Guest post: #YesAllMotorists
Guest post by Josh Spokes.
US culture is actively hostile to pedestrians and cyclists. We have to change the cultural attitudes about cars, bicycles, and pedestrians. It’s very hard to do this because the culture of automobile supremacy is baked into the smallest parts of our daily life and the decisions our public works departments make. Here’s a “small” example of this from my life.
I work in a building next to a four-way, traffic-signaled intersection. It’s a very busy crossing. There are four lanes of traffic on one road, and two on the intersecting road. At this intersection are a number of delis, restaurants, and small retail stores.
I buy my lunch most days from the deli across the road. To get there I have to push a pedestrian crossing signal. The cycle makes walkers wait so long that yesterday, I just gave up:
- Press walk signal
- Watch the entire traffic cycle repeat at least five times. This means that, starting at the 12 0’clock position, each direction of cars was given its own turn five times. The “hand of the clock” traveled all the way around to 12 o’clock five times, never stopping to let pedestrians cross.
- After five minutes (yes, I’m not exaggerating) I turned around and walked back to my office. I had to get in my CAR to travel through the intersection. This is the distance of one block.
I have watched old people, families, and joggers go through this. Once the signal to walk turns on, it gives you 15 seconds to cross a very wide street. Children and the elderly cannot do it. I have to hustle to make it.
Meanwhile, cars take right turns on red and nearly strike pedestrians every day. More and more, cars are honking at pedestrians and each other, enraged that people are allowed to make them have to stop so they have a chance to walk.
I called the city public works dept. The employee was helpful, but clearly in a bind. After explaining to me how the lights are cycled and insisting that they don’t “chip” pedestrians (meaning, the lights don’t treat the pedestrian part of the cycle as dispensable if something goes wrong. Actually, yes, they do. I watch it happen.), he said this.
I’m so glad you called and told me this. You’re the first one I can remember that’s pro-pedestrian this month. For every 10 calls, nine of them are angry drivers accusing us of screwing motorists over. They complain about the ‘long time’ the light gives pedestrians [this is objectively untrue; it’s 15 seconds], and they complain that bicycles are allowed to use the road.
I live in Vermont. We are a state that claims to be environmentally vigilant, that claims to value walkable and bikeable city living. But look at the majority of citizens who call public works. Nearly all of them are furious motorists. Every single navigable space around here is constructed to favor automobiles with the most extraordinary generosity, and damn the safety cost to pedestrians. Yet motorists are angry about us, and about bicyclists, enough to call public works to complain about pedestrians being allowed to cross the road.
I said this was a small example. Don’t be misled. You can be certain the very same calculations are happening in your city’s public works department. In states even more hostile to walking and biking it is certainly worse. The staffer who helped me wanted to help. He wants to make it easier for non-drivers. But he is cornered by ignorant, fulminating automobile drivers.
Do you think his bosses will give him a good review if his decisions are sound and balanced, but they happen to piss off motorists who want to complain? (Hint: no.)
Few of us talk about this much outside those who work in transportation policy. This has to change.
The automobile is a 2-ton, rolling demonstration of typical US entitlement. It’s the most visible and dangerous expression of macho domination of public resources. Its worship encourages aggression from drivers when they are asked to share public resources. The car has made otherwise good people insane.
Josh, I applaud you. I have written and spoken about this many times. It’s even worse here in the rural farmland in the center of the country. Our town is extremely pedestrian/bike unfriendly, even though the City Council routinely makes noises about putting in bike lanes. Most the people here drive monster trucks, and that increases the sense of entitlement, because you are that much bigger. I drive to work because I have no other options, since I work too far out of town. I argue this point with people all the time. They actually believe it is more efficient to get in your car, get out of your parking place, drive less than a block, circle around and around the parking lot until they find a parking place, and then park it, lock it up, and go inside.
Our campus is very small; you could walk from one corner to the furthest corner in under 5 minutes. Still most of our students drive from class to class, or from the dorm to the cafeteria, even though the distance is minimal (just across a single street and a small parking lot). They truly believe that it is more convenient to have a car than to walk.
