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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

#281

Post by dillondoyle »

asguy wrote: post #226
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…

> 1. The construction of highways through poor (read: minority) urban areas, causing mass respiratory disease and premature deaths[1]. Isn't this kind of leap? I've lived plenty of expensive places (e.g. downtown San Diego, Boston, Los Angeles) that had free/highways close to expensive property. What is leading you to believe highway construction targets the poor areas, other than those real estate markets are alread…

Big example here in Denver, cut off historically black/hispanic neighborhood straight down the middle. Plus added a big leaking chemical refinery, dog food plant etc. The smells and pollution and asthma have had generational health effects.

Links to read below. #2 specifically has moving images/graphics.

They're currently expanding... to be fair they will add a small amount of benefits to 'bridge the gap' like a small park over a new small lowered section (but i think like only a couple blocks wide).

But it's still an expansion and the construction is bringing even more problems & nuisance.

Plus mostly young, mostly white expensive new construction apartment buildings have been creeping north and displacing a lot of historically black low income families. I think infilling and repurposing some of the old warehouse type space is good but the inequity is undeniable.

https://www.hcn.org/issues/47.22/in-denvers-latino-neighborh... https://denverite.com/2016/10/08/air-quality-legacy-issue-el... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/denver-interstate-70-e... https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/30/asthma-elyria-swansea-...

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

#282

Post by nomel »

underseacables wrote: post #160

It’s very interesting to visit compact cities like San Francisco, DC, and NYY, and see how much people jaywalk without a worry. Having walked across the street outside of a crosswalk an uncountable number of times, I cannot recall ever being stopped or being alone. Seems people can adequately decide the risk. It would be better to put the onerous on safety back on to vehicles, but this new law could be used to justif…

> San Francisco, DC, and NYY, and see how much people jaywalk without a worry.

I'm only familiar with San Fransisco, but the speed difference between a car in San Fransisco and a human is often pretty slight. Bicycles are usually the highest speed object.

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

#283

Post by btilly »

mdpye wrote: post #164
btilly wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my own anecdotal experience, the most dangerous way to cross the road is in a marked crosswalk with a signal... When I visited London a couple of years ago I was surprised to see that they set the crosswalk significantly back from the intersection. Meaning that a car turning actually can turn, and stop in front of the crosswalk for pedestrians. Which in turn means that the driver can pay attention to cars, decide…

Did you also notice that there's no such thing as jaywalking in the UK? I had to be told so many times on visiting the US to start to internalise it! Here, you cross where and when it's safe. Busy roads have crossings, because otherwise you might wait a very long time for it to be safe, but there are no crossings on 99% of streets, because you're allowed to cross them wherever you need to

I did not notice. I just walked as I normally would in the USA. :-)

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

#284

Post by frickenhamster »

leetcrew wrote: post #214
BitwiseFool wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a noticeable anti-automobile crowd here on HN. Personally, anti-jaywalking laws just make sense and there doesn't need to be sinister motivations from the auto-industry to explain why we have them.

I am definitely not anti-car (I love cars and driving), but I don't agree that jaywalking laws make any kind of sense. as a driver, it's enough to be presumed not at fault for hitting a pedestrian that is behaving erratically. as a pedestrian, it's absurd not to be allowed to cross an empty street when convenient.

So you don't normalize walking where you're not supposed to.

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

#285

Post by standardUser »

frickenhamster wrote: post #278

Fucking stupid. I used to live in a college town where no one obeyed traffic laws. I can't tell you how many car on car, car in bike, car on people accidents were caused by dumbasses walking into open traffic.

If bike and pedestrian traffic is that dense, they should lower speed limits and install speed bumps.

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

#286

Post by standardUser »

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…

"commercial centers with speed limits around 45 MPH.

I can't imagine how a "commercial center" could have a road with a 45 MPH speed limit. Lowering that to 20 would solve most of the problem.

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

#287

Post by standardUser »

nodesocket wrote: post #2

“encounters with the police, especially for people of color.” Huh? How is enforcing people not dart out into streets and hit by cars racist or biased?

That's the problem with criminalizing basic activities like walking. Law enforcement becomes the entity that decides who gets in trouble for breaking the law.

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

#288

Post by detaro »

nomel wrote: post #274
CalRobert wrote: post #199

Criminalizing jaywalking wasn't about making it illegal to walk across the street. It was about making it legal to kill people doing so with your car. If you want to kill someone in the US it's de facto legal to do so with your car. Just be sober and say you didn't see them.

As someone that nearly hit someone that walked out from behind a bush, with a chemically fueled disregard for the world, I don't think the rules are so bad. As unpopular as the opinion appears to be here, I don't like the idea of having to dodge humans randomly entering the road. Should we also take down the signals and barriers that prevent cars from crossing train tracks, since they have the similar goal of prevent…

> with a chemically fueled disregard for the world,

a law against it doesn't stop that kind of person.

And the rest of the world does pretty much fine without strict jaywalking laws, which doesn't mean that there are no laws regulating how pedestrians behave when interacting with street traffic, just that crossing a street safely isn't be default illegal. (and most people have the self-preservation sense to figure that out). It's also easy to create situations where not crossing a street at all is extremely impractical, and flat-out banning it then is not a good idea.

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

#289

Post by godshatter »

wnevets wrote: post #273
godshatter wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not punish both? Shoplifting and wage theft involve theft. It's not okay to harm some random business because some other business made you bus tables after your shift ended or whatever.

Who suggested in this thread that we shouldn't punish them? The grand parent commenter asked for them to be punished the same, the parent commenter for some reason thought that was so outlandish it must've been sarcasm.

My apologies, I think I read what I was replying to wrong.

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

#290

Post by acwan93 »

asguy wrote: post #226
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…

> 1. The construction of highways through poor (read: minority) urban areas, causing mass respiratory disease and premature deaths[1]. Isn't this kind of leap? I've lived plenty of expensive places (e.g. downtown San Diego, Boston, Los Angeles) that had free/highways close to expensive property. What is leading you to believe highway construction targets the poor areas, other than those real estate markets are alread…

Los Angeles has several examples, which I personally attribute to red-lining in the 1930s that led to current transportation policy and infrastructure choices.

-Boyle Heights was a predominately Latino community in east LA, which had the East LA interchange built right through it (I-10/I-5).

-Communities along what is currently I-105 were opposed to the construction since the 1970s for the typical NIMBY reasons, and these communities were predominately Black.

And the reverse:

-CA-2 was supposed to route from Silver Lake to Santa Monica via Beverly Hills, but community opposition prevented the freeway from being built and is why there's large parts of LA (mid-city/Melrose) that are far away from a freeway.

-I-710 was intended to connect Long Beach to Pasadena, but the city of South Pasadena protested heavily in preventing the freeway from being built and closing the gap. This litigation occurred up until the late-2010s when the CA State Assembly and Governor Newsom ended the 710 project once and for all.

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