A Walking City
Boston is a walking city… or so they say. And sometimes I try to walk places. But when you’re on foot, Boston is more of a waiting city…
We don’t want car traffic to get backed up do we?
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there’s a great graphic in http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/01/america-walking-disaster/4409/ showing a car driver repeatedly pushing a button waiting for the pedestrian traffic to break–#WhatBostonNeeds
This is one of my biggest pet peeves! The reason why the signals are so confusing is because they vary depending on location, day of the week, and time of day. Most but not all of the pedestrian signals have buttons. Some are automatic all the time. Others are automatic during the weekdays between 7 am and 7 pm but require you to push the button at other times. Some signals actually require you to wait MORE than one full light cycle if you don’t press the button within a certain part of the cycle. And at many intersections, some crosswalks will be automatic and others require you to press the button, at the SAME intersection! You have no way of knowing which one unless you’ve been through that intersection before and have studied how it works. The signage is of no help at all. And yes, many highly traveled crossings by pedestrians require people to wait 3+ minutes before getting a walk signal, including periods of time when there are no cars in sight. It’s absolutely insane!
I recently wrote a blog post about this very topic a few months ago: http://somerville.patch.com/blog_posts/why-we-jaywalk-and-what-we-can-do-about-it
Hmmm, try imagine standing in freakin’ cold winter -25 degrees C ….at least 500 km. northwest of Boston. That’s how it is in Calgary downtown and they have several 4-5 lane car roads..one-way to speed up cars..just for a few peak hrs.
Downtown Boston should be car-free. The streets were never designed for cars.
If Boston were in Asia or Europe the downtown would be car-free. This is a profoundly disfunctional North American obsession that blights cities.
Kevin! you have been missed over at Yehuda Moon. Good to see that you’re still alive and cranky about cars…
Great comic as always. Couldn’t you add an MaDOT label on the guys t-shirt that wants to dig under the intersection, or is that too obvious?