LA Gets Diagonal Crosswalks (again)

In an effort to improve pedestrian safety and traffic flow, the City of Los Angeles recently installed ten diagonal crosswalks/pedestrian scrambles/Barnes dances (just pick one, they all mean the same) around the metro area. We were able to check one out with Glenn Ogura of LADOT near the USC campus to learn a little bit about them. Golly Jeepers! During some light phases, we saw well over 100 people taking over the intersection - just take a gander at the video.

But as it turns out, this new idea is something old. Thanks to some nifty sleuthing, Eric Richardson of blogdowntown uncovered the fact that the downtown LA area was once littered with two dozen diagonal crosswalks in the late 1950s. Removed in 1958 because a city engineer's report found they impeded car traffic flow, the lesson is obvious: let's not wait another fifty years to deploy a tool to keep pedestrians safe.

And if you want to watch something that now seems extra silly now, we did something fun on Barnes Dances early in the year. You have been warned.

http://www.chekpeds.com Christine Berthet

OMG can you imagine . If LA the capital of the car culture can do it , how come NY, the capital of the walKing culture cannot?
Which 60 's era dinosaur at the DOT is preventing it? Come on Sigourney , it's time to throw Alien off the ship!!!!!
Diego Garces

Wow this is pretty cool!!!! I never heard of such thing....thanks for sharing.
brian

cool, except for the cyclists running into pedestrians...bikes belong on the roads, not the sidewalks unless the rider is a kid

i like the ones in sf too, they're very busy (I'm thinking of one in chinatown and one in the financial district) and pedestrians are very safe. cyclists just have to wait like the rest of traffic

for the record, I'm a commuter cyclist myself
Brian33

Diagonal crossings are fantastic for pedestrians. They have been used for many years along Colorado Blvd. in old town Pasadena, CA in a popular outdoor retail/restuarant area used by thousands of pedestrians everyday.
http://www.vabike.org vabike

@brian: I don't know if you commute in southern CA, but "rolling pedestrian" is the dominant mode there in places where there are lots of bikes - beach towns and around college campuses. For every rider in the street, there are probably 10 more on the sidewalk.

In the past year I've spent many hours walking around the USC campus and across that intersection. I never had a close call with a cyclist, or saw one occur.

My own neighborhood in Newport Beach is the same. Most people ride slowly on slow bikes - beach cruisers with coaster brakes. "Pedestrian pace in a pedestrian space" is the norm, and it works.

Same with Segways, skateboards, and electric wheelchairs.

I'm all for vehicular cycling in the street, but bikes can be, and are, ridden safely elsewhere.

If you try to chase those cyclists out of the crosswalks, you'll chase them right back into their cars.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ETCUM2LWJEQ7JTPZMFTSVP3GTU Anonymous

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emrickenoch

If you try to chase those cyclists out of the crosswalks, you'll chase them right back into their cars.
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Alex Brideau III

There's also an "all-walk" (this is the term I'm familiar with; "scramble" sounds like terminology thought up by a frustrated driver) in Glendale on the east side of The Americana shopping mall. In that very auto-oriented city, it seems to work well enough. I haven't seen any confusion when I've been there.

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