557 crossswalks

Let's take a minute to talk about shitty street design for pedestrians. The crosswalks in the photo above are temporary, so I can only hope that what I'm about to point out isn't really going to happen. But do you see what they did there?

There used to be a big old crosswalk that followed Market Street. Now they're asking you to cross 15th, then Sanchez. To go from a straight line to a big curve. If you're sitting in a city truck looking at the intersection, that might make perfect sense. They're shorter, safer stretches to cross. But if you're walking? 

Fuck you! Give us a goddamn straight line to walk.

Since we're on the subject, let's talk about 16th and Market. Over the past 18 years, I've walked through this intersection hundreds of times, and learned the very hard way, if you don't start crossing the intersection during the red light, you will be waiting in the middle for another light cycle. Meanwhile, traffic engineers have added pedestrian safety areas, and changed which street gets the green first. None of which made it any less than a five minute ordeal to cross the street. In the city's supposedly busiest pedestrian area. Two light cycles, every time. And it's a three way intersection, so you're waiting for three lights. Again.

And then on to the main event. The corner of Castro, Market, and 17th. Boy, have they fucked this one up in the name of pedestrian safety. A few years ago, they shut down a bit of 17th to make a pedestrian plaza. And that's about all they've gotten right.

They eliminated the bike lane that used to run down 17th, forcing cyclists to cut through a gas station. They rejiggered the crosswalks to make the walking distances further, then made them smaller again. They completely eliminated a concrete median, so now when walking home I have to cross the street, then cross back with no crosswalk to walk through the little triangle park. Here's what it used to look like.

Sorry, I didn't go to engineering school, I'm just a walker. And practice tells me being forced to walk further, being more exposed to traffic, and having to push a button to get the light to change all discourage walking. WTF, DPW?

Well, for those of us nervous that adding more people to the earth will only make our current path of destruction faster, good news!

It looks like our plastic and toxic chemical habit is doing the work for us. Sperm is down 50% in the past 20 years.

Thanks for reading! Here's more! The Green Door is about Tongva on Catalina Island,  I did the illustrations.