My husband has written letters to the editor about the dangerous pedestrian situation in our town. We have two city council members committed to safe walking (unfortunately, both of them left the council to run for mayor, and likely neither of them will win…sad face). Still, the bulk of the energy around here is cars and driving. When we discuss it in environmental science, and then I give them the test over the unit, I discover that they learned nothing, still holding onto their belief that cars are cheaper, more convenient, and more environmentally friendly.
Keep banging your head on that wall, Josh. I’ve been banging that wall a long time, and one day, I hope (but don’t believe) all those headaches will pay off.
I cannot understand why there is not a movement in the US and Canada to replace as many controlled intersections as possible with roundabouts (ie, traffic circles). More efficient for traffic, much easier on pedestrians, no requirement for electricity. No downside that I can see. And if it is possible in a cramped UK, it should certainly be no problem in the US. Maybe it’s just too boring since it doesn’t involve technology? Or maybe it doesn’t provide an opportunity to scold motorists?
Maybe it’s because I’m foreign, but I find roundabouts horrible for pedestrians, because the default action is not to stop.
There’s a standard for pedestrian light timing; I don’t remember it off the top of my head, but it’s something like 2 minutes. Josh, I don’t know if this is your thing, or the thing of anyone you know, but a heart to heart talk with the town’s traffic engineers about the design standards (which include pedestrian and bicycle facilities) that they’re required to meet in order to receive federal financing might break the logjam.
Everyone—not to sound cranky, but asserting that “X standard” or “Y standard” exists is not helpful, and is often unintentionally inaccurate. Before you assert that you know X or Y standard is there, please ask how you believe you know that, and if you can cite a source for it.
I’ve been assured most seriously now by two different people that such standards exist. One of these people lives in Canada. But I live in the US. There are federal, and perhaps state, standards for these things, I am sure. But I am not sure that you (general you) know what they are, and you shouldn’t be so sure either.
Please don’t offer helpful suggestions without taking these things into account first. Thank you.
I’m more afraid of cyclists up here… they have a nasty habit of barreling full speed down sidewalks, traveling the wrong way down a bike lane, and using pedestrian crossing signals without dismounting.
We’ve actually got lots of ped crossings in my town (including the non-intersection variety with the signal). Unfortunately many people choose not to use them (even when they’re twenty feet away). Not infrequently I’ve had to dodge dark-clothed pedestrians crossing in the middle of the street at night.
I imagine the dynamic’s a bit different due to the PNW being far more cyclist/ped-friendly than the rest of the country.
Please don’t start this line of conversation. Please don’t push this.
:) I used to be a road engineer for the California State Department of Transport, and the city engineer for a small town in the Midwest.
About roundabouts – I detest those things. They’re dangerous in cars, and as for pedestrians – forget it. People seem to think “Yay, you don’t have to stop!” – but that’s actually not such a brilliant idea.
Roundabouts are actually safer (eg, http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm )
They’re also more amenable to being built with pedestrian underpasses
Second Ophelia on the roundabouts. Our school recently installed those in hopes of slowing down traffic. Nope. Drivers just careen over them, and no one seems to know who has the right of way. Pedestrians avoid that part of the campus totally, because there is no safe way to get through the roundabouts.
Josh, you raise some really good points. Thankfully that culture is not quite so bad here. In fact most people I know will happily walk between meetings and office/lunch places up to at least a 2km round trip (beyond that time management becomes a factor).
On roundabouts. My City had lots of them and generally they worked pretty well when first installed. Certainly not pedestrian friendly, but then they were used in locations where pedestrians generally were not a large feature. However, they require very symmetric traffic flows to function efficiently. In the last 10 years between large new areas of urban growth and redistribution of the population post-earthquake traffic flows on many roads has become highly asymmetric morning and evening. Lots of roundabouts are being ripped out and replaced with lights or more conventional giveway/stop controlled intersections.
