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Making an intersection unsafe for pedestrians to save seconds for drivers

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

#441

Post by postoplust »

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…

mid-block crosswalks exist[1] and can placed where people already "jaywalk". To me it's like installing sidewalks on the desire paths[2].

[1]: https://sustainablecitycode.org/brief/mid-block-pedestrian-c...

[2]: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/least-resistance-desi...

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

#442

Post by unethical_ban »

philwelch wrote: post #439
unethical_ban wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Walking" is not some outdated concept. Lordy.

No but living in a world without automobiles absolutely is. I’m sick and tired of this deranged notion that it’s somehow virtuous to deliberately impoverish ourselves by giving up things like cars that, empirically, human beings from every culture rich enough to afford them prefer to use.

Let's not ignore the negative externalities of cars.

Separately: In a small town, it's objectively nicer to have certain areas that are walkable without navigating traffic.

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

#443

Post by memsom »

OJFord wrote: post #273
memsom wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, it is very rare for a pedestrian crossing that is controlled by a button press to not completely stop traffic. The first time I was in North America as an adult, I realised that when on a crosswalk drivers will come sailing at you and will cross behind you as you cross over. That is illegal here. The drivers need to wait for the pedestrians to cross, even on "Zebra" crossings (which are the ones with no bu…

> The trade off is that the pedestrian has pretty much no right of way anywhere but a crossing, and cars will drive at you (or at least not stop for you) if you try to cross somewhere that is not a crossing. That's not true, or at least it's bad/illegal driving if they do so, a pedestrian who is 'established in the road' as the right of way anywhere. As you said: > Though "Jaywalking" is not a thing and you can actua…

It is more attitude. As in - people in the UK seem to have a vendetta against pedestrians in the road.

I know the laws surrounding cycling and pedestrians changed even recently, but no one in my experience actually cares and carries on as before.

If you are crossing a busy road, no one will stop for you. Maybe parts of the UK that are more rural are different, but in cities this is the case. You will always get across at a crossing, and cars are generally not trying to run you down. Though, Zebra crossings have started in recent times to be more problematic, and I see people driving across them whilst people are still on the crossing regularly.

Anecdote example: When I was a kid I got clipped by a car because of this (the heel of my back foot got struck by a car who was basically giving nothing and driving at me, despite me being over 50% across a road that was only 2 lanes and not particularly wide.) In North America this doesn't happen. Cars will drive at you, but they will generally stop and let you go. In the UK you are made to feel like a criminal for daring to cross a road most of the time.

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

#444

Post by memsom »

gowld wrote: post #306
memsom wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, it is very rare for a pedestrian crossing that is controlled by a button press to not completely stop traffic. The first time I was in North America as an adult, I realised that when on a crosswalk drivers will come sailing at you and will cross behind you as you cross over. That is illegal here. The drivers need to wait for the pedestrians to cross, even on "Zebra" crossings (which are the ones with no bu…

> I realised that when on a crosswalk drivers will come sailing at you and will cross behind you as you cross over. That is illegal here. It's illegal in most if not all of USA too, but no one cares in practice. Legally, even when a car driver and a pedestrian both have access to a lane separately, if both are present, then a car driver must give a full lane-width of space to a pedestrian crossing or at the corner. A…

I see people more and more ignoring this rule too on wider non light controlled (Zebra) crossings. Sadly a lot of them are taxi drivers and they are often recent immigrants. Rules vary a lot, but in Europe the general rule seems to be that the driver is not penalised for crossing lane of a crosswalk behind a pedestrian after they have passed the middle of the road. I have no idea if that is actual law, but you see it in France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Czechia and Spain for sure (as in I have witnessed it there first hand.)

"Cars driving at you" is probably a dialectical thing.

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

#445

Post by nmeofthestate »

rexpop wrote: post #150
nmeofthestate wrote: post #71

> pedestrians have to press the beg button Please. This is the most drama-queen characterisation of a signal-controlled pedestrian crossing I've ever seen. In fact it's the first time I've seen anyone grinding their teeth at the injustice of a signal-controlled pedestrian crossing.

Hopefully it's not the last. We need to flip the script on cars vs pedestrians, especially since there has been a long history of anti-pedestrian propaganda funded by the automobile industry. Meanwhile, car-centric environments contribute to air pollution and sedentary lifestyles. They limit public spaces, reducing community interactions and fostering loneliness, while also exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities by…

I'm a pedestrian, and a car driver, and a cyclist and I think this is a reasonable way to control an intersection. Anti-car urbanism is sliding into being a bit of a pseudo-religion for cranks IMO.

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

#446

Post by iggldiggl »

cortesoft wrote: post #437
micromacrofoot wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding up is only the right decision because it's a poorly designed intersection.

There is no intersection design that could avoid this. Some people are going to be too close to the intersection to stop in time when they see yellow no matter what you do.

That doesn't excuse speeding up, though – if the yellow light is long enough, you will always be able to either a) safely stop with a certain given maximum deceleration, or else b) continue at your current speed and enter the intersection before the light turns red.

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

#447

Post by PittleyDunkin »

itishappy wrote: post #164
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With light traffic a 4 way stop should have no cars at all at it most of the time Unless there's protected right turns, of course.

Agreed, but I would not call an intersection with a dedicated turning lane a 4 way stop, or at least not a low traffic one.

At least in my neighborhood these aren't dedicated turning lanes. Most people do pull into the bike lane to make the turn. Instead, the traffic shifts between straight (which leaves open an opportunity to cross) and right turns (which occupy the entire intersection).

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

#448

Post by micromacrofoot »

cortesoft wrote: post #437
micromacrofoot wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speeding up is only the right decision because it's a poorly designed intersection.

There is no intersection design that could avoid this. Some people are going to be too close to the intersection to stop in time when they see yellow no matter what you do.

That's rubbish, it's provable mathematically that given any speed limit it's possible to avoid an overlapping "dilemma zone" that requires speeding up

(v²) / (2a) ≤ (v × t_y) + L

v = vehicle speed (meters per second)

a = comfortable deceleration rate (meters per second squared)

t_y = yellow light duration (seconds)

L = length of the intersection (meters)

You can calculate the minimum yellow time for this using t_y ≥ (v / 2a) - (L / v)

This is rudimentary and doesn't account for reaction time, but a simple buffer would suffice.

The failure is largely in poor planning and poor human behavior.

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

#449

Post by iggldiggl »

ajmurmann wrote: post #9
bedobi wrote: post #2

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.

The lack of adoption of best practices from other countries is generally baffling to me. When I first visited China grim Europe and saw traffic lights with countdowns (like in the US) I thought we did immediately adopt this in Europe. Cultural inertia and lack of looking outwards is really frustrating.

Countdown signals don't work with adaptive signalling where phases are dynamically lengthened or shortened (or sometimes entirely skipped) in response to traffic flows. They especially don't work with public transport priority.

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

#450

Post by rafram »

kurthr wrote: post #302
lofenfew wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have some sort of countdown, or innate knowledge? often, in the form of the pedestrian signal. > try to clear it before it turns red? This is the rule in much of the world, yes.

I assume you mean the perpendicular direction crossing lights? Most pedestrian lights have delays longer than that in California for safety so you might stop at a green light. Also, if nobody presses a button ped-lights don't even turn on, just like left turn signals don't turn on without a vehicle triggering it.

> Also, if nobody presses a button ped-lights don't even turn on

This is no longer true in many cities. Most SF crosswalks don’t require a press anymore, many don’t in LA, and all don’t in New York. AFAIK it was a Covid thing, back when people thought surfaces spread the virus, but it stuck.

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