This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2009.
Pedestrian Blues
I recently learned that as of May 2008, it is actually an offence to enter a crosswalk unless the “walk” signal is displayed. Common sense, maybe, not to try to cross the street on a “don’t walk” signal. But what if the hand has just started to flash,
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” If you don’t get to that intersection in time, you don’t get to cross until the next cycle. Imagine the uproar if some such assinine restriction was applied to vehicle traffic! “I’m pretty sure that’s what those shiny green, amber and red lights are for.
It would be nice if able bodied people crossing the street actually did “sprint” across the street or even hurry, walk quickly anything but most people in this city saunter across the street like there in a daze.
Conversely, if they slow down, like most of the slack-jawed punk wangstas do, they should be fair game…And not sure if you have noticed, but most Maritimers can barely sprint after a stray Tim’s donut, let alone across an intersection. We are a LOT fat lately.
Yes, SD, but suppose you’re approaching an intersection in your car and the light is about to change. Traffic moving in the opposite direction has a yellow light. Now suppose that if you don’t reach that intersection in time to activate some kind of sensor, that yellow light doesn’t turn red, but changes back to green again. Your light stays red and you don’t get to go until the next cycle. That’s what those pedestrian activated signals do to pedestrians. I hate them.
They said they couldn’t put a half-signal there because the two full signal intersections were too close together. But on Quinpool, where the half-signal is, the two full signal intersections at Oxpord and Preston are only 200m apart. The two full signal intersections on Mumford at that spot are 250m apart. I think the OP is onto something: mustn’t piss off the shoppers. Maybe the owners of the Halifax Shopping Center had some influence on the decision.
Back to what the OP mentioned- yes, car is king. Pedestrians are usually the ones to suffer the most. Dont’ be fooled by anyone telling you that our saftey is important. A good example- Dartmouth Crossing- the bus stops across from the driveway to Walmart. A pedestrian has two choices- the first is to walk up to the stop sign, cross on the crosswalk like a good doobie, only to be met by a hill on the opposite side. No sidewalk, no walkway- nothing. The other choice is to cross immediately over from where the bus dropped you off to walk up the driveway to Walmart, which also doesn’t have a sidewalk, so you’re praying anyone turning from the road will see you. True, it’s not very safe, but it beats trying to walk on a grassy slope along the side of the road only to end up having to walk up the same driveway to Walmart. Who designed this? Obviously somebody who didn’t expect there to be pedestrians wanting to get to Walmart.That whole shopping area is geared towards cars. Even in the places where there are sidewalks, you have to go out of your way to get to them, because there’s so many hills and slopes that you’d need to slide down or climb up them to get around.Way to go HRM for approving this shopping complex in a time when you’re supposed to be promoting using cars less. Instead, they allow a place that is geared to cars to be built.
Funny how 2/3 of the first comments on this post are by drivers who are too impatient to wait for peds to walk across the street, they now have to run so that they are less of an inconvienence. It’s all about the cars in this city for sure. We don’t have more bike lanes because then where would the cars park? Cars WITHOUT people are more important around here than people without cars.And Bayers Lake and Burnside were always bitched about for being horrible to navigate without a vehicle, so you’d think that they would have thought about that during the design for Dartmouth Crossing. And they almost did, they had us all believe that it would look like that one strip of stores, with the old city street design, where you could park and walk to the different boxes. But then what? The rest of the place looks just like the BLIP only, more random. I was out there once working for the grand opening of Future Shop, and wanted a coffee. Well that was quite the ordeal, what’s the point of even having a Second Cup if you can’t walk to it from the other stores. No side walks, or cross walks, but lots of hills and traffic!Pedestrians definitely need to stand up and fight for our rights to walk and walk where we want. We shouldn’t be considered less important than cars. We’re constantly defending ourselves, but we never take the offensive. Imagine a couple of thousand peds all wandering about in the streets for a day, we’d be just as bad as a trucker strike.
PaS – I don’t drive.Miranda – I’d prefer if they’d all switch to walk on their own. I LOVE those crossings. But the majority of push it yourself crossings aren’t going to make me wait that long in the grand scheme of things, so I don’t get annoyed if I have to watch another row of cars piddle through.
Exactly, PaS! “Too bad they don’t sprint…” “…saunter across the street…” “if they slow down… they should be fair game.” These comments are so typical of the pro-car, anti-pedestrian attitude. They seem to think pedestrians have no right to be in the street, we should get the hell out of the way as quickly as possible, and we should count ourselves lucky they don’t just mow us down like we deserve. Imagine! The nerve of someone walking across the street at a comfortable pace while the obviously more important driver sits there waiting to make a right turn! That bastard should RUN!