Last year I was in Chicago (downtown area only). One of the things we remarked on was that we only needed to think about crossing the road and traffic halted. Literally, look over your shoulder and cars stopped. Soon after I read a study saying that the average wait time in Chicago for a white person to get an opening to cross the road was about a third of the time for a black person. It made me feel… dirty(?) I don’t know. Uncomfortable? Shamed? Bad anyway. Why had I not observed that? When I replay scenes in my head I see a black women waiting at the intersection. As my wife and I walked up cars stopped. That sort of thing happened quite a bit and I never noticed at the time.
Car culture is very self-entitled and needs to change. I say that as someone who loves to drive.
“Drivers just careen over them”
Video! The way we design ours that would be a suspension/wheel alignment/rims disaster.
“Please don’t start this line of conversation. Please don’t push this.”
As a pedestrian I am more afraid of cyclists. I have nearly been run over more times than I care to count because cyclists in my town cannot be arsed to use the copious number of bike lanes we have hear (nearly every street in town).
As a motorist I am more afraid of injuring pedestrians who blatantly disobey traffic laws regarding crossing the street.
Complaining that motorists are actively hostile to both in other places has substantial merit, but in the civilized parts of the PNW we tend to have very cyclist/ped friendly road systems and both seem to disregard them in favor of endangering their safety and the safety of others.
So yes, I will push this, because it is the observed reality of living where I do.
Also, to be clear, when I’m nearly run over as a ped I’m on the sidewalk, not on the shoulder of the road or the bike lane. Bikes aren’t allowed there any more than motor vehicles are.
And also, btw, I don’t drive, and never have. (In the small town I managed, which was only a few miles across and where everyone owned an SUV, I did my site inspections on foot or on a bike.) So I was all about making sure I had my fair share of the road. With respect to standards–a city or municipality isn’t required to follow specific standards, or rather a city or municipality may not have standards of a specific type, but it’s generally the case that you do have to follow certain standards, which include providing pedestrians and cyclists with adequate facilities, in order to access certain kinds of federal construction and maintenance funding. (Though who knows, it’s been a while since I left the US, which is why I don’t know this stuff off the top of my head any more.)
Rob, there may be video out there somewhere. Around here the young men make videos of themselves violating traffic laws, peeling rubber, and every other possible traffic violation. If the police started using YouTube instead of parking cars slightly hidden, they’d find a lot of data, I imagine.
Our roundabouts were put in partially to discourage semi traffic. It’s a private road, but semis shortcut through it, and we (the school) has to pay the maintenance. The roundabouts do seem to have reduced the semis, but the monster trucks that are common here can just careen over them with no problem.
‘They’re also more amenable to being built with pedestrian underpasses’
I’ve never seen these except in particularly large or busy intersections; the process for most of the ordinary roundabouts I have to deal with as a pedestrian is ‘try to stand where you can see the most cars coming and then make a run for it when you’re crossing in the direction where cars come out of the roundabout, since you never know what’s coming and whether they’ll see you’ (the direction coming into the roundabout is a lot easier because there’s only one lane of traffic to observe and drivers will sometimes stop for you). Also, I’m opposed to making people go underground to cross roads–no one likes underpasses, they’re always unpleasant (and usually smelly) environments, and I’ve encountered many people who are afraid of them, for both ‘irrational’ and ‘rational’ (they’ve been attacked) reasons.
Roundabouts work perfectly well when everyone is used to them. Here in the UK we’re so used to them that they are second nature and (for the most part) people behave. I’ve spoken to several Americans about roundabouts (I live such a glamorous life) and they’ve all been fairly hostile to them. I think that comes from the general unfamiliarity of the general population toward them. They require a fundamentally different attitude to that most people are most use to, so it’s not surprising.
It sounds like a roundabout (with appropriate crossings) could help with Josh’s problem providing everyone uses it appropriately. Perhaps that’s a big proviso.
In the UK, roundabouts in pedestrian areas often have crossings at each entrance so it is perfectly safe to cross. Using the crossing doesn’t shut down the entire roundabout unless there is only one lane.
Large and busy roundabouts often have lights to control the traffic too, which are activated at busy times or when the traffic is particularly heavy in one direction.
