If you don’t want cars in a city, just say so. I have no problem with a car-free downtown so long as there are ample parking spaces on the outskirts. In fact, I can picture a downtown Providence with good sized parking garages at the corners and no cars downtown. The rest of the city, however, cannot go that way. The public transportation here sucks for going somewhere without proper planning.

It’s irresponsible to think that someone driving a car should always be expecting people to jump out into the street at any moment in time. It’d be safer if cars drove 25 mph, but if someone jumps out into the street 5 feet in front of your car, they’re probably getting hit. It’s unfortunate, but brakes, even on a small car going the speed limit, don’t work that fast when reaction time is taken into consideration, even on the most alert driver. While I understand it’s the cars fault in the event of an accident, crosswalks, whether physical or assumed, were invented for a reason. Yeah, I know the response will be “they were invented because of the car”. The fact remains, however, that the car is not going anywhere and many people do have legitimate needs for their cars.

Drivers should always be alert and on the lookout and aware of their surroundings, but pedestrians should NOT be jumping out into the street wherever and whenever they want. It’s illegal for a reason. How would you feel if someone crashed their car into a pole and got seriously injured because they swerved to avoid you jaywalking? That’s just as irresponsible as the driver doing 35 through the city listening to the radio full blast and chatting on the cell phone.

“Motor vehicles should not have to assume that pedestrians will jump out at any point along the road…” – Well, not every road, everywhere of course, but I say this is not too much to expect near residential neighborhoods and walkable business districts. This will eliminate injury and death on our streets. How did we come to accept injury and death as routine, appropriate consequences of walking too carelessly? This was a choice, not an inevitabilty.

In order for it to truly work properly, we all have to be considered equals. Everyone has equal right to the road. Once someone has more rights than another, people start to get pissed and trouble happens. If walkers considered bikers and drivers their equals, if bikers considered walkers and drivers their equals, and if drivers considered walkers and bikers their equals, and they all respected each other’s mode of transportation, we would have far fewer problems. It gets really annoying when people get all high and mighty that walking should be the single most important most of transportation. Plain and simple, it just does not work for everyone.

Drivers of vehicles have privileges on I-95. That’s plenty enough says I. Anywhere off the highway, in town, near sidewalks and crosswalks, pedestrians should be fully privileged, then cyclists, then vehicles.

People are crossing against the lights, crossing mid-block even when there is oncoming traffic, stepping out from behind or in front of buses right into the lane of travel.

That sounds pretty good to me!

Those folks may be a little more carefree than present circumstances truly permit, but I think rampant jaywalking in an urban environment is a feature, not a bug. Having to drive as if some fool is going to dart in front at any moment is exactly how driving should be, in town. Walking should be a serene, stress free experience, without waiting or detours.

There is no single party (drivers, walkers, bikers) who is at fault. Everyone is at fault because no one is paying attention. If everyone paid more attention, we would have far fewer problems. Heck, I’ve had people walk into me while I was standing on a sidewalk because they were too busy staring at their cell phones texting instead of watching where they were walking.

First about the bikes – and you all know my stance here – it’s not a ‘loosening of laws’. It’s a legal structure known as the Idaho Law, where it originated.

Second, my grandmother used to say “There’s always plenty of stupid to go around.” There are drivers, cyclist and pedestrians that are engaged in their activities, and there are those who not. My gut tells me the latter are spread equally and, in RI, liberally.

Last, my paradigm for multi-transit interaction is NYC. And there, it’s not about the laws but about assumed standards of behavior. The three layers just mesh very well because there’s a high expectation that you’re not an idiot. I wrote about it on the NC blog. Do follow the link to the article by David Weinberger at the Berkman Institute. Love me some Cluetrain thinkin’.