How to Paint a Crosswalk

https://crosswalksla.org/how-to-guide.html

by clairity • 4 years ago

131 100 4 years ago

crosswalksla.org

wonder_er• 4 years ago

The Collective painted some crosswalks in LA.

The people comprising the government of the city of Los Angeles then spent time and money to remove the crosswalks:

https://twitter.com/CrosswalksLA/status/1527809785545928704

I'm hoping this causes a bit of a Streisand Effect, and thousands of people around the country (and the world!) decide to paint crosswalks themselves.

I'm going to paint some in my city soon!

jonas21• 4 years ago

They removed the crosswalks because they were converting the intersection to a roundabout. You can see in the third photo that there's a circle painted in the middle of the intersection. This had apparently been planned long before the crosswalk was added.

Roundabouts generally make streets safer for pedestrians as they slow the flow of traffic. However, when you add a roundabout, you need to displace the crosswalks a few feet away from the intersection because otherwise the crosswalk leads pedestrians directly into the path of traffic.

Here is what the intersection looks like now:

https://twitter.com/RyFons/status/1527776660187119616/photo/...

It would be nice if Step 1 of the how-to guide was to check with the city to see what it's plans are first. But I guess that wouldn't be as cool.

majormajor• 4 years ago

Are they going to add any crosswalks back?

Where else would it go based on where the curb cuts are?

Rebelgecko4• 4 years ago

Can you really call it a roundabout if they left the stop signs?

ghaff2• 4 years ago

Roundabouts generally make streets safer for pedestrians as they slow the flow of traffic.

I wonder--if it's a busy roundabout. There's a lot going on and drivers are looking at traffic in the roundabout and in the upcoming entrance to the roundabout and mentally calculating if it's safe to merge in. At one particularly busy pair of local roundabouts (aka "the twin doughnuts of death") there's actually been a pedestrian/cyclist stop light installed because otherwise you'd be taking your life in your hands to get across the road.

atchoo• 4 years ago

Roundabouts generally make streets safer for pedestrians as they slow the flow of traffic

They may be safer and reduce top speed when traffic is low but otherwise improve flow so that pedestrians have less opportunity to cross.

It's normal to have pedestrian crossings at our plentiful roundabouts in the UK. If they are particularly busy or multi-lane, they will also have traffic lights to stop traffic just for the pedestrian's benefit.

megablast• 4 years ago

Roundabouts generally make streets safer for pedestrians as they slow the flow of traffic

This is rubbish. Roundabouts are a lot harder to cross, and more unsafe.

Taniwha2• 4 years ago

Remember that in California there is always a nominal crosswalk at EVERY uncontrolled intersection, whether it's painted in or not, they're really just drawing attention to an existing crosswalk, not creating a new one

curiousgal• 4 years ago

Yeah as a pedestrian I wouldn't risk it. The rules are only useful if everyone follows them. Being right is not worth it.

gen3• 4 years ago

Reminds me of the story of Richard Ankroms, who installed his own Interstate 5 exit sign. It hung for 8 years. Video of the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clgl63CWOkM

https://www.laweekly.com/richard-ankroms-freeway-art-caltran...

mhb5• 4 years ago

Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices

https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009/pdf_index.htm

glasshug• 4 years ago

See in particular, §3B.18 Crosswalk Markings https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009r1r2/part3/part3b.htm#sec...

One interesting subtlety unnoticed on the L.A. Crosswalk site:

The design of the lines and gaps should avoid the wheel paths if possible [...]

onphonenow9• 4 years ago

Interesting.

Can folks killed by these efforts sue the Crosswalk Collective?

I think if you are going to do things like this you probably should also take the liability costs as well.

neves• 4 years ago

How could someone be killed by extra crosswalks?

onphonenow9• 4 years ago

Very easily.

Crosswalks are designed to create reasonable expectations where peds can cross a roadway safely.

They are designed to channelize ped crossings to specific areas which are safer to cross - so for example with good sightlines, with appropriate stop markers with good speeds (slower). Crosswalks are often combined with other traffic calming measures (stop signs, stop lines at the right distance, road narrowing features, tree clearing etc).