I sound like I’m some kind of roundabout fan. I’m not! I just find it interesting that attitude varies so much with cultural familiarity.
Latsot, roundabouts work well if the traffic comes pretty evenly from all sides. When you get a strong asymmetric flow through the intersection some traffic just can’t move for excessively long periods. That’s a function of the wider road network and population distribution. There’s no one right answer as to how intersections should be done.
@Rob:
I didn’t suggest that there was one right answer, just that roundabouts work better when the culture is used to them. That – and the asymmetry point – is why many roundabouts here have traffic lights as well. The operation of the roundabout can be tailored on the fly to traffic conditions.
I don’t know why I have become the official spokesperson of roundabouts, but it’s the life I chose ;)
I want to be clearer about traffic lights on roundabouts, just because – for a given definition of “interesting” – they are quite interesting. When operating, the lights can block vehicles coming onto the roundabout, but can also stop traffic at various points around the roundabout. When traffic is slow, the lights are turned off. At busier times, they are turned on and different patterns of activation could be used to match the current traffic.
In theory, the roundabout could observe the traffic flow and learn what the best settings are for the lights and deploy profiles accordingly.
I’m pretty sure they don’t do anything like that, though. I’m willing to bet that in most – if not all – cases, the things are on a timer. It’s a bit of a waste, there’s a lot of engineering porn to be had out of this. It’s a shame I don’t work in academia any more, smart roundabout research would definitely get a grant.
I have to back up Blood Knight’s observations. Despite being an admittedly aggressive jaywalker, I’ve never been so much as pushed back by a car. I have, however, been struck to the point of being knocked down twice by cyclists who opted to use the sidewalk to ride across bridges. Sorry, Josh, but your call for some sort of unity between pedestrians and bicyclists isn’t going to gain any traction with the walkers, because many of us generally regard cyclists as less dangerous, more arrogant motorists.
I don’t know where the aggression from some of you is coming from, but it’s not deserved. Grind your axe against fellow road users somewhere else. I’m interested in finding ways to lessen aggression and physical danger for people who use the road. Take your interest in shoring up a sense of grievance against those Bad Other People On The Road to another conversation, please.
I have a foot long scar from when I was hit by a car. I had a small black smudge that time I was hit by a bike. I’m with Josh on this.
Can’t resist chiming in on roundabouts, even though it’s too late for the discussion.
In the US, people have no concept, zero, of right of way. Nobody except professional drivers (truckers, bus drivers, taxis) shows any ability to handle a simple intersection with stop signs. Everybody sits there forever, waiting for somebody else to decide to go and then everybody goes at once, then all stop again and wait some more.
That system completely breaks down at roundabouts, so USians hate them with a purple passion. I don’t know if it’s possible for a lot of drivers here to learn, either. It would take a major public education campaign.
Although I have to admit it is possible to teach drivers to watch out for pedestrians. I’m near LA, car entitlement capital of the world, but California has draconian pedestrian right of way laws. The Californians are so used to cars stopping for them, most of them step into the street without even looking. That always strikes this old Bostonian as surreal.
If people do know how to deal with right of way, roundabouts work beautifully for low to medium traffic. Everything just flows in a nice courteous dance. They break down badly when traffic is heavy. Then lights work much better.
But having said that, Josh, don’t take it personally when people don’t comply with your commenting wishes on someone else’s blog.
Any population can learn a different method of behavior. Cultural norms can and do change. The only thing that stops this from happening in the US is the paralysis that sets in when we say “Americans would never except this because look how bad they are at X.”
It requires work, money, and a sustained effort in both education and the built environment, over a long period of time with consistent attention to the project. It can be done. Whether it will begin is entirely a question of whether we decide to do so, or if we decide to spend our time talking about how we can’t do it, so let’s jury-rig an already bad traffic system even more.
No, this isn’t about me being displeased that my “commenting wishes” aren’t being obeyed. People tend to react negatively when conversational partners begin their part of the conversation by making snotty remarks and putting words into other people’s mouths. That’s plain rudeness. It doesn’t get elevated above plain rudeness because it claims to have a substantive beef with the piece—a beef that Freemage brought in, made up, and plopped there in front of everyone as if he were entitled to. Rude.
