There’s a lunch spot at the top of the T but I have to cross the stem of the T to reach the top of the T.
Why are they doubling my chances to get hit when they could just add another crosswalk and let me cross one street instead of two? Are they stupid?
I can only offer a perspective from my area. In California, every intersection by default creates “unmarked crosswalks” in the parallel and perpendicular directions, except when prohibited by posted signage. This makes it legal for pedestrians to cross in any direction at an intersection, so long as it’s not diagonal and isn’t prohibited.
With that being the default rule, municipalities will either paint the crosswalk – becoming a “marked crosswalk” – to promote its use (even though paint doesn’t prevent collisions) or will close the crosswalk outright, to steer pedestrians toward other crossing options. The latter is where things get truly messed up.
Rather than proactively mitigating the dangers to pedestrians, lazy municipalities expect pedestrians to ignore common sense and walk 400 m (1/4 mile) or more out of their way, to find a “safe” crossing at a marked (painted) crosswalk elsewhere. Outside of the downtown core, I’ve never seen concrete barrier-enforced crosswalks to stop wayward motorists.
Also, where freeway on-ramps and off-ramps meet city streets, these are considered intersections too, but out of sheer laziness, some municipalities close the entire sidewalk on that side of the block. So just in case an interchange area wasn’t enough of a hellscape, people on foot are funneled like cattle to the slaughter.
Finally, some good (ish?) developments. Partially in response to public demand, but not actually giving full effort, some municipalities have started to add signs to unmarked crosswalks, at places where pedestrians aren’t prohibited from crossing and they actively do. But these signs aren’t to encourage more pedestrians, but a reminder/beg to motorists to respect the default law on unmarked crosswalks, where pedestrians have first priority.
Do motorists even recognize these neon yellow/green signs? I’ve not seen evidence of it. And so once again, it’s all theatre, to make it look like lazy municipalities are doing something when they’re not. Same as with “driver awareness campaigns” and equivalent rubbish.
So yeah, that’s my spiel on bad crosswalk designs: it’s always been a public subsidy towards car welfare.
I think the law in my state is that pedestrians have right of way at “marked AND unmarked” crosswalks, and every interesection is considered at least an unmarked crosswalk unless explicitly marked as no pedestrian crossing.
So, if that’s true, I still have right of way on the unmarked crossing, but drivers would be perfectly rational to think I don’t! I mean, if the crosswalk means I have a right of way, then there NOT being a crosswalk would mean I DON’T have right of way. It’s just logic.
I also learned that pedestrians don’t have ROW crossing mid-block, which kinda sucks because that’s the safest place to cross and I don’t care what anyone says. Unaware turning traffic is the biggest risk to pedestrians, interesections therefore are the worst place to cross.