321–330 of 464 posts
As a pedestrian I will take a busy light controlled intersection with a pedestrian scramble type walk signal over a busy 4-way stop where every single time. With the 4-way stop there is never a time in the cycle when all traffic is stopped. The drivers who are present are continuously paying attention to what other drivers are doing which robs them of situational awareness to note pedestrians. You can try and time it…
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This sort of work usually costs 3x what is should, because the firm doing the work has to pay state minimum wage and/or hire union labor.
Would it be better if they hired non-union labor at $5/hour (1/3 the minimum wage)? Would you apply for that job?
You don't artificially start unnecessarily high.
If you do you are basically stealing from taxpayers to give gifts to unions.
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If this surprises you, consider the alternative: Driving through a yellow being illegal or unexpected doesn't make sense, given the finite stopping distance of cars, and reaction time of humans. This is because the yellow light is the first explicit indicator you must stop. If this doesn't make sense still, picture this scenario: You are driving at the speed limit. You are 500ms from crossing the stop line threshold.…
Austria does that: 4 seconds of the green light flashing in order to announce the yellow light.
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If there is no way of configuring the intersection so that right on red is safe for pedestrians, then the problem is the right on red.
The point of looking deeper at the actual dynamics is to brainstorm ways intersections could be made safer, without overshooting and then getting a campaign to undo it all in 20 years. For example: Less visual obstructions so that oncoming traffic can be seen sooner? maybe, but probably not going to change learned behavior Advance the crosswalk even more, with two separate lights? perhaps on a per-intersection basis…
This is called daylighting and California passed a law for it https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/walk/daylighting
> Advance the crosswalk even more, with two separate lights?
Pedestrians already have a "leading signal" in intersections with lots of people, which makes the wall signal change before the green for cars. Right on red defeats their purpose, which is to ensure pedestrians are on the middle of the street by the time a car wants to turn, putting them where they are easiest to be seen.
> Hard square corner kerb instead of a round bevel?
Yes. I would go further and have bulb outs https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/walk/pedestrian-improve... and at grade crossings (the zebra crossing is at the same height as the sidewalk). All of these have been proven to work.
> overshooting
I don't think there is any risk of "overshooting" in making cities nicer and safer for pedestrians and all other road users in the US. If anything it will be an uphill battle to accomplish any change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYeeTvitvFU
How it was fixed:
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>If road infrastructure is designed solely to move goods quickly, it's only because people made a choice to prioritise that. This argument simply does not work for the majortiy of USA.
Is the USA driven by abstract economic argumenents instead of the decisions of elected representatives? I thougt the US had a fairly standard "town council" arrangement, with the councilors having large autonomy and being beholden primarily to voters.
This is a solved problem and it's astonishing the world hasn't just adopted the Dutch traffic engineering standards outright. It's FASTER for cars and safer for people.
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> and fully remove pedestrians and bikers from these roads until a city fund for building them a proper bike-only lane has fully matured. And what do the pedestrians get?
They get a concrete maturation date on funding the bike-only lane construction, and also get to die another way than being hit by a truck.
Knew before I clicked: it's a flat 4-way intersection of two large-ish streets where there is ample space for something else. Hint: draw a small circle in the middle of the intersection and take down the damn stop signs.
Are you talking about roundabouts? Those are a nightmare for pedestrians
Could someone explain why we always put pedestrian crossings at intersections? I've always felt like that is the most unsafe place for a crossing. In my city, there are a few pedestrian crossings with lights recessed from intersections. The lights turn on only when someone bumps the crossing button (which isn't super common) and only 2 ways of traffic need to stop/watch out.