Diagonal Crosswalks in L.A. to Make City More Pedestrian-Friendly
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 11.11.08
Making Pedestrian Life Easier
Our friends at StreetFilms have a short & sweet video about diagonal crosswalks (aka pedestrian scrambles, or Barnes dances) in Los Angeles. These make life easier for pedestrians by allowing them to get across an intersection diagonally without having to cross twice, and they improve safety because you don't have cars trying to turn while people are crossing.
Read on for the video and more details.
Diagonal crosswalks are a simple but elegant way to make cities more walkable and pleasant to live in. But they're not something new:
But as it turns out, this new idea is something old. Thanks to some nifty sleuthing, Eric Richardson of blogdowntown uncovered the fact that the downtown LA area was once littered with two dozen diagonal crosswalks in the late 1950s. Removed in 1958 because a city engineer's report found they impeded car traffic flow, the lesson is obvious: let's not wait another fifty years to deploy a tool to keep pedestrians safe.
If the experiment is successful in L.A., we hope that other cities will follow suit. It wouldn't work on all intersections, but those with high volume of people on foot could really benefit.
Via StreetFilms
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I wish we had that here close to the university. So many students walking around..
I noticed that downtown Denver, CO also has diagonal crosswalks when I was there in August.
We have had diagonal cross-walks in downtown Denver for many years, and they are great. You really have to pay attention and you can't dilly-dally as the walk signal is relatively short. It is nice to have traffic stopped in all directions and to be able to cross only once, however.
You still have to be vigilant, however. Many cars will still take free right or left turns without bothering to check and see if people are in the crosswalk, just like they do without the diagonals. On the bright side I personally feel more visible to all cars when crossing diagonally.
That's really cool. They could even take it a step further and remind drivers to turn their cars off for however long the crossing lasts.
I always thought it was dangerous to pedestrians that cars in the USA could turn on red - something you can't do here in the UK.
Why they keep making everything easier? We are not dumb, and we can cross the street ourselves, without looking at those lines....Oh my god..
Norwalk, OH has has these crosswalks forever. There are no lines marked on the streets, you just go whatever direction you want. It is so much faster!
I have to say I am amazed that this is news! Us over here in the UK (well me anyway) have taken these for granted for years. Surely the painted routes are really a bit unnecessary though. How much toxic paint will be used for that?!?!
In these type of crossings, it is still okay for pedestrians to cross in the same direction as car traffic like a normal crosswalk? Or are all directions given a red hand until the dedicated, all-way pedestrian scramble?
It's quite an obvious solution, isn't it? I hope it's successful. That flow of people traffic is quite marvelous to watch. In a place like LA, it's important to make the city more pedestrian-friendly and to provide accessible, efficient public transportation. Good job.
In Denver it works like this:
You have an intersection with a one way street going north to south
and a one-way street going west to east.
When southbound traffic has a green light the crosswalk on the western side of the intersection has a walk signal and east north and south have the red hand
Then eastbound traffic gets the green light and the crosswalk on the northern side of the intersection gets the walk signal while everyone else gets the red hand.
Then all lights turn red and all four sides of the intersection, plus the diagonals get the walk signal while the cars have to wait.
Japan has these all over. Korea in some places. It cycles through all the directions the cars need to go and then changes for the peds (all directions). Would be much nicer if the cars got half of their cycles, then peds, then the other half of the cars, then peds again. Or the Denver way. The way it is in Asia, it takes a long time to cross the street.
Hey! That is great. We should really reduce our dependence on cars and get people on the streets. (or public transportation.) As a person without a vehicle, I HATE having to worry about being hit by a car because they'll be trying to turn at the same time my white "walk" sign will be turning on . Thanks for sharing this. Great video!