
An old idea to make cities more pedestrian-friendly: pedestrian scrambles - curtis
http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-pedestrian-scramble-diagonal-barnes-dance.html
======
fpgaminer
Getting feet on the street is probably one of the most impactful things a city
can do. It reduces pollution, improves the inhabitants' health, improves the
look of the city (people will demand nicer neighborhoods if they have to walk
through them), and it reduces crime (eyes watching).

My wife and I finally live somewhere with high walkability. It's wonderful,
and highly underrated.

Of the many things that affect walkability, intersections aren't generally
high on my list. But we do have one of these pedestrian scrambles near us and,
as pedestrians, it _is_ a lot nicer. It has a rather large impact radius too:
since it's the quickest way to get from the left side of the road to the right
side (or vice versa), we can plan our walking path a couple blocks ahead and
avoid having to cross at other intersections.

But like I said, intersections aren't high on my list for things that make
cities pedestrian-friendly. Having quiet, nice looking side streets that
connect all the various significant locations is the most important thing.

We avoid walking along major roads at all costs. For people who don't walk,
it's hard to appreciate just how loud and droning busy streets can be. Walking
along peaceful side streets is just that; peaceful. Miles can whiz by. But
walking next to major streets is physically draining and turns the walk into a
slog. Major streets also often lack big trees, which provide shaded respites
during the walk in summer, and they're generally dull and give no flavor for
the city.

The next important thing is having a good sprinkling of the necessities
around: places to eat, stores, parks, etc. When things are close by, it's easy
to convince yourself and others to walk instead of drive. "It's a beautiful
day outside and this restaurant is only half a mile that way. Let's go for a
walk!"

Walking around my city makes me feel more connected to it; adds a sense of
pride. It gives you eyes on how the city is really doing; areas that are
improving and areas that need help. Imagine if every denizen had that
perspective!

And for programmers, like most of us here, I can't think of anything better.
It gets you out of the chair, and walking is a great elucidator of thoughts
and bugs.

~~~
ant6n
Transit is also a very big component in making a walkable city, and mixed use
zoning.

These can come together by creating more dense mixed use centers around
transit stations, forming many little town centers -- and overall a
polycentric city.

Then many people will have services, shops and commercial activity (jobs)
within raking distance, as well as the means to reach other centers or
downtown quickly.

~~~
brewdad
Mixed use zoning is my biggest frustration with the suburb I currently live
in. The city has done a nice job of increasing density to levels approaching
that of the the "big city" we share a metro area with. The trouble lies with
the fact that sq mile areas still tend to be entirely residential or
commercial with no intermixing. This leads to driving since there is no good
way to walk to shops or restaurants. It could be so much better.

------
Reason077
London has quite a few intersections that work this way: most famously, Oxford
Circus. But most are not marked in any special way so there's nothing obvious
to let you know you're allowed to cross diagonally.

I suspect the real reason for them is to improve the flow of car traffic at
the expense of pedestrians - since pedestrians now only cross once in each
light cycle instead of twice!

A more worrying recent trend (also in London) is to remove the pedestrian
signals all together. Rather confusing when you first ecounter it - I guess
you're just supposed to cross with the vehicle signals or "when it's clear".

~~~
meredydd
Relevant difference between UK and American pedestrian lights: When you see
the "Green man" in the UK, the cars _will not_ cross your walkway. Contrast
the US, where cars can and do legally cross an active pedestrian walkway
(turning at a green light, turning right on a red light, etc - this tends to
alarm British pedestrians abroad!).

At many junctions, this means no cars may have a green light while the
pedestrians cross - so crossing diagonally is a natural extension.

(However, most large junctions have workarounds - usually turn-only/straight-
only "filter" signals - which allow simultaneous but isolated pedestrian and
car traffic. What's unusual about Oxford Circus is that it doesn't.)

~~~
chrisseaton
> this tends to alarm British pedestrians abroad

Yes I've experienced that alarm when in the US! I've been going to cross at a
green light but cars are still moving across the crossing. Who has right of
way?

~~~
mfoy_
The pedestrian. You just have to master "the predestrian glare" of making
slightly-judgmental eye contact with any drivers that look like they may be
wanting to turn into where you want to walk. :)

~~~
arthuredelstein
I wonder how this will work with self-driving cars. Making eye contact is not
an option.

~~~
crooked-v
The self-driving car detects a human at the edge of the intersection and
hesitates briefly. If the human begins crossing, it waits for them to cross;
if the human doesn't, the car proceeds cautiously through the intersection,
ready to brake smoothly if the human suddenly steps out.