For example, they are recommending adding these at "dangerous" intersections. So for example, a crossing that occurs just after a bend (we have one near my house). This is pretty horrifying, because by encouraging peds to cross where there is a bend blocking sightlines, those peds are at MUCH greater risk of injury or death.

Similarly, speeds over 40mph, you wouldn't generally do a a painted x-walk. Similarly multilane without appropriate controls. For example, they have a crosswalk painted 6 inches from a stop line. In a road with 2 lanes of traffic, you can't have have stopline that close or no stopline, because the car in lane 2 or 1 does not have enough of a sightline to see that a pedestrian is crossing and so the risks go way up if you attract pedestrians to cross in that situation (a car will generally be shielding the view when they stop that close).

The list goes on. In short, by painting crosswalks at "dangerous" intersections (high speeds, poor sightlines, etc) you attract pedestrian crossings there. This will get folks killed.

If a city did this, they might be sued for violating guidelines on crosswalk placement. What they normally would do is evaluate a bunch of things, then do OTHER things to increase safety at the crossing (lots of things), THEN paint the crosswalk.

Why do these guys get a free pass to kill people for an ego trip?

brewdad• 4 years ago

That's the beauty of this project. By law, every intersection in California is a crosswalk regardless of whether or not there is any paint. This new paint stands as a reminder to drivers but the driver would be at fault even if there were no markings on the road.

onphonenow9• 4 years ago

As long as they can sued and bankrupted for the fatalities they cause by doing this I'm fine with that.

However, if they want to start messing with roadways and won't accept responsibility I'm not.

As to the driver always being at fault, obviously that is incorrect and often particularly so in what are considered "dangerous" intersections. In fact, the pedestrian may have to pay the driver in some cases even if they are the ones seriously injured and the driver was not.

lalopalota2• 4 years ago

If a pedestrian + vehicle collision occurs, the fault is with either the pedestrian or the driver of the vehicle.

People wont be killed by paint on the road (unless they slip on it while wet, maybe?).

halffaday• 4 years ago

Paint = safety is a horribly misguided heuristic. Playing traffic engineer is just as bad an idea as playing dentist or attorney. Just don’t.

onphonenow9• 4 years ago

Exactly. The standard heuristic is to put the paint down AFTER increasing safety through OTHER measures.

Crosswalks are literally used as a signal to pedestrians that this is a recommended crossing point that probably meets standards (that make it very likely a driver would be entirely at fault if they hit you crossing there but also very possible for them to avoid hitting you if they are following the law).

clairity• 4 years ago

the guide has a section on "How to select an intersection", which considers the other measures like a stop sign and a limit line (common at LA intersections, but not universal).

note that pedestrians have right-of-way at every intersection unless explicitly marked otherwise, regardless of crosswalk markings, so drivers should be looking for pedestrians at every intersection.

mike_d• 4 years ago

Yup. They aren't going to be super jazzed when someone adds "Speed Limit 60 MPH" signs in retaliation.

blenderdt• 4 years ago

Also in most countries paint is just a visual sign not a legal one. The signs before a crosswalk are the legal ones. The paint will not be visible in rain or snow for example.

londons_explore• 4 years ago

When a real traffic engineer comes along, how many of these crosswalks end up being kept, and how many removed?

I suspect that many may be kept because it's a good plan to have a crosswalk there, but traffic engineers don't have enough time or budget to make all the changes to the road they'd like to.

occz• 4 years ago

Playing traffic engineer is just as bad an idea as playing dentist or attorney.

Given the absolutely abysmal track record of traffic engineers in the U.S as far as pedestrian safety goes, I hardly think you could do any worse by trying to do their job for them.

79522• 4 years ago

I think building up expertise and understanding at a lower level is brilliant. Brushing your teeth is important (to stretch your comparison).

There are implicit assumptions in highway standards that people don't really understand. Engineers balance cost, safety, traffic flow, pedestrian flow etc. It is optimal within a particular set of assumptions about those things. The public should have more power to influence that balance at a local level.

