Comment by jjulius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jjulius | Hacker News Reader

So... the article provides a Google Maps link to the area where this happened. According to the piece, the kids visited the Food Lion and Subway, and then re-crossed Hudson Boulevard. There's a related NYT piece that also says an older woman was hit "a few weeks ago" trying to "cross via the same median".

I see the wide-laned Hudson Boulevard on Google Maps. I see the median. I see why it might be tempting to cross there. But I also see that ~345 feet to the west is a crosswalk.

I'm a parent. I get the impulse to protect your kids and ensure that they grow up with a healthy level of independence and freedom and the ability to be their own person and know how to operate in a world by themselves. But I struggle, as a parent, to understand how, if I were on the phone with them, I would've let them cross via the median rather than insisting they walk themselves a little ways down to the crosswalk.

I'm not attempting to blame the parents, and am sorry for their loss. But I'm generally stumped as to why they would've allowed that and, further, why there's outrage about an "unsafe median" when people have a crosswalk ~300 feet away.

300 feet is a LONG WAY to walk to cross a road. Do you not get that? You're asking people to walk 700 feet out of their way - you have to walk both directions, remember.

345 feet isn't even 7 seconds out of your way at 75 mph (</s>).

Talking about crosswalks misses that this is probably a common crossing spot for lots of people. The parents thought nothing of the kids crossing the road here, so this is likely where they always cross. So in the "crosswalk paradigm" it should have had a crosswalk built.

Personally I live on a fast road and I've taken to only mowing the frontage and clearing snow with a 2000lb tractor. About half of drivers simply give zero fucks about soft fleshy blobs outside of steel cages, regardless of right of way or other legal considerations. It's only when you add something that might scratch their car that they magically become considerate.

Both directions twice, so 1400 feet.

So 5 and a half minutes total. Sounds reasonable.

If you somehow let the pedestrians cross instantly at the cost of a five-minute delay to the drivers, they’d string you up by your toes.

Reasonable to cross the street?

Really?

And you're not even including the time waiting for the crosswalk to change.

If the alternative is death then yes. Five minutes well spent.

...talk about missing the point.

It should not take 5 minutes of extra walking to cross the street here. The extra time is itself causing a dangerous situation.

>...talk about missing the point.

Why is this an either/or? Can't someone who believes that spending an additional five minutes to cross the street at a theoretically-safer point also believe that the street could be designed to support pedestrians more safely?

That's why I say it's missing the point. Calling for personal responsibility in the face of clear civic irresponsibility is not a way to run a society.

But one can call for both at the same time. We're perfectly capable of calling for civic responsibility as we exercise good personal responsibility in the face of civic irresponsibility.

If a 10-year-old cannot safely cross a road safely in a reasonable amount of time, no amount of personal responsibility can help with this. You're asking for too much from individuals.

That's what I'm saying is missing the point.

I get it. It's inconvenient. It's a shitty road for pedestrians. I'd also like to increase my chances, by whatever small or large amount, of making it home in one piece. If the downside to increasing my likelihood of survival is that I have to take a few extra minutes to continue to exercise my joints and my cardiovascular system, then... okay.

I am very much typically on the side of, "Cities are too car-centric and we need to redesign them for people and bikes," but, seriously... how have we reached the point where, "It's a few extra minutes of flat walking," is the primary argument against something?

In my small city, people are routinely hit at crosswalks of roads that look like this.

There's a spot where the crosswalk is marked, with lights and signage, where the curb even just out a little extra to make the "unprotected" part of the crosswalk a shorter walk. Cars blow through the light all the time, it's totally unsafe to cross until oncoming traffic comes to a complete stop and makes eye contact. And this stretch is single lane, not designed for the speed of the Gastonia intersection. (Yes, there have been pedestrian fatalities on this stretch.)

The bigger issue is that the road is designed in such a way that a driver would not feel uncomfortable driving at highway speeds, regardless of the speed limit. Adding pedestrians into a system like that will always result in pedestrians being hit.

This road would be super dangerous even if the city moved the crosswalk to the place(s) where people want to cross.

I understand where you're coming from, but, how often do you travel by foot in car-heavy areas? I'm not trying to ask a "gotcha" question, but rather trying to point out that the experience of actually traveling in these areas on foot is very different from how it looks in a car, in a way that I think drivers often don't realize. You really have to have some experience doing it, to understand how awful these areas are for pedestrians, and why people don't follow the rules. It can be counter-intuitive, but pedestrian accommodations are often actually counter to pedestrian safety.

For example, regarding this particular scenario, it actually very often is safer to break the rules and jaywalk, than it is to cross at a signaled intersection. Drivers at intersections are paying attention to a half-dozen different things: is my light green yet? can I take this turn on red? is the car behind me stopping in time? what portion of the stoplight cycle is currently happening? what did my friend just text me before I stopped? Notice that none of these things are pedestrians. As a pedestrian, it's a very common occurrence to get a right-turner almost colliding with you because they were looking left instead of where they were driving. In car-heavy areas, drivers frequently just forget pedestrians can even exist, they're not even a concern. The zebra striping indicates where they should stop their car, it's not a pedestrian zone.

None of that happens if you as a pedestrian cross in the middle of a straightaway. The drivers are (mostly) looking straight ahead, they're focused on where they're going, they don't have a ton of other variables to contend with like they do at intersections. It's a much simpler place for a dangerous interaction (crossing the street) to occur. There's often a median in the middle, so you as a pedestrian only have to contend with one flow of traffic instead of 2 or 3. It still sucks, don't get me wrong. But it sucks less than an intersection.

For the past 50 years, we have built our cities for cars and exclusively for cars, and our pedestrian accommodations follow that rule. Just because an accommodation exists, doesn't mean it's actually safe.

345 feet there, wait for the light to change to pedestrian crossing, watch both ways ANYWAY because pedestrian crossings are not going to be exclusive use at an intersection like this, then 345' back, adds up to five to ten minutes.

This crosswalk looks terrible. As an adult I'm not sure if I would choose it over crossing where the median is the widest. At least there there are only two lanes to cross at a time and with cars coming from one direction. While the poorly marked crosswalk has 5 lanes with median in the middle that's narrower than length of one foot. It's tragically funny how "aspirational" Google map of this place is when compared to street view.

Also, why there's no crosswalk on the intersection where the Food Lion exit is?

Why do people litter if there is a trash can simply 400ft away? Convenience.

This is America, you can just call 345 feet a football field.

300 feet is a fairly significant distance. I would personally "jaywalk" rather than go 600 feet (there and back) out of my way.

100 yards away with a sidewalk on only one side. And that sidewalk being right against the road. Compare that to where they likely crossed at the entrance to the apartment complex directly across from the fire station that's neighboring the parking lot entrance.

It's an area that's shitty to pedestrian traffic. And it's fair to point that out.

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