~~~
hosh
Yup, and furthur refinements can detect intent, hesitation, emotion, and other
kinds of social signalling. (Drivers, bikers, and pedestrians will use non-
verbal cues to negotiate; this happens in other contexts too)

~~~
_asummers
The first court cases where someone purposefully throws themselves in front of
a moving self driving car will be interesting. Obviously I hope this never
happens, but it's inevitably going to happen at some point. Hopefully the
sensors are gong to be good enough to be able to save those individuals with
no injuries. Though I guess from the car's perspective, this is identical to
an animal or child darting into traffic, so this will have to be accounted for
in some capacity anyway.

~~~
btown
Is there training data for suicidal pedestrians? Does it even happen often
enough for a vision network to pick up on those queues?

~~~
Sharlin
People purposefully jumping in front of (slowly) moving cars is enough of a
problem in some parts of the world that basically every car has a dashcam now.
Not suicidally though but trying to get compensation.

------
bcoates
These were installed about a year ago across dense, pedestrian-heavy section
of Santa Monica, near where I live. I don't drive and usually travel that area
on foot.

I can't speak for any safety changes, but they're vastly less convenient for
pedestrians. Maybe they're mis-tuned, but the wait to cross is much, much
longer, and due to both the pedestrians and the drivers being mostly tourists
there's a ton of confusion that's not going away with time.

Both cars and pedestrians have a tendency to just follow the vehicle lights.
I'm not even sure what the rules for right turns are supposed to be.

Given the blindingly obvious solution for the area of converting the narrow,
crowded roads to one-way and/or no-turns, this has not turned out well. There
was a trial at a single intersection about a year before the broader
changeover that was a complete mess, but I guess it was one of those fake
trials with a predetermined outcome because it didn't stop the broader roll-
out.

~~~
Moto7451
I'm actually a fan of them but I agree that the city didn't install them
correctly. Probably the biggest mistake was allowing bicycles the right of way
during pedestrian crossing at the 4th and Colorado intersection. That just
turns the whole thing into a game of frogger and encourages cyclists to run
red lights at full speed at the other Scrambles, where they do not have the
right of way.

------
diggan
Nifty, today I learned about the concept of a pedestrian scramble,
interesting.

Speaking about cities becoming more pedestrian-friendly, Barcelona in Spain is
currently experimenting with something they call "Superblocks" which is
supposed to "give streets back to residents".

\-
[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-r...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-
rescue-barcelona-spain-plan-give-streets-back-residents)

\- Previous HN submission:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12237966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12237966)

~~~
jopsen
Makes perfect sense...

Even just closing a few streets to traffic would be neat...

I walk along Union, Polk or Filmore in San Francisco and marble at the fact
that these tiny road with lots of shops aren't closed to traffic.

~~~
btmorex
Polk north of Geary should really just be one lane (with a little room to
maneuver) for deliveries and emergency vehicles. It sort of the perfect street
for that kind of thing: has a ton a foot traffic, it's already slow for
vehicles, and has tons of businesses that could add outdoor street seating.

------
pacaro
Downtown Seattle can be a real pain to drive through at certain times of the
day. Only a handful of cars can turn right at any given intersection because
of the solid wall of pedestrians crossing.

In the U.K. it is normal to have specific phases of the signal on which
pedestrians can cross, and other phases on which cars can turn, so there is
never a phase when pedestrians and vehicles are competing for the same space.

~~~
ithought
This problem is excruciating in West LA which made me think building crosswalk
tunnels could have a substantial effect.

There's a few of these crosswalk tunnels in Westwood.

~~~
sgc
Crosswalk tunnels tend to be dirty (urine etc.) and can be dangerous. I don't
think they are an ideal solution for a city like LA.

~~~
kalleboo
How about crosswalk bridges? These are common here in Japan.
[http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/03/29/24/45_big.jpg](http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/03/29/24/45_big.jpg)

~~~
icebraining
It's often hard to make them accessible, though :(

~~~
MereInterest
Agreed. Not only that, but if they are accessible, the ramps can add another
100 yards of walking or so. I timed it out once, and a full cycle of the
lights occurred during the time that it took to cross the ramp.

~~~
undersuit
I used to use a pedestrian bridge that had a circular ramp to get up both
sides and an elevator. The elevator needed a key though, so I guess you did
have to know where and how to get the key if you need to use the elevator.

