Dependable Erection

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Pedestrian crossings

Commenter and friend PM makes the suggestion: "And for PR, if nothing else, push people to use the pedestrian crossings instead of darting across streets wherever. Even if darting across the street is legal, we'll all be better off if people get into the habit of using the ped crossings."

Good point.

Here's the intersection of Trinity and Avondale.

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Avondale and Markham.

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Avondale and Alston.

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Alston and Geer.

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Avondale and Geer.

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Alston and Drew.

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Geer, Miami, and Drew.

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That's a total of 1 crosswalk in these 7 fairly active East Durham pedestrian crossings.

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posted by Barry at 11:56 AM Digg this

8 Comments:

  • What? Walk? I clicked on a few of those images and observe that the sidewalks are not terribly abundant on those streets, either. They look like miserable intersections for bikes, too. Do they even have walk signals at those locations?

    Dependable, thanks for your vigilance in identifying problems that need to be solved.

    By Blogger Tonya, at 5:53 PM  

  • If only Duke students had to walk across some of these intersections.

    By Blogger Barry, at 6:16 PM  

  • Bleah. Misery. FYI, I was thinking about the crosswalks at Ninth St., Brightleaf Square (Main and Gregson St.s), and Five Points.

    But as for your other places:

    I can imagine someone at a public meeting saying, "yes, Durham/NC officials, we want to make sure that everybody's following the rules. I personally pledge to use a pedestrian crosswalk anywhere there is one. Like the one pictured here at Trinity and Avondale. Oh wait -- where did it go? OK, never mind that one. I mean the one at Avondale and Alston. Waitamminit -- I thought it was around here somewhere. Must have left it in my other suit jacket. OK -- I meant the one at Alston and Geer. Hey -- who the f*** stole all my crosswalks? Gee, commissioner, I feel really embarrased right now..."

    Imagine what Saul Alinsky could have done if he had the internet :-)

    By Blogger Marsosudiro, at 10:13 PM  

  • I knew exactly which crosswalks you were thinking about.

    When we did the ComNET survey the other day, i said exactly that to our city employee representatives when we met at the corner or Trinity and Avondale - "Be sure to cross at the crosswalk. Oh, wait a minute. There is no crosswalk. Well then, just look both ways before you cross. I'm sure people will stop for you if they see you."

    By Blogger Barry, at 10:46 PM  

  • Crossing Avondale at Trinity is a fools errand. This is a shame since there seems to be a resurgence of activity at the shopping center just across the street, what with the new China King restaurant, a tienda, beauty supply store, etc. But for that little center to really take off will require installing sidewalks and crosswalks/signals so people will actually seriously consider venturing over there.
    As it is, what with no crosswalks, and speeding cars and wheelie popping fools on crotch rockets, crossing Avondale is like playing Frogger on one of the most difficult levels.

    By Blogger Steve Graff, at 12:44 AM  

  • If you want to see an actual pedestrian death trap, check out the crossing of Guess/Buchanan at Club. There is a pedestrian light on the south side, but no crosswalk. To compound things, there is a huge shrubbery so that right turning off of Club you can't see anything. I can't remember, but I also think there are no sidewalks.

    I didn't know about this trap until I almost killed a darter there crossing with a walk signal.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:14 AM  

  • one of these days i'll take one for the team and get hit by a car trying to cross Avondale from Trinity.... and then DE you can say "SEE..Durham... i told you so..."

    or we can start to seriously harass the traffic engineers to put in cross walks...

    I'm open to both...

    By Blogger Moe Rivera, at 9:44 AM  

  • I think it takes more than just painting stripes on the road to create a climate in which walking (or rolling) is an equal transportation option to driving.

    We worked for two years + to get a crosswalk, with a signal warning drivers that people were crossing ahead, on Roxboro at Knox so that the kids on the east side of the neighborhood could walk to the beautiful $425,000 playground the city installed at Duke Park, on the west side of Roxboro. Virtually no one yields to a pedestrian crossing Roxboro there, and people still don't allow their kids to cross alone.

    But i agree that it's the minimum first step that needs to occur in creating a walkable community.

    The second step is enforcing the pedestrian right of way in crosswalks law.

    After that, the options get more expensive.

    By Blogger Barry, at 12:34 PM  

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