[Vision2020] Crosswalk near Wendys

[g. crabtree]

Another suggestion might be to lose the crosswalk altogether, enforce jay 
walking regulations along this stretch of state highway (not city street) 
and encourage the little darlings to us the well lit, well designated 
crosswalks at Line st. and at Perimeter. We are not talking about any major 
hardship in that the furthest anyone might have to alter there route is by 
far less than a quarter mile.
I realize that one of the only lessons of geometry that all students learn 
universally is the one about a straight line being the shortest distance 
between two points but to continue to encourage this along this length of 
road is likely to result in a bad outcome. Spending scare resources and 
impeding the flow of traffic seems a poor idea when such a simple and cost 
effective solution is at hand.

gc
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com>
To: "Vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 8:46 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Crosswalk near Wendys


> My apologies if this has been discussed here before, but I wanted to state 
> my opinions on this.
>
> I worry that someday some person (probably a college student) is going to 
> be seriously injured or killed at this crosswalk.  It has all the makings 
> of a death trap.  It's on one of the few four-lane streets (five, really) 
> around with a higher-than-average-in-Moscow speed limit.  I've seen so 
> many drivers just cruise on through without even thinking about it being a 
> crosswalk, and I've also seen people just pop up from the slight incline 
> that leads to it's entrance on the UI side and just start hoofing it 
> across the road.  I'm aware of the dangers here, and watch it closely, and 
> I've still been surprised to find someone in the crosswalk there.  They 
> either popped up like we're playing whack-a-mole from the UI side or they 
> were hidden by the other cars that were just blithely driving through the 
> crosswalk ahead of them or behind them.  The signs are nice, but they are 
> not enough.
>
> I appreciate the need for a crosswalk there, since you either have to 
> jaywalk or walk a block in either direction or more to get to a valid 
> crosswalk.  As it stands, though, I think we'd be safer letting them 
> jaywalk - at least they would be cautious of the traffic.  With a legal 
> crosswalk there, the old UI-taught behavior of "just walk out there, 
> they'll stop" appears to kick in.
>
> Some minor suggestions that might help would include a yellow light 
> suspended over the crosswalk, or maybe spotlights on both sides so we can 
> see better at night, or possibly a concrete "staging platform" that is 
> easily visible amongst the grass so we have a better idea where to look 
> ahead of time.  A better idea would probably be to just put a light there, 
> one that turns red only if a pedestrian pushes the button.
>
> Anyone have any other ideas?  Are there plans for something to happen 
> there that just haven't been completed yet?
>
> Paul
>
> =====================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the 
> communities of the Palouse since 1994.   http://www.fsr.net 
> mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> ====================================================
>