On May 27, the New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote about risk assessment and oil spills. He observed that people take more risks when they believe systems or devices are in place to protect them. His analysis of people’s behavior regarding oil spills was interesting, but what really got my attention was his comment about jaywalking.
“More pedestrians die in crosswalks than when jaywalking,” he wrote.
He must have visited Boston. We’re vindicated!
It turns out that our jaywalking habits are actually protecting us. Until now, however, that wasn’t the reason we did it.
Before Brooks enlightened us, we Bostonians jaywalked because we believed we would be unable to cross a street if we didn’t.
The first problem was the buttons. If you read this column regularly, you’ll have noted that walk buttons are on my list of targets for mass destruction. They’re expensive for one thing, so if the city got rid of them, it could save vast sums, which it could send to the Boston Public Library.
No one believes the buttons work anyway, since Boston does not get high marks for maintaining any piece of equipment or place of interest. Remarkably, city officials admit the buttons purposely don’t work at some crossings, which are given a pedestrian cycle automatically at certain times of day. The problem is we never remember which crossings get the automatic walk signal. So we press buttons everywhere, even when we know we are going to jaywalk. That leaves some cars panting at intersections while the pedestrians are long gone.
Other cities—in fact, every other city I’ve ever visited—use these buttons only at crosswalks where pedestrians are a rare sight. Other cities, in fact, don’t experience much jaywalking. Go to Chicago, for instance. Stand at the corner of Michigan and Chicago avenues near the Water Tower. Look for a button to push, since, as a Bostonian, you can’t break the habit. There isn’t one.
Notice your fellow walkers—there will be dozens waiting with you. But unlike Bostonians, Chicagoans will wait patiently, confident that they’ll get frequent walk signals that last long enough for them to get across the street. Same thing in New York, San Francisco and any other city Bostonians like.
Cambridge goes one step further than other good walking cities. At busy pedestrian intersections it has a system called “leading pedestrian interval.” This means that pedestrians get a few seconds head start in crossing the street before the light turns green for the cars heading in the same direction. Chicago has 40 or 50 of this kind of intersection, said Brian Steele, a spokesman for the Chicago Transportation Department.
But now it turns out that all these pedestrian benefits don’t keep us safe. Instead it appears that Boston’s crazy system of unreliable walk signals and habitual jaywalking is the way to keep pedestrians alive in their tangle with the automobile.
The evidence, as reported by Transportation for America, an organization devoted to expanding transportation options, quantified the most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians. In metro areas with a population of more than 1 million, Boston was safer than 50 other regions. Only Minneapolis-St. Paul was safer than Boston.
Well-behaved pedestrians in Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon and all those other law abiding cities are far more likely to die crossing streets than we are. This is despite the fact that more Boston area residents (4.6 percent) walk to work than in any American city except New York (6 percent). Interestingly New York was also safer for pedestrians than 49 other cities, with a ranking just under Boston’s.
What if the Boston Transportation Department has known all along that inconvenient and possibly broken buttons, unreliable and seemingly random walk signals, and short walk times during which we can barely make it across the street, were secret and clever ploys to get us to jaywalk? Maybe they’ve been keeping us safe all along, and the only thing I’ve done is to accuse them of being wrong-headed. I apologize, and now I promise to jaywalk in earnest.
Isn’t America great?
I’ve driven a scooter in Boston for the last ten years, and not only is jaywalking a traffic flow menace, it’s absolutely dangerous when someone steps out in front of you when you don’t have 2+ tons protecting you. Not only are you liable to severe injuries, what’s worse is the arrogance of these people who stare at you as they cross as soon as the red hand lights up at the cross walk. I remember driving a cab while in college in Boston many, many years ago, and trying to get from Washington to Tremont via Winter street could take as long as a half-hour, simply because of jaywalking. That’s a half-hour for one block. I do a lot of walking, and I make an effort to cross in crosswalks when I have the right of way. So, if you insist on jaywalking, just look out for us folks on scooters…and bikes.
(I’m located in Berkeley, CA) I almost got hit by a car on THREE separate occasions, all while I WAS using a marked, unsignaled crosswalk/intersection. My mom almost hit a guy one time who was crossing a marked crosswalk. It’s ridiculous. What they say about crosswalks being safe are false… 1) there are more cars at intersections with stop signs demanding drivers to stop, who are sometimes too impatient to actually pay attention or care if there are people crossing/waiting to cross the road, and 2) even if they cared sometimes they just can’t see the people. 3) Intersections are also where cars make turns, which are extremely dangerous (two of my aforementioned encounters were when the cars were trying to make left turns) because sometimes drivers can’t see the pedestrians. 4) The last problem with marked unsignaled/signaled crosswalks is that pedestrians will end up assuming they have the right-of-way and that the cars will stop for them (which is obviously untrue). The last time I almost got hit, this car did stop at the intersection trying to make a left turn, I thought the driver saw me crossing but obviously he did not because two seconds later he was ramming on the gas. I had to run and it wasn’t until I was getting to the sidewalk that he slammed on the brakes and said sorry. 5) At big roads/intersections, cars making right turns on red sometimes fail to see pedestrians because other cars obstruct their view, and because – oh my god I hate this one – they are too lazy to stop all the way as they are supposed to when making right turns on red (a teacher of mine apparently got knocked off his bike this way and got some nasty scratches). My experience with jaywalking, on the other hand, was more than pleasant. I fear no oncoming cars because I see them clearly and they go only in one or two distinct directions. I check for all possible turns/drivers making turns without looking. And since I don’t assume that cars will stop for me, I cross the road only when all roads are clear or the cars are obviously too far away to even get near me. I feel that I have much more control over the entire traffic situation this way than when I was at marked crosswalks/intersections where cars don’t necessarily see me or stop for me. The only unsafe thing about jaywalking I can think of is if some parked car suddenly pulls out, but that’s why if you jaywalk you should always look and check clearly. Obviously, this is the same mindset you should have when crossing no matter in or outside a crosswalk, but when on a crosswalk it’s more complicated because even if you have this mindset and did check everything and thought everyone stopped for you, that’s not necessarily the case (as with my experience).
I am aware that this comment is late to the game, however as a Chicagoan I must disagree slightly. Jaywalking in an absolute way of life in the city. Not because we feel we will be able to cross other wise, but simply because we are want to get where we are going, or are too impatient to wait.
However, us true Chicagoans have become masters of considerate jaywalking. If I am on one side of the street, and where I need to be is directly across from me, I’m not going to go to the corner, I will wait for my opening and then go. Now that isn’t to say that there aren’t a few bad apples that go whenever they feel like it, and I personally dislike them as they give jaywalkers a bad name. The reason you see people waiting patiently at the particular intersection that you mentioned is because it is simply impossible to cross there otherwise, given the mass of people and cars. I was walking with a friend from New York and she was astounded by my rampant disregard for “pedestrian crossing protocol.” But it is a way of life. I will cannot begin to tell you the numerous times I have blasted through crowds of tourists just to cross a street against the light, and I am hardly the only one.
In short, Chicagoans love to jay walk.