Comment on Families took safety into their own hands by painting yellow cross walks. Now, the city of Los Angeles is removing them.

spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I’ll go ahead and do the devil’s advocate thing because I get tired of this algorithmic bubble that feeds us sensational headlines that rile up our emotions. This is a scourge that needs to end.

  As weird as all this seems, there is some level of planning and engineering that goes into designating crosswalks otherwise the city is liable for whatever accidents and mistakes drivers and pedestrians may make. Privately made crossings also need to be studied to ensure they’re not making more danger than less, because there’s a LOT to consider before you can just say “lets make THIS a crossing!” (Road speeds, turns, signals nearby, the locations of existing businesses or parking areas, etc.)

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  • Seaguy05@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    I’ll also add that Seattle had some renegade sidewalks put in by residents as well. The city replied with a statement about paint being the main reason. Anti slip, reflection, ADA requirements to get to the crosswalk, and bicycles/motorcycle considerations being the main reasons to remove them. Seattle did come back through and put in a crosswalk but it took resident action to get the city to do something about it.

    Riding both motorcycles and bicycles I don’t want my tire washing out taking a turn or stopping only to find out the city never put that in.

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    • ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      I firmly believe in community action to get a city focused on the right goals, sadly not many places have active participation from residents, so I’m not at all surprised when a city gets lazy or distracted or doesn’t serve their population. Places where neighborhoods have regular meetings for whatever reasons tend to be squeakier wheels and get the oil faster.

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  • MotoAsh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    Yes except this has happened several times where residents have made it exactly to specifications in areas where crossing is already fully legal.

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  • spankmonkey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You are both technically correct and also describing a system where the average person can make a request and get the results of a study to find out whether a crosswalk can exist where people are already crossing the street. Many of thses kinds of requests are ‘lost’ or actively ignored because the city doesn’t have the budget to even look into the feasibility. That also results in statements about never receiving requests because people don’t know how to get them to the right place to count as a request.

    In my experience cities aren’t liable for very much at all. Sure aren’t liable for potholes destroying tires, why would they be liable for crosswalk injuries?

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    • ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Yes, a lot of the time cities will push back lower-priority requests or expenditures because they’re understaffed, underfunded or in some cases corrupt in some way, but lets not start looking at city planning like some kind of Machiavellian monolith, for the most part they do everything they can to avoid pedestrian problems and liability because most cities do in fact pay a GODDAMN FORTUNE in court costs and settlements and lawsuits from people injured.

      I am not sure what kind of liability you’re referencing, but suing cities for pedestrian injuries is a thriving industry.

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• Naich@lemmings.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Or pedestrians might think they are real and get run over because they aren’t up to proper spec for a crossing.

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  • moody@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Besides being painted in reflective road paint, which these ones are, what else would cause a pedestrian to be run over?

    As long as it looks like a crosswalk, and drivers can see it, I’m not sure what else you would need.

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    • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Depending on location there’s additional stuff, mostly signage notifying drivers. With great variation in requirements depending on the road.

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      • GaMEChld@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Signage is definitely important. You can’t just throw shit down on the pavement and have it be treated as a sign itself.

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    • ameancow@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There can be a ton of factors to consider before a county can decide a crossing is “safe” such as nearby turns, existing signals or traffic changes that could change the velocity of oncoming cars suddenly, business access locations, and likely a thousand other variables that need to be considered.

      Reflective paint on a road doesn’t at all guarantee a car can stop in time, particularly if the traffic is already being affected by other changes, this is why we have whole departments in cities who hire people schooled and educated about these things so we don’t make unsafe road crossings.

      (I am not a city planner/engineer but used to have to pull plans and permits all the time, every single little thing you walk on every day in cities have far more depth and consideration than most people understand, but we would suffer disasters without such codes.)

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