I agree that this was misguided, but the impulse is good. Ideally we would have simple apps that could help people plan transport in their communities and understand the risks better. The problem of badly designed roads is too large to be solved by highway engineers alone. And the fact that we have so many terrible roads is not a good indorsement of the status quo.

throwaway0a5e3• 4 years ago

Engineers balance cost, safety, traffic flow

And they generally don't wanna talk about it because lord knows a subset of the public throws a fit once you start trying to draw a line in the safety sand.

TheCoelacanth3• 4 years ago

Traffic engineers consistently prioritize traffic flow above all else. Civil disobedience is one of the few tools pedestrians have to fight back.

_the_inflator• 4 years ago

It can be dangerous, too. For example if an accident happens, a false sign could harm your otherwise legitimate claims.

I see the moral idea and simplicity behind it, however not quite sure about law.

ithkuil• 4 years ago

Surely if you're not aware that the sign is fake you shouldn't be punished because somebody installed a fake sign right?

throwaway0a5e3• 4 years ago

Thank you for perfectly encapsulating a large part of why municipalities can't get anything done for a reasonable price these days.

There's a lot of "copy paste engineering" that anyone with a little care can do with an acceptable success rate but we prevent them from doing "because liability". So then we go engage the services of an engineering firm which does the copy paste, makes the client sign some boilerplate that disclaims most of the liability anyway and charges a lot of money for the privilege.

heax2• 4 years ago

For cyclists and motorcycles they create additional road hazards by adding paint that gets as slippery as ice when wet. Thanks for nothing.

seszett• 4 years ago

Paint that doesn't get slippery exists. Here, bike lanes are painted red (not the border of the lanes, but the lane itself) and it works just fine. If your city uses bad paint you might be able to convince them to change it.

heax2• 4 years ago

I know it exists and it is used here everywhere. But those from the article are just using some latex paint, creating road hazards in their self righteous cause.

Rebelgecko4• 4 years ago

The paint they use on the streets has equivalent or better traction than the asphalt. That's why there hasn't been a huge increase in cyclists falling over when the bike lanes get totally filled in with paint (e.g. the first one here: https://www.losgatosca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/20028/Green-b...)

josephcsible• 4 years ago

You're assuming that these will use the same paint that legitimate crosswalks do.

ssl232• 4 years ago

This wouldn't work in the UK where Zebra crossings like this need to be accompanied by yellow "lollypop" lights.

joppy2• 4 years ago

I applied to my local council (in Australia) for a pedestrian crossing to be painted somewhere near my home where a footpath from a park comes out onto the road, and pedestrians need to cross to the other side of the road. Seemed like a real no-brainer to me.

I got a letter back several months later saying that they had reviewed my request, measured the foot traffic in the area on several days, and decided to not paint a pedestrian crossing because there was low enough pedestrian traffic that cars would get complacent and ignore it (therefore endangering pedestrians who would have expectations that cars would stop at a pedestrian crossing).

It's the first time I realised there is actually a lot of though that goes into where to place a pedestrian crossing, and when to not place one.

pixiemaster• 4 years ago

at least a lot of thought about how to avoid creating a pedestrian friendly environment

pas2• 4 years ago

in that case that would require something like a traffic light with a button for the rare pedestrians.

or, of course, a complete reversal of the car-centrism of the last century, but this quick fix was probably not in the toolbox of that particular bureau.

Handytinge• 4 years ago

Thankfully Australia is (for the most part) pretty pedestrian friendly.

actionablefiber• 4 years ago

This is a constant chicken-and-egg problem. Why would there be much foot traffic if pedestrians perceive that the local government thinks so little of them that it won't put down paint to remind the giant high-speed metal boxes not to kill them?

joppy2• 4 years ago

To be clear, it was a very low-traffic (both car and foot) location - neither would expect to encounter each other almost ever. I thought the decision to not encourage pedestrians into a false sense of security was a sensible one.

runarberg4• 4 years ago

I wonder if it is this simple. Perhaps most drivers will learn to ignore the crosswalk, but not all. Eventually someone will notice a crossing pedestrian and they will be more likely to stop when there is painted crosswalk, adding convenience for pedestrians.

