Jaywalking in Boston

As I posted earlier in the month, Boston pedestrians were featured in an article in the Boston Globe a couple of weekends ago. As a followup to that, the Globe asked me to participate in an online chat on the topic the week after the article came out. I did, and the result was a pretty interesting Q&A discussion between me and a variety of Globe readers. For the next few posts here, I'll be adapting some of the questions and answers from that session for us to read here.

First, a bit of introduction. What's the story with jaywalking, anyway?

Jaywalking is kind of a way of life around here. But there's more to it than people just disregarding laws and sometimes their own safety.

When you're in a car, you're pretty much limited to moving along a few limited paths -- streets. But when you're on foot, you have a lot more flexibility, and the way a city is built and designed can encourage you or discourage you from obeying laws that apply to you. And the infrastructure of the city can work well for cars, or for pedestrians, or both (and let's not forget bikes!). When a lot of people are breaking the law, that's a sign that the existing structures aren't working, not merely that people are profligate rule-breakers.

Why would I, as a pedestrian, wait to cross lawfully if it's going to take me 3-5 minutes to cross an intersection that I can see I can cross safely during a break in traffic? It doesn't make sense for me to do that, and it reflects an infrastructure that says in various subtle ways that my needs are not part of the equation, which encourages me to disregard them entirely.

On the other hand, in cities where pedestrians feel like they count, you'll see them waiting at a corner for the WALK light to come, even if there's no oncoming traffic. So, we know it can be done.