OK, but my suggestion was to not take it personally, not about whether or not you’re displeased about it, no need to tell me off. People also react negatively when people tell them what they should and shouldn’t comment about. Some people might characterise that as rude, too.
Try forming your suggestions as suggestions, not as commands, Latsot. (Really, honest. I’m not being prickly out of nowhere, and I like you. But I don’t appreciate the lecturing tone, OK?)
Josh, I wasn’t lecturing you. You are welcome to object to what you imagine my tone to be but in this case you were wrong about that. I’m not going to argue, though, it is beyond pointless.
You will, however, refuse to reciprocate in good faith, and you’ll continue to belittle what I say and call it my imagination. Thanks.
I didn’t do any of those things.
It’s clear you’re not interested in my thoughts or feelings on this at all, and that you’re more interested in making this a thread about my deportment. Since restraint hasn’t worked so far, let me be direct: piss right the fuck off.
Really, Josh, that isn’t true. I agree with you on almost every point in this thread and have said so. I don’t understand why what seemed to me like a mild suggestion upset you so much. That wasn’t at all what I intended. I’m always interested in what you say and I almost always agree with you.
But if it’s what you want I will piss right the fuck off.
Wait, what about what I want?!
I’ve had bad (scary) experiences with both drivers and cyclists while walking. That’s just physics, innit: walkers aren’t very dangerous to other people, while runners, cyclists, and drivers can be (in ascending order). I’d forgotten, because it was so routine, but just yesterday I had one of those you-almost-hit-me moments when a dude on a bicycle zoomed past me, way too close, on the sidewalk. If I had wandered sideways just a little he would have hit me and my life would have been fucked up. That does happen, and much too often. I remember thinking, angrily, “You’re riding on the sidewalk because that’s safe for YOU, but it’s not safer for the rest of us.” Then I forgot it until reading the latest comments this morning.
People are assholes. People aren’t considerate.
I’ve had those too, Ophelia. I see it as part of the larger structural problem. When I’m on my bike, sometimes I feel I have to get out of the road for safety. That doesn’t mean I belong on the sidewalk—bikes don’t belong there—but it does show how squeezed non-be-automobiled people feel. You can’t trust drivers, because statistically they’re more likely to be aggressive or not paying attention, and one mistake can cost you your life. But cyclists can’t zoom along on the sidewalks without so much as a “coming up behind you” or a ding of a bell to warn pedestrians. Too many of them don’t.
Peoples’ behavior changes when they’re on a machine that has more speed and power. Bicyclists can become just as oblivious to their relative power to injure pedestrians as drivers are.
That’s true…I did sort of neglect the part about roads being dangerous for cyclists.
But dayum, once they do get on the sidewalks, they need to slow way the hell down, keep a lot of distance between them and pedestrians, and give a warning when they can’t maintain a lot of distance.
In one way they really do scare me more than cars, because cars are audible and they’re predictably in the streets. We can’t hear bicycles, so we have literally no way to avoid them if they zoom up behind us. I walk a lot, and people around here ride their bikes on the sidewalk a lot, so for me that’s a real danger. I’ve experienced a lot of those flash-pasts.
Sorry for the derail! But as you know, I like it when conversations develop organically, except for the times when I don’t.
Well, it’s your blog, and you are the one who is actually entitled to do whatever you like here. :) But it’s not a derail anyway.
Yes, the silence of bicycles is a danger. They scare the shit out of me when they come up behind me. One of the reasons I like biking without a helmet (please, dear god, everyone, don’t start about that.) is that I can hear cars when they’re much farther away. This gives me time to be prepared and move.
Bikes remind me of a gag line from a cartoon show about the silent, “deadly Prius.”
Latsot, roundabouts with traffic lights? MADNESS! [throws self out window]
I know lots of traffic engineers. I’ll ask them why they’ve been keeping that option secret.