There is also the reverse perspective your local government failed to consider. If drivers get complacent and ignore potential pedestrians so will pedestrians learn to recognize that drivers might not stop and cross with added awareness (I actually live by one such crosswalk). In addition there might be a risk factor of forcing pedestrians to learn the lesson that it is OK to cross on unmarked locations.

Your initial no-brainer might have been wrong, but your local official’s explanation sounds equally malinformed.

TheCoelacanth3• 4 years ago

A lot of thought goes into making it possible for drivers to drive as fast as possible at all times and ignore most traffic laws.

If drivers aren't stopping for pedestrians at a place where pedestrians are legally allowed to cross (in most countries, the presence of a marked crosswalk does not affect this), then the solution should be to get the drivers to stop, not to stop people from crossing.

chmod7752• 4 years ago

At my university in Berlin, students, desiring an easy connection between two major parts of the campus, painted a crosswalk across the "Straße des 17. Juni"[0] every day. And every day police would come and remove it.[1]

This went on until finally the government relented and there's now a permanent pedestrian crossing with signal lights.[2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stra%C3%9Fe_des_17._Juni

[1] https://books.google.de/books?id=eqYI9QTu-y8C&pg=PA92&lpg=PA...

[2] https://www.google.com/maps/place/52%C2%B030'46.6%22N+13%C2%...

kiliantics• 4 years ago

I love Berlin for how people really own their democracy and freedom there by taking it into their own hands and living it, not just talking about it while the government silently removes all their rights as happens in the US.

boruto• 4 years ago

Is there anyway to request for a cross walk or a light in Berlin. There is a street near my house, would like to apply if it is straight forward

chmod7752• 4 years ago

Here's some contact information: https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/verkehr/verkehrsplanung/fussve...

Here's some things to look out for: https://www.stvo2go.de/fussgaengerueberweg-einrichten/

blisterpeanuts• 4 years ago

Interesting. During the summer between college and grad school, I worked in a public park in St. Louis and one day we had to paint a crosswalk. The older guys, who had high school degrees (if that) tasked me with figuring out the distance between stripes, which proved surprisingly complicated. The stripes needed to be evenly spaced and uniform in size.

Lacking a calculator (no mobile phones in those days) and armed only with a tape measure, a pencil and a piece of paper, I thus managed to chalk out evenly spaced stripes which they proceeded to paint more or less as described in the article. I came away with renewed respect for people who did this type of work.

It also drove home just how important the maths are even in manual labor. Nothing good can come of dumbing down math education in secondary schools.

rendall• 4 years ago

I am reminded of this open letter from a civil engineer accusing the city of Springfield, Massachusetts of gross negligence for refusing to put a crosswalk between the main library and its parking lot, directly across the street.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/5/29/an-open-letter...

stagas• 4 years ago

In Barcelona, where I used to live, you never have to think about cars if you are a pedestrian. There are two kinds of crosswalks. Those with traffic lights and those without and they're marked differently. In both cases, you never have to look if there's a car coming. If it's green, you simply cross. At the crosswalks without a traffic light, the drivers must slow down and anticipate your decision while they see you near the first sidewalk about to cross. They have to let you go first and then wait until you are standing on the next sidewalk across the street before they go, regardless if there's space for them after you moved ahead. You never have to think about it, if your foot goes on the crosswalk, it's certain that cars around, buses, everything will have stopped even before that. That said, when the cars light is green they go full speed because they also know that there is zero possibility for a pedestrian to jaywalk (and get pretty mad if you try to, even for very small road with very small distance between the sidewalks and good visibility, everybody waits). That system works amazingly well for both pedestrians and cars because it's the most efficient and safe and I'm surprised it's not everywhere.

jimmydeans• 4 years ago

We raise taxes so we can build rainbow crosswalks.

How to Paint a Crosswalk

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