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NON SEQUITUR: Letters to the editor about whatever
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
NON SEQUITUR: Letters to the editor about whatever
(Editor's note: We get lots of e-mail. Some of it is about stuff we've written, which is cool. Some of it is general bitching about the city, which is fine, too. But then there's the rest: chain e-mails, press releases, solicitations, ruminations on Obama's secret socialist plans, letters imploring us to find Jesus, etc. Good stuff all, but sometimes it's hard to find a place for it in the paper, what with the diminishing page counts and all. And that's a goddamn shame. So, without further ado, allow us to present the first-ever Clog addition Non Sequitur, letters to the editor about whatever. This letter, presented exactly as it hit our inbox, comes from Randy R., a hero and a gentleman from Washington Square. Enjoy!)
Green light at the corner of 7th and Market. Morning rush hour. A delivery truck is in front of my car. But it can't make the right turn onto Market Street because a horde of pedestrians is passing through the crosswalk. As usual, they're taking their sweet time, as if this is a lazy morning stroll in the park. They keep coming, like a disinterested herd of bison, with no regard for the line of traffic waiting on them. The light is now yellow. The truck can't move, which means I can't move—nor can the ever-increasing trail of cars behind me. I'm watching the faces of every one of these pedestrians. Not one offers even a cursory glance at the mounting vehicular logjam to which they're contributing. The light goes red. The truck bolts around the corner. I'm still on 7th Street. One green light—one vehicle through. In my frustration, I honk my horn—not at the truck driver, but at the oblivious mass that—along with Philadelphia's perpetual constructi on and its medieval prohibition on right-on-red—helps create the city's daily congestion.
A police officer sipping his coffee at the corner as he watches the entire sequence walks around to the driver's side of my car. Signaling me to lower the window, he then chews me out in a tone just shy of a yell. I tell him that I was honking at the pedestrians exhibiting not the slightest ounce of urgency in crossing the street and holding up an entire line of traffic. âPedestrians have the right of way!â he snaps. Sure they do. But we motorists also have to get to work—and it would be the decent thing to do, as well as beneficial to the city's ubiquitous traffic problem, if pedestrians would hustle as half a dozen or more automobiles sit paralyzed in their path. The police officer continues angrily that I'm guilty of âunauthorized use of a car horn.â Apart from the rather sizeable gray area concerning how, from whom, and, most critically, how long it takes a driver to obtain authorization to honk the car horn in relation to its timely use, I muse to myself that this entire problem could be eradicated if, instead of reprimanding motorists at the mercy of pedestrian sloth, the officer could suggest to the street-crossers that they make an effort not to render intersection turns nigh unto impossible.
I walked many a mile as a full-time pedestrian in Philadelphia, so I've seen life in the slow lane from both sides. And when I was hoofing it to work, or any destination on the far side of an intersection, I generally operated under the imperative that insouciance and asphalt don't mix—but that apparently made me an anomaly: a 2005 study from Portland State University reported that the average walking speed for pedestrians under sixty years of age—the vast majority of people on whom I was waiting at the green light—was 4.85 ft/sec, which means that they should traverse the 64-foot-wide Market Street in approximately 13.2 seconds. I twice timed myself crossing the same street and found that, using my considerate they're-waiting-on-me stride, I made it from curb to curb in 11 seconds. Now, an improvement of 2.2 seconds doesn't seem like a lot, but when extrapolated across every pedestrian who leaves the each side of the street at a different point in time at each intersection, and then repeated at each succeeding intersection encountered, the data clearly indicate that the average pedestrian doesn't give a rat's ass about clogging traffic.
Which is why I suggest that pedestrians should have 11 seconds to cross Market Street before they're fair game. (Narrower streets would require accordingly less time.) Many of we city dwellers have twenty- or thirty-mile drives to the office, and these lethargic slugs make an all-consuming ordeal out of merely getting to the expressways. Let's see if they can put a little courteous oomph in their step when a three-thousand-pound vehicle that's already waited the majority of a green-red cycle is bearing down on them like a Brunswick on a baby split in the tenth frame. That seems just and equitable to me.
We could examine the psychology behind why most pedestrians show apathy in the face of idling traffic: Is it pure indolence? A sense of entitlement to the green light? The culture of insensitivity that has obliterated the Golden Rule? But I never really cared why the chicken crossed the road—as long as he did it quickly and got the hell out of my way.
I wasted too much time reading this in its entirety. Captain Rush-rush here could have been more courteous and saved my time by being more concise. I can boil your point down to one sentence: People walking make me mad and I want to run them over because there a lot of them and they are slower than my car. You're welcome.
"A sense of entitlement to the green light?" Philadelphia has its share citizens feeling entitlements but none are greater than those driving the motor vehicles through a highly residential city.
Wow. Just Wow. My main question is: why is he living in the city if he has a 30 mile commute? I feel for you, the editors, who have to read this garbage day after day (and you probably can't really comment back to these crazy people).
Market Street is 4 lanes wide and the crosswalk is heavily used at that intersection because pedestrians are coming and going from the Federal complex. The cop was right as pedestrians do have the right of way, most especially while in a crosswalk on a green light. Pick a different northbound street and stop your bitching.
As a pedestrian myself, I agree. If you're not an entitled twit, no, you don't jam up an intersection sauntering through a green light. It's obnoxious. Try stopping on the curb to let cars go by and get roared at by some psycho whose folks did a crap job on that whole every-toy-in-kindergarten-ain't-yours principle. If you can't make it across Market in 12 seconds and you're not on a Rascal, using a walker or crutches, or toting a baby in a basket on your head, then count yourself among the ever-growing numbers of the inconsiderate. It's hard to misinterpret your message.
This is a very interesting post. Great work!!
I completely agree. Pedestrians can suck it!
Good letter. Funny how some people don't have a sense of humor.
I'm still wasting time on this letter. First, you assume all pedestrians start crossing the street neatly the moment the light turns green and the reason for the congestion is lollygagging. Wrong. As someone who has run to catch a light, I can tell you that many pedestrians make it across the street in under 5 seconds, but they may not start until the 7th second of the green. They're not lollygagging, but they are part of the stream of pedestrians in your way. Second, you live in the city and you haven't learned to avoid Market Street, yet? Turning onto Market is an exercise in futility and frustration. You're better off finding another route out of the city.
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