------
tgb
I don't get it. How often do you need to cross diagonally? I live in a grid
city and so traveling to another point on the grid usually involves needing to
do X moves North-South and Y moves East-West. You opportunistically cross
whichever direction you happen to get at the light until you only have one
direction left. This means almost no waiting time while needing to walk
diagonally. What's the use case for these?

~~~
greeneggs
The idea is that cars don't have to worry about pedestrians. It speeds up
traffic and lets drivers text safely. Meanwhile pedestrians get to stand and
wait 50% longer at every intersection, because their time doesn't matter. But
the idea is somehow sold as "pedestrian friendly," so for politicians it is a
win-win.

~~~
rahkiin
As a European, there are a couple of things in here that I don't understand.
1) how is texting while driving legal and how can it even be considered
'safe'? 2) Why does a driver not look around for people who cross roads
outside green lights or outside actual crossings? 3) don't drivers need to
look at the car in front of them? How can they keep distance when texting?
What do pedestrian-changes changes about this?

~~~
MereInterest
In most places, it counts as "distracted driving", and is not legal. However,
it is rarely enforced, and many people do so anyways. Whenever I see a car
weaving in and out of its lane, I like to guess whether they are drunk or
texting, because the two have similar effects on driving ability.

------
craigds
Loads of these in NZ cities. They're easily the best type of intersection for
urban centres. We have countdown timers on the crossings so pedestrians know
how long they have (25 seconds), which makes them even more useful, and
prevents people crossing when there's only a few seconds left.

~~~
santaclaus
Are these recent in NZ? I used to work in Wellington and don't remember seeing
these around.

~~~
ppog
Auckland has had a few for at least 10 years. They are used for some of the
very busy intersections on Queen Street (a busy shopping street that also
carries a lot of cars and buses), and seem to work well. Regarding Wellington,
I can think of only one, which I think was put in a few years ago at a 5-way
intersection that had a lot of foot traffic and was quite accident-prone; I
think it's been successful in simplifying how pedestrians use the intersection
and reducing accidents, and doesn't seem to have worsened traffic flow.

~~~
richdougherty
Yeah it seems much simpler to me. I laughed when I read this in the article:

> While the pedestrian scramble may seem complicated at first…

Seems simpler than all the other options!

------
canadianwriter
We have a few of these in Toronto and I absolutely love them. You get a more
than 50% chance of the lights allowing you to cross in the direction you want
as soon as you arrive at the edge of the street!

I would guess it's 75% chance, but I don't know enough about odds to say that
with confidence.

~~~
frandroid
The scrambles in Toronto don't prevent pedestrians from crossing the street on
a green light; the scrambles are there because there's just so much more
pedestrian than car traffic... (I'm thinking Yonge/Dundas here).

Québec City has many as well, but that's because at many intersections,
drivers are so aggressive that you don't actually want to cross the street on
a green light, lest someone take a turn and run you over, so the scrambles
exist for the pedestrians' safety. There, they're actually an abdication to
driver-first culture.

~~~
Avernar
Yes, the Toronto ones made things worse. Now the cars have less time to use
the intersection and turns are still next to impossible because of the
pedestrians.

That's one of the main reasons traffic is so bad in he Toronto core. There's
always a pedestrian crossing on the green so you're lucky if even one car can
make a right and a small miracle if one car can turn left.

Even without the diagonal they should make all intersections have a pedestrian
phase and no pedestrians during greens.

------
mabbo
My mind is blown. It's not called a "Barn Dance", but a "Barne's Dance" after
a specific person, Henry Barnes.

Now I'm starting to wonder what other simple, common phrases in my life are
actually incorrect.

~~~
ZenoArrow
The etymology of words and phrases can be very interesting IMO. One of my
favourites is the origin of the word 'school':

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/School)

"The word school derives from Greek σχολή (scholē), originally meaning
"leisure" and also "that in which leisure is employed"".

~~~
pcrh
In the same vein, one of my favorite etymologies is the origin of the word
"pedant":

"derived from Greek παιδαγωγός, paidagōgós, παιδ- "child" \+ ἀγειν "to lead",
which originally referred to a slave who escorted children to and from school"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedant)

~~~
flukus
A darker one I heard recently is "boondocks", it's a Tagalog/Philipino word
that came into English to basically mean everywhere outside the US
concentration camps in the Philippines.

[http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=boondocks](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=boondocks)

------
bogomipz
The Shibuya crossing in Tokyo has a pretty famous pedestrian scramble:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXtOdSgf6Ic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXtOdSgf6Ic)

------
my_first_acct
In the Bay Area, the intersections of Franklin St. and Webster St. with 8th
St. and 9th St. in Oakland Chinatown are configured this way. You can easily
see the markings in aerial photos (e.g. Google Maps satellite view). The
streets at these intersections are one-way, by the way.

------
melling
Like this famous crossing in Tokyo that you see all the time:

[http://tokyo.for91days.com/shibuya-crossing-and-
hachiko/](http://tokyo.for91days.com/shibuya-crossing-and-hachiko/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGMBSJAwyvw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGMBSJAwyvw)

~~~
khedoros1
That's the one that come to mind for me. It's the only scramble that I've
every actually used myself, but I'm a fan of the idea for areas with heavy
foot traffic.

