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Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

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Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#201

Post by woodruffw »

tsimionescu wrote: post #200
woodruffw wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the GP of this particular thread, so hopefully not :-)

I think they were referring to nineplay's post, which was the GP of the post that replied to you. It gets pretty confusing, I guess pointers are hard even in natural language. nineplay's post seemed to me to suggest that they believe that jaywalking being illegal is in itself a way to deal with the externalities of the car culture - it seems they are happy with jaywalking being illegal. I would guess that is why they…

Ah, I can see that reading now. Thanks for the clarification.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#202

Post by ScarZy »

twblalock wrote: post #195
ericmcer wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car free cities are super obtainable but seem like a total impossibility. We will never trade safety, health and solitude for convenience.

I don't think car-free cities are easily obtainable. I can't think of one that currently exists. Even cities with world-class mass transit, e.g. Tokyo and London, are full of cars, and taxis are still a better option for some trips -- even though there are also surface trains, subways, and buses to choose from. In those places, step 1 has already been solved: convince the population that mass transit is desirable and…

This is an interesting observation but I'd argue there certainly cities where cycling is a norm (Amsterdam, Copenhagen) and cities that are increasingly turning to 2 wheels as a way to solve density (Paris, Berlin, Oslo). I think the UK, like the US, suffers from the idea of cars being a status symbol. I've no idea how this works in Tokyo for example, would be good to know their approach to cycling as an alternative, but pedestrianisation of areas and city centres are what we should certainly strive for.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#203

Post by twblalock »

imglorp wrote: post #153
woodruffw wrote: post #100

We in the US do an absolutely horrific job of recognizing and compensating for the externalities of our automotive culture. The criminalization of jaywalking is one major aspect, but also consider: 1. The construction of highways through poor (read: minority) urban areas, causing mass respiratory disease and premature deaths[1]. 2. Allocation of free public space (car parking) to drivers, effectively subsidizing (dis…

Don't forget.. 4. Auto makers conspired to kill or cripple mass transit. http://www.brooklynrail.net/NationalCityLinesConspiracy.html

There were quite a few other factors that led to the decline of streetcars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

One of the biggest is that people actually like living in suburbs, and they could afford to do so after WWII.

The promise of the suburbs is a detached house, with some private outdoor space like a back yard, in a quiet area: essentially what the rich had always preferred and been able to afford. That lifestyle became broadly available to the middle classes after WWII. It's hard to blame people for wanting that.

People still like living in suburbs. They still like owning cars. They still vote against new transit projects for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is that they don't want to pay taxes to support a system they would not use themselves.

So I just don't buy the idea that the National City Lines conspiracy caused our current automotive culture. I think we would have ended up with the same car culture anyway, because huge numbers of people wanted to live in the suburbs.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#204

Post by bigbubba »

twblalock wrote: post #195
ericmcer wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car free cities are super obtainable but seem like a total impossibility. We will never trade safety, health and solitude for convenience.

I don't think car-free cities are easily obtainable. I can't think of one that currently exists. Even cities with world-class mass transit, e.g. Tokyo and London, are full of cars, and taxis are still a better option for some trips -- even though there are also surface trains, subways, and buses to choose from. In those places, step 1 has already been solved: convince the population that mass transit is desirable and…

Nobody drives in those cities; there is too much traffic.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#205

Post by dehrmann »

woodruffw wrote: post #100

We in the US do an absolutely horrific job of recognizing and compensating for the externalities of our automotive culture. The criminalization of jaywalking is one major aspect, but also consider: 1. The construction of highways through poor (read: minority) urban areas, causing mass respiratory disease and premature deaths[1]. 2. Allocation of free public space (car parking) to drivers, effectively subsidizing (dis…

> 2. Allocation of free public space (car parking) to drivers, effectively subsidizing (disproportionately suburban) commuters at the expense of residents.

The times I've commuted into a city, I had to pay for parking, usually in a private lot. I suspect it's like this in most big cities, and in smaller cities where people still commute, parking is probably private lots owned by the employer, not street parking. Picture a standard office park.

In places with free street parking (or public lots), I suspect the population is sparse enough that the added land cost for parting isn't a big deal, most people have cars, and most people support having parking.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#206

Post by incanus77 »

jawns wrote: post #52

My first year of college, I was cited for jaywalking. I was walking across a barren street in our small college town on my way to class, and there was a town cop standing against a wall of a nearby building waiting for an easy catch. I had fully crossed the street and was walking to a nearby building when I heard someone yell "Hey" behind me. I contemplated not even turning around, because I wanted to get to class on…

I got a ticket for jaywalking when I lived in downtown Washington, DC about 15 years ago. The officer asked to see my license (what if I hadn't had one?) and wrote a ticket, but as a warning with no fine. Said it was the first sunny day of the Spring and the city had him out to try to cut down on tourists etc. wandering around and possibly getting hit by cars.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#207

Post by maccard »

reificator wrote: post #156
maccard wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times. You're being ridiculous here. Nobody is asking for that, they're asking for sensible road design and sensible rules. > because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, with a kid being dragged behind her, 40 feet from a crosswalk that clearly indicated DO NOT W…

> Right of way or not, you are the operator of the dangerous machine,not the pedestrian. The onus is on you to pay attention to your surroundings. It doesn't matter whose fault it is if you clip a child at 40mph, they're dead. This is disingenuous. Say for instance a person wants to die by being hit by traffic: they can jump out from behind a parked car right as the car passes. So in at least some percentage of cases…

> So in at least some percentage of cases, there's simply nothing even the most attentive driver could do to avoid hitting someone.

Only a sith deals in absolutes. Just because you can't prevent someone who _wants_ to be hit from being hit doesn't mean you shouldn't be completely vigilant. As an example, it's not reasonable to expect an obstruction on highway/motorway traffic, but it _is_ on a 40mph road with crosswalks.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#208

Post by bigbubba »

marricks wrote: post #34
umvi wrote: post #21

Jaywalking drives me crazy... sometimes I wish American culture was more German/Japanese in this area and Americans walked the extra 20 feet to the nearest crosswalk and waited for the light. A few times now I've had to tap my brakes for some guy dashing across the street to the island in the middle because he was too impatient to wait for the light to change. Sometimes it's a lady with a shopping cart. These aren't…

Many US cities are designed to be downright hostile to pedestrians, California in particular. Some areas in Orange County have blocks before cross walks, or cross walks only on one side of the street so you had to make the right decision a block ago about which side of the street to be on! Strip malls seemed designed to have people drive the 1k feet between businesses rather than having accessible walking. With city…

I don't think I've ever seen an American strip mall without a wide sidewalk running in front of every business on the strip. The sidewalk is such an integral component of a strip mall, it sounds like what you're describing isn't a strip mall at all. And if people are so lazy that they drive around the parking lot instead of using the sidewalk, that reflects on them, not the sidewalk.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#209

Post by throwaway0a5e »

altdatathrow wrote: post #132
Leherenn wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is jaywalking illegal all the time? Here it's only illegal if there's a crossing less than 50 m away.

> small college town That's the key phrase. Police in small towns of America have nothing better to do than setup ways of levying fines against outsiders so they can afford to upgrade their cruisers to the latest dodge chargers or outfit everyone with DOD hand-me-down weaponry.

Police in small towns are mostly fine and don't care about petty stuff because they have meth labs and whatnot to give them perspective. Police in wealthy suburbs, rural retirement small towns, tourist destinations and college towns are mostly not fine because they don't have much Real Crime(TM) to give them perspective.
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