Rob (assuming you’ve picked yourself up and are back at your screen :D) at some roundabouts in New Zealand they have traffic lights that activate when their cameras detect lines forming on the busier street leading into it. Works beautifully. Except that the one I used the most has no camera aimed at the smaller streets which, these days at rush hour, develop queues out the wazoo and round the block.
(Indeed, Josh, people can learn. Viz. anecdote re pedestrians…. I was being flippant. But also note that you mentioned the magic word: money. I think at a time when people in the US can’t see spending money on schools, spending it on better driving techniques is a bit of a lost cause. I mean, everybody knows they’re above average drivers, right? Including me!)
Speaking of silent traffic, another California story. The law here states that motorcycles can drive between the freeway traffic lanes, i.e. on the lane markings. They’re supposed to go no faster than 15mph more than the car traffic, but guess how much attention is paid to that.
So, anyway, there you are in your car with the windows up and the A/C on. (The sun beating down in SoCal while you crawl along the freeway means you use your A/C if you have it.) Motorcycles, especially at 60mph, send most of their noise backward. You’re expiring of boredom in your car when –BLAM– the world ends and your heart’s in your throat and your looking every which way to figure out where diaster will strike.
Then you see the disappearing Harley zooming along 10 cars further up and go, “Oh. Oh, right. Phew. Yeah. Man, he’s lucky I managed not to jerk the steering wheel from shock.”
“Ambulatory organ storage” was what a good friend of mine called some motorcyclists.
Josh: I drew the conclusion I did because you invariably linked bicyclists and pedestrians together in your post. Those two groups are, however, as different from one another, both in needs and in bad behavior, as either is from drivers.
I’ll drop it, fine. But the viability of changing local vehicle culture is going to vary widely from one part of the country to another, something you also ignore in your post. In the cities, the best option to move away from cars remains mass-transit; build it well, subsidize it heavily. Once you get to the suburbs, the sprawl factor kicks in, and while you can mitigate it with some mass transit, it really does get increasingly expensive and difficult to accomplish; bike paths are also easier to build in the ‘burbs, and intersections more easily redesigned. And the further you get from the city, the harder it becomes to get rid of cars (or even move them away from it).
Addressing this is complex and involves a lot more changes than just changing the culture. To get the national change you’re looking for, you have to present both a means for changing it locally, and a benefit for doing so, or you’re just spinning your wheels.
(In general, it’s usually an error to talk about the ‘US’ culture of anything. No region is necessarily ‘better’ or ‘worse’, but geography and history have made for remarkable differences between areas–something you, yourself, mention when talking about ‘standards’ not being universal. The intersection you describe? Wouldn’t, ~couldn’t~ exist in Chicago; walkers get the same cycle as drivers, even in the near ‘burbs, and the time for crossing a street like you describe is typically between 20 and 25 seconds.)
I should have asked you to write my post, clearly. You’re so much better at talking about what’s really important.
Jayzus. I’ve had that experience on trains quite a few times, but never in a car.
The train one is very startling – a sudden WHAM out of nowhere.
Incidentally, this: “The car has made otherwise good people insane.” is a good summary of much of Western Civ!
Also, re trains. Yes indeed. I’m an inveterate gawper out of windows, and to suddenly get whammed! with an oncoming train on the other track is heartstopping.
Quixote @43, well I woke up on the floor. Apparently you can’t throw yourself through laminated glass…
Where is this intersection you speak of? Auckland? Wellington? I neeeeeed to see it.
Rob, I was hoping you were still with us! :D
It’s in Whangarei. Bank St and Dent. Dent being the “little” one. And to add injury to insult there’s a steepish stretch of hill where I always wound up stuck, moving a car length at a time and trying *really* hard, over and over and over again, by judicious use of parking brake and clutch not to roll back into the car behind me.
Quixote, still rubbing bump on head. Puzzled as to why Whangarei has such an elaborate setup. I’ve been here, it barely needs intersections ;-)
Actually, I’ll be up that way, maybe, in the new year, so I’m making a note of this to follow up.