How much extra effort and delay should we expect of people who walk near cars? Right now, our Public Works (PW) Department is answering that question, but you might not like the answer. At the request of our City Council, PW is developing an Intersection Access Policy (IAP) which will define, at signalized intersections, how much burden we’re going to place on people walking so as not to delay drivers.
Why is an Intersection Access Policy important? When you walk around town and reach the end of a sidewalk where there’s a signalized intersection, the first thing you need to do is figure out how it works. Some questions that everyone has to ask in order to use each intersection are:
- Is there a beg button?
- If there is, is it there to request a walk signal or is it to ensure there’s an audible signal for the visually impaired? (impossible to tell, since they look exactly the same)
- If it does work, do I need to push it? Or, has anyone else at the intersection heading in the same or opposite direction already pressed it? (Impossible to tell, since there’s no indication if it’s been requested)If someone has pushed it, are there different Walk signals for each side of the street? (impossible to tell)
- If I arrive and push it while it’s green for drivers in my direction, will I still have to wait an entire light cycle before I get to walk across the street? Or, is there time for me to dart across on the green light? (impossible to tell)
- When I do get a walk signal, will there be a leading pedestrian light, which increases safety by giving people walking a ‘head start’?
- How much time will I have to cross? Will there be a countdown? If so, how long?
Can you imagine if we put drivers through this maze of changing conditions at every single intersection? Of course not! Yet we expect everyone walking, including children, parents pushing strollers or herding young ones, disabled people using mobility devices, and everyone just trying to walk to negotiate this byzantine flow chart at every single intersection.
Why are our intersections designed so that it’s so much easier to get around in a car than on foot? Why do we have consistent, predictable behavior for drivers but not for people walking? Aren’t we supposed to be discouraging driving and encouraging more active transportation? Our PW department has a chance to answer all these questions and equalize access with their IEP, but frankly, they’re not doing that. In fact, this policy might be making things worse. It’s probable that implementing this policy will actually introduce more inconsistency for people walking by implementing ‘time of day’ settings. Why haven’t we had the conversation around whether we value consistent intersection behavior for people walking over efficiency for motorists? This policy assumes that we’ve already decided that efficiency is king, even though our governing bodies have affirmed over and over again that we prioritize safety and non-motorized transportation in our policies. We’ve affirmed this in our Vision Zero Statement, our Transportation Choices Plan, our Climate plan, and the draft versions of our General Plan and Active Transportation Plan.
Signalized intersections are complicated. In Alameda, we have a mix of old and new signal technology. It’s expensive and time-consuming to upgrade. We know we won’t get to a nirvana for pedestrians overnight. This policy should at least include a description of what the vision and end goal is, and a plan to get there. It should prescribe:
- How our intersections will work from a non-drivers point of view (people walking and biking).
- What are the default and consistent operating settings that non-drivers should expect — which is the same expectation that drivers have.
- What settings are safest and not just which are most efficient for drivers.
- Under what circumstances will we deviate from the above standards and why.
In all fairness, developing a policy like this probably shouldn’t be done by a PW department. They’ve done a fine job of developing an efficient policy, which is what engineers do. The problem is that we’re not trying to maximize efficiency for drivers here. We’re reclaiming some of our ability to walk around cars more freely. We’ve sacrificed that freedom (and safety) to driver efficiency and convenience. The professionals trained to maximize driver efficiency aren’t the ones who should be developing a policy that doesn’t do that. It’s not a reasonable ask. This effort really should be led by Planning, then executed by PW.
Fortunately, other (larger) cities have already done a lot of the policy work on this subject. We can see the results of those policies and not reinvent the wheel. An excellent example we should be mimicking is from the Seattle DOT who wrote this blog explaining their new policy, which answers all of the questions posed above.
We hope our Council and staff will revisit their draft policy and develop something that meets our stated objectives, instead of the bare minimum that drivers won’t get too angry about.