say this as a pedestrian, I walk to work. And I am afraid of getting hit every day but for a different reason. The crosswalks are in the stupidest friggin spots, around a bend in the road, and cars are apparently allowed to park right up against the crosswalk so if even want a hope in hell of being seen you have to walk part way onto the road, and peak your head around the van that's blocking the view for both you and oncoming cars, and then hope they can see you around the bend in the road.
European here. What is the reason that this is allowed?
Although that's the same in Europe, if you turn right on green you usually have to be aware of a green pedestrian light that crosses the street you want to turn into.
The difference is that here in Austria walking is much more common and you usually get fined quickly if you take the right of way from a pedestrian
But Dutch traffic lights for cars also make clear whether or not this is an issue you need to watch out for; if the traffic light has an arrow pointing right, you're guaranteed to not be crossing pedestrians on green. If it's a solid circle, you need to watch out. My driving instructor paid a lot of attention to that.
And of course being South Africa you also have to watch out for the “stopped” cars, which are never quite stopped and actually edge forward while the driver is checking their phone and not watching if they’ll bump into a pedestrian crossing. When I used to run there I had to tap the bonnet/hood of cars multiple times to catch the attention of the driver because they were edging forward over the crossing while checking their phone.
That's not true - in Poland you get a green right turn arrow even on red, and you can legally drive over a pedestrian crossing even when the pedestrians have a green light to cross. It is absolutely your responsibility to make sure that it is safe to do so.
https://www.gazelka.pl/blog/zielona-strzalka-warunkowego-skr...
I agree that the pedestrians should double-check in these sorts of situations, because the cemetery is full with people who have had the law on their side, but, nevertheless, it's primarily the drivers' responsibility to respect the law.
In aviation safety, it has long been established that, regardless of how clearly you establish who is responsible for what, if reality is such that people frequently can't actually carry out their responsibilities effectively, then you'll end up with disasters; disasters where you'll have someone to officially blame, but disasters nonetheless.
This is quite relevant to many pedestrian-car interactions. The problem with right turns over crossings where pedestrians have priority, is that in many situations, even if the driver is responsible for ensuring the turn is safe, it isn't possible for them to do so effectively. In many California right-on-red situations, for example, the driver is responsible both for ensuring that the road to their left is clear, and that the crossing to their right (and in front of them) is clear. Traffic, visibility, and speeds often mean that ensuring the road to the left is clear requires the driver to be looking far to their left until almost immediately before turning, and then accelerate quickly. At the same time, ensuring crossings are clear requires them to look both ahead and to their right, and similarly, visibility and layout often mean that the relevant portion of the crossing can go from being clear to blocked almost instantly, so the driver must be looking to their right immediately before turning. The two responsibilities conflict, and in order to turn, the driver must choose which risk to prioritize: if they prioritize checking for pedestrians, they'll increase the risk of a two-vehicle collision, and if they prioritize checking for vehicles, they'll increase the risk of hitting a pedestrian. Not turning is an option, but at least in California there would be considerable pressure culturally and from other drivers to do so, potentially to the level of threats and violence. It is not a good situation to put someone in.
The only time I have ever been hit by a car as a pedestrian was when I was very mildly hit by a driver turning right immediately after I stepped into a crossing. Legally, she was entirely at fault, but as I already felt the crossing was problematic, she was very apologetic, and I was entirely uninjured, we just didn't report it. And in hindsight, the intersection was just horrible. She couldn't see me because I was to her right and would have been obscured by trees and parked cars until immediately before entering the crossing; in order to avoid being hit by traffic, she needed to look to the left. While not legally my responsibility, in order to see her, I would have needed to look behind me before entering the intersection, but I also needed to watch carefully for cross traffic. In utterly bad design, despite heavy traffic and a 35mph speed limit, pedestrians always had legal right of way at the crossing, so she couldn't even have waited to have right of way.
No, it varies. Turning cars in Britain never go over 'walk' crossings, but they do in Denmark. It's something I check whenever I drive to a new country.
I think "right turn on red" should be banned first, as this leads to a car drive looking left to see if the road is clear, rather than looking right where pedestrians might be crossing.
I'm convinced that North America will only get its act together when gasoline reaches $9.00/gal. Only then will middle class folks start looking toward city living and only then will we get any appreciable progress in city life. I only hope that we reach that point BEFORE the climate catastrophe worsens beyond repair. The fracking boom doesn't have me very confident of this.
What if North America successfully moves from petrol-powered cars to electric ones, and autonomous vehicles get rolled out, and in the end the sprawling development and the reliance on vehicles remains just as entrenched?
I would actually defend right-on-red. Indeed, when I do drive, I get annoyed by all the "no turn on red" signs which slow things down.
In my estimation, the problem (locally, anyway) is cultural: drivers don't think to look, or else they feel entitled to turn first even if I'm crossing already and they think they can squeeze by faster. Convince these drivers to care about pedestrians, and to yield when legally required to, and you've solved the problem.
Can the car drive in these situations?
1. Right turn, red for car, green for pedestrian.
2. Right turn, green for car, green for pedestrian.
3. Right turn, green for car, red for pedestrian.
In USA, in some states the car driving in situation 1 is allowed (and naturally 2). I assume in most states 1 is not allowed and 2 is allowed.
In Europe, I assume driving the car in situation 1 is not allowed anywhere. 2 is mixed, some places have traffic lights that create this green for both, some don't.
3 is of course allowed everywhere in the world.
Funny thing is that situation 1 is now allowed for bicycle with the new M12 sign
Typically, at least here in Germany, a crossing cycles between two states:
* Cars can go north/south, pedestrians can cross the east and west roads
* Cars can go east/west, pedestrians can cross the north and south roads.