In the grand scheme of things, SD, waiting for a person to walk across the street isn’t going take up that much of someone’s time either. But you still see drivers practically frothing at the mouth at the effrontery of someone daring to walk in front of their cars and holding them up for 20 seconds. But it seems to be perfectly ok to make pedestrians wait an additional 90 seconds or 2 minutes or whatever the time interval is.
Umm… So have any of you drivers bitching about slow walkers even considered the fact that some people physically can’t run across the street. People do have mobility issues relating to their health. And I’m sorry but I’m not going to go out of my way to rush across a crosswalk to save you a few seconds of sitting idol in your car. I have a RIGHT to be walking down the street. It is a PRIVILEGE for you to be driving.
Swamp Donkey, you’ll notice that I said 2/3 of the first comments… meaning “the end” and “guyute”, skipping you as the remaining 1/3. I am normally able bodied, and while I could generally sprint across the street, why should I? I have every right to be there and can do a dance in the middle if I feel like it. Normally I do hurry across because i know the driver is itching to hit me, but some days I have been running around at work all day and really do not feel like walking any faster than a saunter. Other days I’m wearing 3 inch heels, and am not getting shin splints so that you can get to Walmart faster. And no matter where you’re both going, the driver is going to get there faster than the pedestrian, even if they have to wait 30 seconds for someone to cross the street. So simmer down and be patient.
my blood boils every time i am crossing the street while the driver who is impatiently waiting for me to cross is giving me a death stare, as if i am doing something wrong. it makes me want to fucking kill. i think people who only drive, or those who drive most of the time should get the fuck out of their cars and try being a pedestrian every once in a while. i think drivers often forget to consider factors such as the following:- how far did this person walk today?- how shitty the weather is on that day- the person walking most likely has some kind of shit that they are trying to deal with in their life (doesn’t everyone?), such as, kids/money/bills/in a hurry/dying family member/working a shitty shift/missed the bus etc etc etcseriously. it’s like when most people get behind the wheel they forget that there are 6 AND A HALF BILLION FUCKING OTHER PEOPLE ON THIS GOD FORSAKEN PLANET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a little god damned patience people.
Oh, didn’t you get the memo? Pedestrians are now apparently expected to run across the street. Even when they have a clear right of way.
Another thing that drives me nuts is when drivers stop at an intersection IN the crosswalk, because they need to be able to dart out at the next available moment. So screw all the people who are trying to walk across the street, you have to go around the car, which then endangers you because of the cars coming around the corner in the opposite direction don’t notice pedestrians on a normal day in enough time to stop, let alone if you aren’t actually in the crosswalk, but a few feet past it coming from behind a car.
Miranda and Pete no one said it was expected that you run only that it would be nice if you did, Also we are talking about able-bodied people. Well I guess we know why everyone hates one another. Walking people refuse to “TRY” and hurry across the street which pisses thr drivers off so they become impatient curse the ped. and now everyone is angry. OR whatever. Bottom line a little bit of nice goes along way on both ends. Everyone has shit on there minds people walking and people driving that’s why it is important to pay attention and not let your mind wander. If drivers are supose to take in to consideration how far someone walked try thinking about how far someone drives I have to come from the Kentville everyday…Walking is NOT an option so after driving in terriable weather I am sure the drivers and the walkers of the world have it just as bad as one another. Personally I love it when a person jogs/walks quickly across the street I wave to them and give them a smile. There are asshole drivers as well as asshole walkers BUT that doesn’t make all drivers or walkers assholes.
PaS – Sorry! Was reading that as first, as from the post time, bottom up.
Haa and I totally misunderstood what you posted anyway. I’m having a clever evening.
The car is definately king in halifax. Blip and Dartmouth Crossing are excellent examples of this but I knew of this long ago. Try to cross Northwest Arm Drive to get into Long Lake Provincial Park via Cowie Hill. Press the button. Then prepare to wait until a car comes to the intersection from Cowie to activate the sensor. Only then will the lights change.
Yeah, cranky, I love how the city JUST put in sidewalks in bayers lake this past year. And I don’t even attempt to go to dartmouth crossing without a car. *sigh*
SwampDonkey – no problem! It’s the holidays, no one expects you to be completely on the ball.I feel bad for the drivers sometimes, they’re always so unhappy and stressed in their cars. Walk down the street and people will smile at you, try and find a car passing you with a driver who has a smile on their face, doesn’t happen.Drivers have just as much hate for non-drivers-non-pedestrians as well. They can’t stand bikers, people in cabs, and bus riders either. It seems they want everyone to be having just as shitty of a time in cars as they are. If we had a more people friendly city, maybe everyone could walk and enjoy themselves, without the need to drive and be mad.