What About The Pedestrians?

Written by Boston Biker on May 29

I have spent a lot of time on this site talking about motorists, and cyclists and how they can better follow the law. With the exception of one post however I have largely left pedestrians un-wagged at by my finger of reproach.

There is a discussion started on the forum with the point of trying to figure out the absolute worst intersection when it comes to jaywalkers, but in this article I want to posit a few reasons for why I think J-walking is so bad in this city.

Let me start with a strange tale from a city far away. I was in the far off land of San Jose, stranded with no bicycle, I was forced to walk (don’t feel too bad for me, I eventually found some wheels). So I am strolling around enjoying the fine weather, and I come to an intersection. The walk signal was on the little hand, and waiting on one side of the street was a large group of people. I look left….look right…no cars for MILES.

They have wide streets, a grid pattern, and it was clear nothing with an engine was anywhere near this intersection. Being a good Bostonian, I begin to walk into the street, and I shit you not, someone tells me to wait. I hear “the walk signal is not on.” It was told to me in the way a parent would explain to a child that a stove is hot or perhaps the way some people talk to really old people…all wrapped in a veil of contempt. I stopped dead in my tracks and waited.

For the next day or two I payed special attention to these west coast’ians, and damn if not every single one of them dutifully waited, even when no cars where coming, even when the signal time seemed like ages, to cross the street. It was as if they were all children of Hamelin, and the little walk guy was the pied piper leading them around. Frankly I was dumbfounded.

You return to Boston and you get shit like this.

We all know that this is not an isolated incident, this is the norm in this town.

I mean look at all that mess. People crossing in front of oncoming cars, people crossing behind oncoming cars, people crossing when the red hand is clearly visible. It is truly chaotic. These people seem to have no concept of just how bad it is going to hurt if they get hit by these cars. They also seem to have no sense of taking turns. The people in cars for the most part waited patiently at each red light, and when it turned green they were forced to deal with a sea of random pedestrians blocking their way.

I sat at this intersection for a good 5 minutes, long enough to wait through about 3-4 cycles. This walk signal turns over very quickly, if you got their just as the red hand went up, you might have to wait a minute tops to get the next walk sign (although it might be nice to leave the walk guy up a bit longer at this particular intersection).

So jaywalking in this fashion is dangerous, rude, and the pedestrians didn’t even have to wait that long to get a walk signal…so why do they do it? Why do the people in Boston jaywalk in droves, and the people in San Jose publicly scold you when you even think about jaywalking?

I think it boils down to two reasons, these two reasons sort of wrap around each other and fit into the reasons why bikers and motorists break the law.

Culture:

Simply put, people feel fine about jaywalking in Boston, because no one says peep about it. You walk around long enough in this town and you might get shoulder bumped as others file past you. I mean if everyone else is doing it..why not do it too? In San Jose they self enforce, they hiss at the outsiders (like me) who deem to cross when the red hand is up. I wonder what would happen if I sat on the corner and pointed out to people that they were jaywalking…probably nothing good.

Law Enforcement:

You might not believe this, but I assure you it is true…you can get a ticket for jaywalking on the west coast. A cop can be like “you crossed the street in the middle,” boom ticket. In theory you could get one here as well, but you wont. I actually asked a cop to give a ticket to a jaywalker who had caused an accident by walking out into (moving) traffic, and was told “this isn’t California, we don’t ticket for jaywalking here.”

So in essence, the exact same things that lead bikers and drivers to break the law rampantly lead pedestrians to do the same. What I would really like people to realize is that Boston doesn’t have a driver/biker/walker law breaking problem, it has a law breaking problem.

Every user class is breaking the law in a myriad of ways, and doing so in massive numbers. I am really sick of hearing the drivers blame it on the cyclists who blame it on the pedestrians who blame it on the drivers…etc etc.

I have also come to realize that law breaking (of any user class) is not random. The law breaking is not spread out at every intersection, it is concentrated on several intersections. Because it is so concentrated, it is easily targeted with enforcement.

You stick a couple cops at the intersection I filmed above, (much in the way Cambridge tickets cyclists that run reds near MIT) you could spread the word very quickly about what the law is, and what happens when you break it.

This targeted enforcement is unlikely to happen, but it must. As more and more people walk and bike it is going to be vital to make sure these growing user classes are following the rules. It will also be crucial for safety that drivers are operating safely around these growing user classes, so they too much follow the rules.

If we truly want a cyclist/walker friendly city we must get every user class to start following the rules, and not simply spread the blame in a never ending circular firing squad.

(and before anyone chimes in, I realize this must also come with education and infrastructure improvements)

Tags: boston, jaywalking, pedestrians, wtf
Posted in advocacy, infrastructure | 21 Comments »