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Jaywalking legalized in New York City

theguardian.com

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Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#331

Post by p3rls »

lancesells wrote: post #311
bsimpson wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York is probably the only place in the US where most of the drivers did not learn to drive here. It's the most international city in the US, and a disproportionate number of people who use the roads (taxis, delivery drivers, etc) grew up in places that have a traffic system very different that the US's. People in New York routinely run red lights, roll through crosswalks, ride in the shoulder - things that you mi…

If you were to respect things like lights and lanes in NYC you would never get anywhere. I believe the city is generally pretty safe when it comes to pedestrians. Usually deaths are late at night from truck drivers going way too fast in the outer boroughs. This doesn't indicate cities but shows by state and NY is very low compared to others. The worst thing is deaths are up in the country and the "light truck" seems…

"If you were to respect the lights and lanes you'd never get anywhere"

Honestly-- this is why I smoke weed while I drive around NYC because if I didn't I would maul one of you traffic malthusians with a steel pipe.

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#332

Post by WorldMaker »

prophesi wrote: post #104
Gud wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a veteran jaywalker, let me propose that you avoid crossing at junctions, where crossings are usually located, ideally cross at one leg, especially good if it’s a one way street. Less traffic, fewer inputs/outputs to keep under observations.

Where I live, just about all of the downtown streets are one-ways and it does wonders for getting around both on foot and in an automobile. Though the latter will be more punishing if you don't know the lay of the land, and there will be congestion near on-ramps during rush hour.

In my experience, some types of one-way streets are some of the least trustworthy for crossing on foot because drivers treat them as race courses or interstates with speed limits (and sometimes worse, traffic lights) as barely a suggestion. It's interesting how much excitement as a pedestrian I find at the elimination of one-way streets and replacement with calmer two-way street "diet" patterns. (Street "diets" reduce lanes, add more dedicated turn lanes, smarter medians and parking.)

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#333

Post by zahlman »

lolinder wrote: post #312
zahlman wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>like most New Yorkers, you walk several kilometers a day I don't think I can take this claim for granted.

3 km is only 1.9 miles, or just over half an hour of walking for most people. If you have a 0.95 mile commute you've already hit the several kilometers per day bar.

I've found that people tend to look at me strange when I describe 3km as within walking distance.

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#334

Post by notpushkin »

I’m staying in Manila, Philippines for a while now, and road crossing is wild here. You can have a dozen of people staying at a marked uncontrolled crossing for minutes, yielding to traffic. I usually cross anyway whenever there’s an opening in the traffic, and people look at me like I’m an idiot and continue to stay. I have no idea how they manage to cross the roads at all here.

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#335

Post by lolinder »

zahlman wrote: post #333
lolinder wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 km is only 1.9 miles, or just over half an hour of walking for most people. If you have a 0.95 mile commute you've already hit the several kilometers per day bar.

I've found that people tend to look at me strange when I describe 3km as within walking distance.

Do you live in NYC?

Anecdotally, when I go out there for business events the locals invariably suggest walking if the distance is ~1 mile or less. Do that there and back and you've hit 3 km walked on a single event.

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#336

Post by nobody9999 »

shkkmo wrote: post #326
frmersdog wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These deaths largely occur on high-speed roadways where people shouldn't be walking, or where the speed should be lower. The issue in both cases is a lack of public transit density. If you're in a dense area with a ton of pedestrians, the speed should be low enough that you CAN react, and there should be transit options that lower the number of car trips. In less dense areas, where automobile speeds are higher, auto…

> These deaths largely occur on high-speed roadways where people shouldn't be walking Most deaths happen on non-freeway arterial roads. Most deaths do not note the presence of a sidewalk. You talk about "alternative transit options" but the reality is that large parts of our cities have no sidewalks or crosswalks and it is killing people.

>Most deaths happen on non-freeway arterial roads.

Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, Queens Boulevard in Queens, Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn and Hylan Boulevard on Staten Island all qualify for that designation[0], and lots of pedestrians are struck on these roads.

