Cross walking

Ouchy

Spend a day or two walking around Jo’burg and you’ll quickly realize that, contrary to popular belief, your major safety concern isn’t your fellow pedestrian out to rob you, but all the cars that are eager to run you down.  As much as I advocate walking in this city, the simple truth is that Johannesburg does not make it easy for pedestrians.  The primary issue is the impunity of traffic violators: drivers feel invincible even as they behave badly – and dangerously.  Nearly every day I hear a car roar past me at wildly high speeds appropriate for a racetrack, not narrow residential streets.  A common practice for the impatient driver is to create a passing lane where one does not exist on a narrow 2-lane street.  But more than anything, the hardest part of being a pedestrian is crossing at crosswalks. 

An essential part of life in any major city is waiting at the crosswalk for the light to turn.  In other cities, a green light sets forth a huddle of people crossing the street while cars watch and wait to turn.  In Jo'burg, though, even when a pedestrian has the green ”walk” sign, turning cars whiz through the crosswalk while pedestrians literally jump out the way.  It's interesting that many stoplights in Jo’burg have walk/don’t walk indicators: a positive sign that the city has considered its pedestrians at some point.  However, the lights don’t do a damn thing when you have to contend with turning cars that do not yield the right of way.  Add to this the common situation of drivers talking on their cell phones, not using their turning indicators and running red lights, and the crosswalks – designed to safely guide pedestrians across streets – become unsafe spaces engaged in a "Will he? Won't she?" dangerous dance.  With the crosswalk eliminated as a safe passing area, I choose one of two unsafe options: run through the crosswalk dodging cars or cross the street away from the crosswalk (ie, jaywalk).   Crossing in the middle of the road is actually much easier since you can see cars coming in both directions without having to anticipate sudden turns.  However, this is illegal and unwieldy, and not a situation that Jo'burg should advocate.

Over the years, so many people have told me that pedestrians do not have the right of way in South Africa that I accepted it as fact until I actually looked it up: part 1 of the Department of Transportation’s Rules of the Road states, “2) The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right of way, slowing down or stopping if need be to so yield to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a pedestrian crossing when the pedestrian is upon that half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is travelling, or when the pedestrian is approaching so closely from the opposite half of the roadway as to be in danger.”  Without the jargon: traffic must yield to pedestrians at crosswalks.

Pedestrians definitely get a bad rap in Jo’burg and South Africa in general.  Of the 10,000 people who die on South Africa’s roads every year, 40% are pedestrians. There are big differences in the pedestrian experiences and safety issues of rural and urban walkers, and on this blog I’m only focusing on city walking around Jo’burg.  Often I hear drivers complain about walkers stepping right out in front of them, and certainly I see this happen regularly.  But if crosswalks were a viable option, there wouldn’t be such a need to dash in front of oncoming traffic.  Pedestrians need to share the responsibility of moving safely about the streets, but the current environment needs to provide better support in order to achieve this.

In order to make Jo’burg the safe walking city that it could be, the first place to start is the crosswalks.  Enforcement of traffic laws for both drivers – yielding at crosswalks – and pedestrians – crossing only at crosswalks – would be a major first step at improving the walkable quality of life in this city without the need to develop new infrastructure.  It's within Jo'burg's grasp to become a walkable city that respects and protects the shared space of both drivers and pedestrians and creates a safe environment for us all.