• pressedhams@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 days ago

    Amazing. Somewhere it gets into 110-120 degrees in the summer will try and force people to stand in the sun to wait for traffic.

    Never consider a pedestrian bridge, the cost! That could maybe be covered in solar panels to add shade and power the intersection?

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      To be honest pedestrian bridges suck. Lots of people just can’t use them (mobility issues/parents with strollers/cyclists/…), they add a non-insignificant climb and descent to your journey, and they look depressing. They should only be a last resort, e.g. for highway crossings.

      The real (short-term) solution is to narrow the stroad to just one lane in each direction (which makes room for cycle lanes or light rail), and add regular crossings (or at least reasonably timed traffic lights). The long-term solution is to get rid of personal cars in urban areas altogether.

      • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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        6 days ago

        While walking around this town, most of the places the tourist go are along one central corridor which is also the primary highway through town. It seems obvious to reroute the highway away from the core, and then the main corridor would be perfect for a tram or frequent bus with bike lanes. People could freely walk side to side, and from the bottom of the hill to the top. It would boost commerce, it would enable people to get around better…

        But I suppose people might have to consider not driving to their destination.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I often wished for a pedestrian bridge at a few different spots. Waiting 5 minutes to cross sucks worse than a climb.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 days ago

          it’s possible to make perfectly nice underpasses instead, so long as the geography allows for it. And conveniently areas that are unfriendly to pedestrians almost always have lots of room to spare.

        • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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          5 days ago

          When waiting on such long intersections I often wish to change the light timings and/or dig up the entire god damn stroad and/or throw oil & car execs in prison. But sure, a pedestrian bridge would be an improvement too I suppose.

      • null@lemmy.org
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        6 days ago

        The only part of a pedestrian crossing I find ugly is the ridiculously long accessibility ramp which ironically you point out as not being accessible or makes the travel distance much longer.

    • fizzle@quokk.au
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      6 days ago

      Exactly.

      I doubt they’re collecting any data to determine whether this actually reduced congestion. It’s just an ideological position.

    • racoon@lemmy.ml
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      5 days ago

      what’s wrong with the traditional “pedestrain” spelling? pedestrain comes from latin pes, pedes, meaning ‘foot’ and the English word “train” meaning the vehicle. It is a metaphor based on the resemblance of the queue formed of slow walkers clogging the pavements or collapsing the traffic while crossing on the pedestrain crossings

  • AspieEgg@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 days ago

    This city is so poorly designed for both pedestrians and cars. The road that this crossing is at is the main road through the town and the entrance to the town from the nearest highway. It also has parking on it for the main tourist part of town. If you’re driving, you will get stuck in traffic because of how many cars there are, and the fact that everyone is trying to park. If you’re a pedestrian, you will almost certainly want to cross this street several times on your visit to Sedona, but you have to cross an insanely congested street.

    And that isn’t even mentioning all the off-road vehicles that are on the roads, the hundreds of Jeep tour vehicles, etc.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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      5 days ago

      Why they haven’t rerouted the highway around baffles me. Pedestrians are punished for wanting to cross the street to visit the other shops. Cars are wanting to get through. It’s asinine.

  • LumiNocta@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    Even if there are alot of cars in a city and such, what’s up with American roads that make it so anti pedestrian. I mean in many European countries main roads are much friendlier to pedestrians. Specifically the Netherlands are quite good at prioritizing bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      4 days ago

      american traffic design is almost explicitly hostile towards literally everyone except the rich people who profit from it, nothing about it is in any way beneficial to any user of the infrastructure, in any way whatsoever.
      It sounds like hyperbole but seriously, it’s INSANE to have massive highways with traffic at a standstill, there’s no fucking excuse for it.

      I like to say that the nordics historically is what it looks like when you truly build car-centric infrastructure: We recognize that a lot of people cannot and should not drive, and that cars on roads fundamentally can only support a certain amount of people; thus we spend just enough money on non-car infrastructure that the roads don’t get clogged and that people who can’t or shouldn’t drive can baseline get by.
      Then when we build the actually interesting car infrastructure we do a magical thing called “thinking about the design”, so generally every feature of a road, including where it’s placed and how it connects to other roads, has a reason for being designed that way. This means we’re not pissing away money on objectively useless or even actively detrimental infrastructure, and can instead spend it on making it easier to drive.

    • MML@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      Pedestrian = poor. No you can’t just go for a nice jog in your neighborhood even when you have a car, you have to drive to the park.

  • magikmw@piefed.social
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    6 days ago

    This reminds me of a realisation I had that “pedestrian” in english is deregatory.

    The word’s direct translation to polish definitely isn’t. Huh.

    • paul@lemmy.org
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      5 days ago

      Like any word it’s used derogatorily by people who are themselves derogatory about everything.

      The word itself isn’t derogatory, it just means foot-traveller. We don’t really have a similar term for vehicle or bicycle travel but that’s only because when it was created there was only pedestrian (foot-traveller) and equestrian (horse-travel).

      Furthermore, the actual definitions of those words don’t denote the type of travel but rather anything that relates to that type of travel. So you can have pedestrian crossings, equestrian centres etc.

      • kakler bitmap@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        The word is literally derogatory:

        Adjective ‐ Lacking in distinction or imaginativeness; ordinary; commonplace; dull; insipid; prosaic.

        “pedestrian prose”

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techOP
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      5 days ago

      None of this surprises me. Spent the last couple days here and it’s all very much “you will enjoy this our way or its illegal”. Do many stupid tiny laws that make it almost impossible to enjoy.

      We have big bikeways! But no ebikes or anything powered. Also I don’t want them actually connecting to anything.

      Don’t drink more than they approve. Don’t walk between properties. Don’t take photos here, don’t do this and that. It’s so so so clearly boomer paradise. Anyone who thinks fun might be slightly different than their way should be banned.

      • Revolver1864@piefed.social
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        5 days ago

        Well, it’s going to cost them quite a bit of money to have it their way when Amagansett is done with them lol.