[0] N.B. We don't have 'freeways' in NYC. We have highways. There are also 'turnpikes' which are toll roads, but there aren't any of those within city limits.

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#337

Post by nobody9999 »

lolinder wrote: post #335
zahlman wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that people tend to look at me strange when I describe 3km as within walking distance.

Do you live in NYC? Anecdotally, when I go out there for business events the locals invariably suggest walking if the distance is ~1 mile or less. Do that there and back and you've hit 3 km walked on a single event.

>Do you live in NYC?

In Manhattan at least (this is different elsewhere in NYC), as a general rule, 20 city blocks (going from 44th Street to 45th Street is one city block) is approximately one mile. Three Avenue blocks (e.g., from Fifth to Sixth Avenues, etc.) is also approximately one mile.

Walking ten blocks (~800 meters/~1/2 mile) to do just about anything is pretty normal, and walking further is pretty common too. If you note that's one-way, the round trip is ~1.6km and multiple jaunts daily aren't uncommon.

While street lengths are different in other boroughs, depending on where you live, you may well walk several miles every day. Or you may not. Folks who live in the North Bronx, Staten Island, Eastern Queens or South/Southeastern Brooklyn may well use motorized vehicles for many purposes, as the layouts are more similar to US suburbs than other places in NYC. YMMV (pun intended).

Edit: Fixed prose.

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#338

Post by dathinab »

Suppafly wrote: post #319
dathinab wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but jaywlaking is more then just crossing when the light is red (which indeed is highly frowned on in parts of Germany, and very normal in other parts of Germany). Jaywalking also refers to e.g. crossing the road without having a pedestrian crossing which is very normal in Germany.

> Jaywalking also refers to e.g. crossing the road without having a pedestrian crossing which is very normal in Germany. It's actually more like crossing in the middle instead of the corner, corners are automatically allowed even without special markings, which from other comments seems like it's either illegal or frowned upon in germany too, right?

only crossing on a pedestrian traffic light while it's signals you to wait is frowned on (and illegal) (also including crossing just idk. 5m below the traffic light while it's red for pedestrians).

for the rest basically if you do it "unsafely" especially if there are children it's also frowned on but otherwise very normal

some more conservative place might also frown on crossing close by a pedestrian crossing even if there is no red light at the crossing because "why are you so lazy to not walk that additional idk. 20m"

but I have yet to meet anyone who expects you to idk. walk down 100m to the next crossing and then 100m back or something like that

and all of this is for streets where there might be a traffic light, for most residential side streets people all the time cross wherever they like without giving it any thought

and in rural villages stuff like children playing on hardly used residential side streets is not really that rare (important not the "main" street passing through the village even if it's classified as a side street too.)

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#339

Post by bitwize »

spcebar wrote: post #314
bitwize wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Osaka, crossers formed a queue at the don't walk signal and crossed in an orderly fashion as soon as they got a walk -- not a moment before. They knew that as soon as the auto traffic got a green, it would go full bore and seemingly not stop for anyone or anything. Quite different from my time in Boston where the optimal strategy is to ignore the walk signal and cross when there was a significant gap in traffic --…

You might be talking about the intersection of Boylston and Tremont (if you went to a school by the common you know this light well). As a pedestrian it's a shitty light because of those drivers you're describing, as a driver it's a shitty intersection because the only time you can make the left turn is while pedestrians have the walk light, and that intersection is always so jam packed with people that you can wait…

I'm talking about many such intersections throughout Boston Metro, including the one you mentioned. The Boylston-Tremont intersection has the nice feature that walk signals appear in both directions at once, which I interpreted as license to cross diagonally.

Re: Jaywalking legalized in New York City

#340

Post by zahlman »

lolinder wrote: post #335
zahlman wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that people tend to look at me strange when I describe 3km as within walking distance.

Do you live in NYC? Anecdotally, when I go out there for business events the locals invariably suggest walking if the distance is ~1 mile or less. Do that there and back and you've hit 3 km walked on a single event.

I live in Toronto, Canada. I would have expected our culture to be less car-centric, if anything.
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