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Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

collegetowns.substack.com

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Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#331

Post by accelbred »

throwway120385 wrote: post #74
potato3732842 wrote: post #25

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…

> With the walk signal there is a brief moment in time when the drivers are doing nothing but waiting for you and are all stopped so you as a pedestrian can account for them in preparation just before you get your signal and make your move. Having almost been hit a few times by drivers making a right turn on red, I can tell you the drivers never wait even if you have the right of way. You'll be lucky if they even loo…

Worse yet, at least in Seattle, are right arrow lights that go green at the same time as the walk light. You get a green light to go and pedestrians start crossing at the same time. Having a green light and a walking sign on should be mutually exclusive.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#332

Post by dylan-m »

potato3732842 wrote: post #25

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…

This is why it's often safer to "jaywalk". If you're in the middle of a block, you only have to look two ways. Even if you screw up, a driver going at a reasonable speed is more likely to see you anyway because you're directly in front of them. I'm not exactly advocating for crossing in the middle of a street in North America since it's depends a lot on the situation, but there's a reason why people sometimes just do it intuitively, and it's unfortunate our infrastructure doesn't know how to address it.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#333

Post by alkonaut »

SoftTalker wrote: post #37
alkonaut wrote: post #5

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.

Better: define one street as the thru street and put a stop or yield on the cross-street.

Yes any two streets crossing should ideally either be tiny (like small residential streets where no lights or signs are needed) or only one should be an obvious through street and the other(s) connecting streets. The key is to never have ”grids” of through streets.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#334

Post by grogenaut »

danenania wrote: post #247
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make it clear with body language and eye contact that yes I see them and no I'm not meekly yielding my right of way. However, I leave just enough space to avoid being hit, for those situations when the True Assholes knowingly cut me off anyway. Or maybe they're not assholes by intent, but instead in the 90th percentile for inattentiveness and bad driving habits, which may even be the same thing. I don't know, I'm n…

I think a pretty large percentage of drivers don’t actually know that they’re supposed to yield to pedestrians when turning at lights. I’ve had multiple close calls where the driver looks at me angrily, I point at the white ‘walk’ symbol, and then their anger turns to confusion. They had no idea that they’re supposed to wait.

I live in seattle where people are pretty good about yielding. It's confusing as eff which lights and what times the peds are going to get a walk signal when I'm taking a right and when they're not. Some also go walk at the same time they go green for right turns. Some slightly delayed. It's hard to watch both lights as a driver and the oncomming traffic.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#335

Post by dheera »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #269
dheera wrote: post #220

"pedestrians have to press the beg button, wait for the light to cycle through its routine, and then walk across the street" Quite often what happens is - Pedestrian presses button - Light doesn't change for 30 seconds and there are no cars in sight - Pedestrian goes "fuck it" and crosses - Light changes red, after pedestrian is done crossing - Car comes along and gets stopped at red light for 30 seconds

I wonder why these buttons don't immediately allow pedestrians to cross (maybe with some rate limiting to avoid abuse).

That, or even use sensors to detect pedestrians coming along that are likely to want to cross, estimate their crossing time based on their walking speed, and make their light turn "go" as soon as they hit the intersection.

Some intersections have exactly this for cars already.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#337

Post by kjkjadksj »

simiones wrote: post #252
prasadjoglekar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Minimum wage in California seems to be $16 an hour. I doubt this intersection took 37 500 man-hours to finish, so I don't think the cost is explained by wages. Also, $200K would still seem like a gigantic amount of money for adding stop lights to a single intersection.

You probably need an engineer. A couple. They might have to run traffic studies beforehand to estimate the design requirements and light timing. They might have to consider other network nodes beyond this in their modeling. They might have to also run studies afterward to retime the lights to meet realized demand.

I’m surprised its not a $6m project honestly.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#338

Post by pclmulqdq »

dylan-m wrote: post #332
potato3732842 wrote: post #25

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…

This is why it's often safer to "jaywalk". If you're in the middle of a block, you only have to look two ways. Even if you screw up, a driver going at a reasonable speed is more likely to see you anyway because you're directly in front of them. I'm not exactly advocating for crossing in the middle of a street in North America since it's depends a lot on the situation, but there's a reason why people sometimes just do…

Jaywalking is very common in the Northeastern US, and I believe it is generally safer when done well. I have a rule that if you don't feel like you can calmly saunter across the street, you shouldn't jaywalk by running across, but many people do not follow such a rule, and just take the soonest opportunity they can find to run across the street.

Be careful, though - I once jaywalked when I was with some friends from the Midwest and they were very offended.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#339

Post by 1970-01-01 »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #328
1970-01-01 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So your proposal is to ban bicycles temporarily and walking forever?

Saying walking is banned is ridiculous. However, if one needs to go from A to B in the USA, road funding will always come first. Whatever comes second should be up to the local voters, and each mode of transport should have separate lanes and be funded separately, as the laws of physics always trump any laws of man.

Re: Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

#340

Post by jerlam »

dylan-m wrote: post #332
potato3732842 wrote: post #25

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…

This is why it's often safer to "jaywalk". If you're in the middle of a block, you only have to look two ways. Even if you screw up, a driver going at a reasonable speed is more likely to see you anyway because you're directly in front of them. I'm not exactly advocating for crossing in the middle of a street in North America since it's depends a lot on the situation, but there's a reason why people sometimes just do…

California just made jaywalking legal in 2023 too.
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