Of course pedestrians, like all other road users, should follow the rules of the road. (Personally, I wish more pedestrians understood how crossing signals worked)
But we live in a world where one only needs to observe traffic for a few minutes to see how many drivers don't follow the rules of the road. The problem at hand involves drivers injuring and killing pedestrians, again and again. When we have story after story after story of drivers hitting pedestrians at cross-walks, on sidewalks, at bus stops, etc., it's clear that the fundamental problem does not lie with pedestrians. The issue is not pedestrians not following the rules.
Even in those cases where pedestrians are crossing at locations without a cross-walk, the issue is usually road design which treats pedestrians as dispensible and actively discourages them from being anywhere near the roads. Roads where motor vehicles were the only users taken into account during the design phase. Roads where cars routinely zip through communities at speeds which are inherently unsafe, regardless of whether pedestrians are following the rules of the road or not. Roads which have so few pedestrian crossings, and usually no pedestrian crossings where pedestrians would want to cross (at bus stops, etc.), that pedestrians are actually made to be unsafe. Drivers demand road networks to cater to them, but somehow we blame pedestrians whenever they try to make roads work for them.
This has nothing to do with railway crossings. Not the same at all.
Agree completely.
But taking the specific mention of bus stops and crossing locations, another low-hanging fruit idea for Vision Zero....
Bus stop rationalization, including removing crosswalks (if close to each other or a traffic light) when bus stops are removed.
Many of us here recognize that there are too many bus stops in close proximity. (less than 250m apart) .
If you went through a rationalization on a major route, you could help pedestrians, transit users and motorists in one fell swoop.
I'll use a practical example.
Victoria Park Avenue, south of Dawes Road.
It has southbound stops at Ripon, Brenton and Medhurst.
These are 188m apart and 188m apart (yes the same).
There really is no need for that.
Because of these frequent stops, an additional traffic light was installed on VP where traffic did not merit it.
It was installed for transit users.
But it only serves one of the stops.
You can't possibly justify lights/crosswalks for each.
One could credibly argue for just one stop, though this would put a distance upwards of 500m between stops, which I understand can be a burden for some.
But rationalizing 3 stops into 2 (replacing Brenton and Medhurst w/Donora) would allow a single light to serve where were 2 crossing points.
It would also make a ponderously slow bus route a bit faster for riders.
This is one important way of thinking about how to create win-win scenarios in which pedestrians, transit riders and motorists are all better off and at the same or lower cost than the way things are currently.
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A more expensive, but important thing to look at long term is breaking up the limited-access subdivisions in suburbia w/more main-road access points.
The idea is not merely a convenience to motorists.
It can also provide access for pedestrians, cyclists, transit users (shorter routes to bus stops), and in some cases accommodate new bus routes.
It also serves to reduce the time a driver needs to spend on that main road, which interestingly may allow for capacity reduction in some cases (ie. road narrowing) by removing a turn lane; or making a 4-lane road, 2 lanes + bike lanes, while not slowing traffic materially.
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In reference to recent death of a child.....
The City is wrong in closing a convenient school access for walkers.
But they do indirectly raise a point.
These access points often exist, because of the circumloquitious routes of subdivision roads.
Barring whole sale fixes to bad urban design, many of these accesses would benefit from the acquisition of one adjacent home, so that they were more high visibility to motorists (and others).