However, obviously cars don't just go north and south, sometimes they turn. To turn, the car naturally needs to slow down, and also typically be more aware of their surroundings. Theoretically, this means that they are a lot more likely to see, and be able to stop for, a pedestrian crossing the road as they turn.
The argument then goes that this group of cars is slow and aware enough that they can share a stretch of road with pedestrians (unlike fast cars traveling in a straight line, which must not share a stretch of road with pedestrians). Which means that you could allow pedestrians to cross if (and only if) the cars that they would intersect with are slow, turning cars. The advantage is that you go from three states in the cycle (cars N/S, cars E/W, all pedestrians) to two (cars N/S + pedestrians E/W, cars E/W + pedestrians N/S), which improves throughput because fewer people need to wait.
In practice, this works for relatively small junctions with one or possibly two lanes, but three+ lanes become more complicated and need more states to handle the cars going left and right from different directions. But there is a thought process here about trying to find the right balance between safety and efficiency. As someone from the UK, I'm not sure I'm a fan, but some of that might just be not being used to it.
But I may be wrong - statistics seem to agree with you.
If it's an arrow, cars have priority and don't have to worry about other traffic getting in their way. It's mostly for left turns (a green left arrow indicates that traffic coming in front has a red light) but it also works for pedestrians, a right arrow means that pedestrians and bicycles have red lights.
If it's a disc, then cars should pay attention to other traffic and observe regular priority rules, so stop for pedestrians and bicycles that likely have a green light at the same time as the cars do.
For pedestrians and bicycles, a green light basically means they always have priority and cars must stop for them wherever they come from.
I thought this was a weird statement for him to be allowed to make because a) he was a fact witness and that ain’t a fact and b) he was the officer who responded to the scene where he encountered a bicyclist trapped under a hummer… which was turning into a one way street as the bicyclist approached from the right.
(The cyclist won a shit-ton of money, of course).
"Turns on red are extremely dangerous to vulnerable road users: a 1980 Insurance Institute of Highway Safety study found that they increase pedestrian crashes by 60 percent, and bicycle crashes by 100 percent." [2]
[1] https://www.boston.com/news/crime/2021/11/04/lawsuit-flawed-...
[2] https://mass.streetsblog.org/2023/06/15/guest-column-why-bos...
If the light is directional left/right, it means everyone else has a red light.
Technically, in most of the US, if a pedestrian looks like they're wanting to cross the street at a corner, that legally makes it a crosswalk whether it's marked as such or not (excepting for ones that have a sign indicating that there is no pedestrian crossing allowed). Failing to stop to allow the pedestrian to cross is an infraction and you can be ticketed for it.
Practically speaking, though, you're correct.
> that's in one of the more pedestrian friendly cities in the country, San Francisco.
Wait, what? San Francisco is considered a pedestrian-friendly city? That seriously boggles my mind. I mean, there are certainly cities that are worse, but there are also plenty of cities that are better.
I saw an accident in front of my eyes where this played out - a turning car mowed an elderly couple crossing slowly with the help of walking sticks. It was not pretty.
Perpetrators tend to be let off easily for cultural reasons. That's the real problem that needs to be addressed.
Drivers will respect pedestrians when the law is evenly enforced
They are. When you turn right on your green, the pedestrians have a green light. They have priority of course but then you are free to cross the crossing on their green.
I'm not sure I understand the reasoning for this. If a car approaches a less-busy intersection it triggers the lights to cycle, but not immediately. I'm not sure why pedestrians would get such priority, rather being placed into the natural cycle.
FWIW I just came back from Thailand and it was rather eye opening - crosswalks are ignored by motorists, and there's much less hand-holding, but people manage to get by. There's more give-and-take rather than rigid rule following.
You might think so, until you look up the accident rates. https://www.roadsafetyfacility.org/country/thailand
This setup as I understand is preferred because it aligns with their modal priorities, and it is easier and more reliable to detect a heavy metal car than a person or a bicycle.
New York though... so often I'm crossing on green and there's some truck edging round the corner into my path, driver making eye contact, daring me to try to make him stop.
I second this.
As a pedestrian it's pointless to have to wait when there were no other pedestrians crossing shortly before me and there won't be any shortly after me.
As a driver it's infuriating to have to stop at an empty crossing because the pedestrians eventually crossed during a short gap between the cars when they got tired waiting.
The advantage of this is that it's pretty easy to detect cars by detection loops in the road, and if you detect them in time, the car doesn't even have to slow down. Unless there are too many of them; then they will sometimes have to wait for pedestrians to cross.
I don't quite understand what the flags in Bellevue are for. Are there no traffic lights? But then what are the crosswalk buttons for?
It is a cheap non solution that allows leaders to say they did something without actually doing something that would require a sacrifice, such as money, or in the case, sacrificing the convenience of drivers who are presumably more politically powerfully than pedestrians.
The crosswalk buttons work, the traffic lights turn red, but that does not mean a driver will pay attention and check for pedestrians.
Right turns on red lights are allowed. As are left turns on greens, while the walk signal will simultaneously tell a person they can walk across the road. In both cases, the traffic light does not stop the driver, the driver has to be actively checking for a pedestrian.
All of this absurdity could be solved with a simple stop sign, but that would be a minor inconvenience to motorists.
Its a road after all
I hate it as much as you but thats the reality.
Also, unprotected left turns are just crazy dangerous.
I recently visited Bellevue, WA and experienced one of the most anti-pedestrian "walking streets" I have ever encountered. Crosswalk buttons on a busy street full of shops and restaurants, yes, but even worse were the orange flags left out for pedestrians to grab and use like they are part-time crossing guards. No stop signs. No speed bumps. Just orange flags for the suckers walking instead of driving. To add insult to injury, the flags always ended up on one side of the street, making the entire project half-broken at best.
The worst part: this is their literal Main Street.