------
cyberferret
Our small town implemented scramble crossings in the city a couple of years
ago. People didn't ask for them, the council installed them as a seemingly
progressive move.

Overall though, the response has been fairly negative. People just felt
uncomfortable adopting the system and walking diagonally across an
intersection. Drivers in the city are extra frustrated at the longer wait
times at the lights now. There have been loud calls to scrap the entire thing
and go back to the older system.

Not sure if it is the same in other cities, but the old way would let turning
cars through at the same time as pedestrians, but pedestrians always had right
of way, and it was up to the turning car to wait for pedestrians to clear
before completing the turn. Gave some 'see and avoidance' responsibility to
the driver.

With scramble crossings, all that judgement is taken away and everyone has to
stop and wait for the lights to tell them what to do.

~~~
crooked-v
It sounds like your town may just not have enough pedestrians for there to be
a visible benefit from the change.

Scramble crossings only have the most effect where at peak hours there WILL be
people pushing the crosswalk button in both directions every time as soon as
the previous batch stops, so that having crossings for both directions
combined means less overall interruptions for drivers and less double-
crossings for pedestrians.

~~~
cyberferret
I think that is a big factor. Our town population is only about 100,000
people. At these crossings, I am often waiting for only 4 or 5 people to amble
across the intersection.

I can see that in a huge city, it is an efficient way to get people across
city blocks, but here we are simply too small for it to make a difference.

------
nashashmi
The movie Tokyo Drift showed an example of pedestrian scramble. To see so many
pedestrians flood the intersection was awesome.

------
santaclaus
Oakland has these in Chinatown, and they are awesome. I wish they would expand
them out to other parts of the city.

------
boondaburrah
I actually hate scrambles unless crosswalks > 4\. In a "standard" 4-way
intersection, scramble signals make everyone wait much longer to get where
they're going. I say this as a pedestrian most of the time, where I'm
frustrated I can't go when the traffic in the same direction as me is going.
It's also frustrating when the scramble goes off and you're in a car, and
nobody is trying to cross.

However, in a 5+ way intersection, they seem to work great.

I also hate when people argue things are "safer" because they stop people from
going at the same time that could collide. Congratulations, you've now made
people stop and wait, get frustrated, and jaywalk. Trust that people actually
don't _want_ to hit each other, and you'll find they won't.

~~~
mhalle
Perhaps your tone got you downvotes. You are correct about delays, if you
compare the "scramble" to a concurrently signalled intersection where
pedestrians and vehicles move simultaneously in a given direction on green.

Put another way, the maximum latency of a scramble to get to any corner is the
sum of duration of both vehicle moves. For concurrent signals, it is more
complicated, but non-diagonal latency is no worse than the maximum single
vehicle move, and travel on the diagonal has better latency as well.

Scrambles reduce geometric distance to travel, but reliew on "all stop"
exclusive signalling that increases pedestrian delay, which has been shown to
reduce compliance. Scramble is better than exclusive signaling without
scramble of pedestrians, but it precludes turn on red (which is also better
for pedestrians, but constrains traffic flow).

There are various safety arguments for concurrent vs exclusive signalization,
but the argument isn't clear cut, particularly in the presence of turn on red.

------
nthcolumn
The best solution from trials in UK is to turn off the traffic lights
altogether and allow pedestrians to wander freely.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18072259](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18072259)

------
a_imho
Making a city pedestrian friendly is not a technical but a political issue,
thus the hard problem is coming up with incentives for the people holding the
keys. In this particular case they usually have expensive cars and/or employ
chauffeurs.

------
f_allwein
Interesting cultural difference: in Germany, if a car turns and pedestrians
walk straight ahead, crossing the street, the car has to stop, even if it has
a green light. In the UK (and other countries, I suppose), the car has right
of way, so there's a need for a separate phase at traffic lights when all the
cars get a red light and all pedestrians get a green light.

Seems we could speed things up if all countries would give pedestrians the
right of way in this case, as it would eliminate the need for a separate green
phase for pedestrians.

