[azernik]

"Jaywalking" is not a fake concept. Streets are public property, maintained by the government, so the rules for who gets to use them and how are very legitimately in the government's purview.

If you're talking about the justification for governments making those rules in the first place, I could say the same about a rule saying pedestrians can cross in the middle of the street and cars have to yield - both are arbitrary rules, and should be judged based on their public policy outcomes.

[reagency]

Jaywalking law, including its ridiculous name , was pushed through by the auto lobby in a power grab for auto manufacturers.

[azernik]

Does that mean it's a bad public policy? For comparison, lots of public transit development is pushed through by developers who have an interest in their property values going up, but that doesn't make the results a bad thing.

The separation of traffic of different speeds has popped up in different countries and for different modes of transportation repeatedly, because the logic of the situation makes it make sense. In this case, a fast car loses a lot if its utility if it's limited by slower traffic that it's sharing the road with. The existence of car-only roads added value, and from the perspective of a society just introducing the technology, if that reduced the space available to pedestrians then so be it.

I think there's a good argument to be made that too much land has been allocated exclusively to motor transport, especially in city centers, but the existence of such dedicated thoroughfares makes total sense.