So after every San Francisco blog reported about it a couple days ago, we finally got our lazy asses down there for a little photo session: the last three intersections of Taylor before Market (Golden Gate, Turk and Eddy) got some new pretty crosswalks on Thursday. Apparently this was done because “most of the three-way intersections on the north side of Market Street downtown are scary places for walkers: drivers are often confused or aggressive and lights are poorly timed”.
While we don’t think the makeover is necessarily going to make these intersections safer, we have to agree with a commenter on SFist who said “People are more likely to take pride in a street that looks nice. I’m not saying it’s going to lower the crime rate, but I still think it’s worth doing”.
They do indeed look pretty, as you can see in these pictures below or in the great construction photos from the SFBC’s 15th floor offices at SF Streetblogs.
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2 Comments until now
That kind of thing actually does a good job of making drivers subconsciously slow down realizing something different is going on at that spot. It’s even better if the crosswalks are elevated to be level with the sidewalk, turning them into wide speed bumps.
The city of Emeryville has also implemented crosswalks like this — the idea is that a human form in the crosswalks “breaks” the visual pattern. I think the subconscious mind wakes up the driver at that point.
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