Imagine, if you will, a perfectly normal intersection at SFU. There are cheerful pedestrians walking to UniverCity, Blusson, or the SFU Exchange. If you want to take the fastest-possible route to UniverCity, you can take one of the crosswalks and then go diagonally for a few meters. That saves you about 15 seconds of the invaluable time you have left on this mortal coil, neat!
Well now, the crosswalks at the intersection of Arts and East Campus Road have been redrawn. But pedestrians will do as pedestrians do, from jumping the turnstiles in NYC to jaywalking in front of the R5 at SFU. The most recent time I crossed the intersection, the sea of jaywalkers was denser than the Great Nile Migration. The pedestrian consensus is in: screw your guardrails and some person’s plants, people are taking the short way.
The problem is when car-centric urban planning doesn’t take pedestrians into account it sometimes leads to dangerous ends with more pedestrian accidents. Of course, in response barriers were installed along with a mocking, god-awful pedestrian-symbol sign over the new crosswalk. The Pythagorean theorem all taught us that it takes longer to cross when there are no diagonals.
A new paint job isn’t going to stop a desire path from forming via natural traffic. It’s poor design that forces people to choose between convenience and safety, and it’s sad to see at our campus.
