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Volume 115, Number 121 - Tuesday, February 16, 1999
Still waiting for crosswalk correction
by John Friedlander
It has been sixty days since the city announced it would reprogram the traffic lights at Washington Street and Main Street back to the old exclusive use crosswalk system. The correction hasn't been made. What's the holdup?
I've noticed engineers working on the lights several times since then, either changing bulbs, re-aiming or tightening the fixtures. I've also seen far too many near misses and close encounters of the car-pedestrian kind. I've been nearly rear-ended when I've stopped my car for pedestrians in front of me, and I've been beeped at and yelled at more times than I can count.
Meanwhile, I've seen motorists enjoying the new synchronized traffic lights on Main Street -- at speeds that seem totally inappropriate for the central aisle of what is, essentially, Middletown's downtown mall. Over the weeks since the new traffic lights were installed, I've detected a real confusion over the relationship between cars and pedestrians on Main Street.
Some see Main Street as a traffic conduit, and the smooth passage of cars and trucks as its primary function. Others see Main Street as a shopping plaza, with the support of businesses as the most important goal. Still others see Main Street as Middletown's spiritual and functional "kitchen," the hub of our daily city life, where eating, working, playing, relaxing and celebrating come together all day long.
Given these different visions, it's easy to understand how the policies that guide city decisions and the properties of the fixtures of our "built environment" might come into conflict. If we see Main Street primarily as a traffic corridor, it's easy to view shoppers as pesky obstructions who gum up the works with their incessant street-crossing. If we see Main Street solely as a shopping plaza, it's too easy to ignore anyone or anything with no dollars ready to spend.
But if we view Main Street as the hearth of our municipal home, several things should become clear -- first and foremost, that Main Street is many things to many people.
Main Street is a dozen different ways to have a hot drink and a quick bite of breakfast. Main Street is an indicator of the seasons when we see what's on sale at Bob's or Amato's Toy Store. Main Street is the traffic blender for those who cross the river or go north or south to get from home to work and back. Main Street is a daily circuit for nearby residents who walk to get a paper, walk to a light lunch, walk to the market, stop for a chat with a friend, and walk home.
In the home we all dream of, there's as much love and attention given the weakest child as there is for the brawniest big brother. Bullying is not tolerated, and the slow are welcomed graciously, with no complaints or impatience. The rude are shamed, and good manners are expected.
Communities reinforce or corrode the expression of values like these when they shape the details of their built environment: how wide the roads are, where the sidewalks go, how the traffic lights change, where the benches and bathrooms are, how clean the parks are kept, etc. The barrier-free architecture now required in buildings to be used by the public is an example of legal support for the acceptance of physical diversity.
But the absence of a sidewalk between the Sutton Towers (newly rechristened as Sagamore Hills) apartment complex on Washington Street and the business district four tenths of a mile to the east could be seen as an example of the city's indifference towards those who don't use cars, for whatever reasons. Middletown citizens who are forced to risk death walking in the treacherous shoulder of busy Route 66 can be forgiven for feeling that the city doesn't care about their safety. Extending the sidewalk to the hundreds of people who call Sagamore Hills home would be a demonstration of commitment to pedestrian safety on the City's part.
Likewise, changing Main Street's crosswalks from exclusive use to concurrent use sends a powerfully negative message to those who choose to walk their downtown chores. The unspoken message that "it is most important to keep vehicular traffic flowing" puts pedestrians on notice that "walkers had better watch out, because cars are king here."
According to the city that installed the new system and that hasn't yet delivered on a promise to reprogram it, motorists with half a ton or more of protective steel skin and many dozens of horsepower under their hoods are more important than walkers whose only defense is their wits.
This isn't right.
According to Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data, between 1986 and 1995, approximately 6,000 pedestrians were killed by automobiles each year, and more than 110,000 were injured. People are 1.6 times more likely to get killed by a car while walking than they are to be shot and killed by a stranger with a gun. TRANSACT, the Transportation Action Network, interprets this as "a significant public health and safety problem - the equivalent of a commercial airline crash with no survivors every two weeks."
Pedestrians are frequently blamed for walking in the wrong places -- a "blame the victim" logic that makes little sense. More often the cause of accidents is pedestrians forced to use street architecture designed primarily to speed the flow of vehicular traffic. Like, for example, new traffic and crosswalk signals that force pedestrians to share crosswalk time with speeding cars and trucks.
We discipline schoolyard bullies who pick on smaller kids. We set serious consequences for criminals who prey upon the elderly, or the young. We should not accept traffic systems that favor the engine-enhanced and put our most vulnerable citizens at greater mortal risk.
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