~~~
sgc
In the US the pedestrian does have the right of way in that situation. But
with heavy pedestrian traffic, there is no way to clear vehicle traffic and
there is a snowball effect. This solution attempts to alleviate that issue
more than assist pedestrians.

------
GuiA
There's a few in FiDi in SF. Works pretty well, but the traffic there is
unidirectional, so it's the easiest case to handle I guess.

~~~
bluejekyll
FiDi == Financial District. Most of the streets are narrow as well, unlike say
Market or any of the Soma streets.

------
stretchwithme
First saw scrambles in Ireland in the 90s. Definitely a time saver for
pedestrians. And if they can get on their way faster, so can drivers.

When traffic lights start broadcasting their schedules, vehicles will slow
down to accommodate scrambles and cross traffic.

Traffic lights may even see pedestrians coming (maybe they will wave or
something) and schedule things accordingly.

------
celticninja
I have one of these crossings about 200m from my house. They are very common
in the UK I think (I'm not in London). Seems to be the best way to do it as
all pedestrian traffic is crossing at the same time so the overall delay for
cars is less whilst offering pedestrians the safety and convenience of a
variety of crossing options.

------
jarcoal
They just installed a couple of these in the Pearl district of Portland, OR.

I think on paper it's a great idea, but having only a few in your town means
you need to educate a lot of people, and don't have much time to do it (e.g.
as they are approaching the intersection).

They have signs up explaining how they work, but I still see many confused
pedestrians.

~~~
brewdad
I've used them but had the other people I was with refuse and cross the
traditional way. Leaves me standing at our destination waiting on them to
catch up.

------
whorleater
Huh we had these on the main intersection of our college town, I didn't even
realize there was a special name for them

~~~
maybeiambatman
I am willing to bet good money that you are a fellow Illinois grad

~~~
whorleater
Ahaha, ya got me. Green and Wright!

------
elchief
Near my house is an intersection with an above-ground pedestrian bridge that
goes diagonally across the intersection.

The funny part is that I've seen multiple pedestrians try to use the
intersection diagonally at ground level, even though it is in no way meant to
be used that way

------
agumonkey
Never used one, but I often feels the burden of having to synchronize to two
red lights in a row. You can backward optimize, but well, a legal way to cross
directly could be fun.

------
habosa
Yes! This is an idea I've always had, I even started simulating it but never
finished it (of course).

It's insane to me to see a car unable to make a right turn in city traffic due
to a slow pedestrian. And it's even worse that pedestrians are constantly
unsafe crossing in someone's turning lane.

Taking turns will increase latency for some but I imagine it has to also
increase bandwidth. With the safety benefits, seems like a no brainier at
intersections that are popular for both cars and people.

~~~
Reason077
_It 's insane to me to see a car unable to make a right turn in city traffic
due to a slow pedestrian._

Is this any more "insane" than holding up pedestrians on city streets so that
cars can pass? Is it fair to assume that car driver's time is always more
valuable than that of pedestrians, and thus they should always be given
priority?

~~~
habosa
If we're going to have roads built for cars then a smooth flow of traffic is
beneficial to everyone. The cars that are most dangerous to pedestrians are
the ones making dangerous moves to escape gridlock (in my experience)

------
jccalhoun
The Scramble Light is one of the first things people learn about when they go
to Ball State University.

------
rocky1138
We used to have one of these in Guelph, Ontario. I loved it and lamented the
day the took it away.

------
blacksmythe
These are quite common in Tokyo.

------
eddyl
Hartford, Connecticut has many of these intersections. I enjoy them as a
pedestrian.

------
jopsen
I don't get the fixation with grid planning...

Why not just break up the grids, making blind roads, and large roads without
street parking... Dedicated lanes for bike and buses.

I guess converting a grid to a non-grid is hard. But non-grid cities are so
much nicer..

~~~
notatoad
>I guess converting a grid to a non-grid is hard

more like impossible, unless you want to tear down your city and start again.

~~~
bluejekyll
Shutting down streets to vehicular traffic is always an option. Doesn't get
rid of the grid, but it can create new areas for pedestrians.

------
slaymaker1907
They have one of these in SLC by the University of Utah.

------
gcb0
that's the worst name possible for that.

------
walterstucco
That's exactly how we do it in Italy, if you're smart enough you can cross at
any time, in any direction.

Unfortunately in northern Italy they seem to be a bit more subject the
dictatorship of rigid rules, drivers tend to honk at you if you cross at the
red light, even if you're a walking on a zebra crossing, and everything moves
slower and angrier

Being the cities when it rains the most this is particularly annoying

