[loloquwowndueo]

Look at the amount of road space, infrastructure, resources devoted to cars vs. pedestrians. The typical way for pedestrians to cross a busy highway for example is via a bridge - the pedestrian has to put up with going up and down the stairs. Pedestrians typically have to go out of their way to cross streets even at level. Traffic lights have “beg buttons” for pedestrians to use, god forbid they interrupt the flow of first-class car drivers for a minute more than necessary.

Pedestrians are totally treated as second-class almost everywhere.

[giantg2]

"The typical way for pedestrians to cross a busy highway for example is via a bridge"

I'm not sure where you're from, but I have seen very few of these. Usually the ones I've seen are over a very busy road with few to no intersections and a lot of foot traffic. These are beneficial to the flow of both car and foot traffic instead of using long cycle times.

“beg buttons”

I'm sorry, but that is some extreme spin. What do you think happens at traffic signals? Those signals use sensors to identify when cars come up to them. These sensors don't work for pedestrians lacking large amounts of metal to trip the fields. So yeah, they have a button to tell the machine they want to cross. Usually, the lights change just as fast if not faster than if a car pulls up at a red light.

When in a shared space, everyone must wait their turn. If you don't, you end up with people steeping out in front if cars and people running red lights. Taking turns is part of a functioning society.

[alexfoo]

Pedestrians are second class in most crossings though (at least in the UK).

For traffic lights that are always green except when a pedestrian wants to cross we do have the “beg button” but the problem is that there is usually a reasonable delay before the lights turn red to stop the cars.

Obviously there needs to be some sort of delay between sets of red lights otherwise someone could just spend the day pressing the button and crossing all day whilst the traffic backs up. But the delay is front loaded. There doesn’t need to be such a long delay before the lights turn red if the lights have been green for a long enough period prior to that. Poor implementation.

I’m sure there’s a study somewhere where they decided to go with the pre-delay for some reason, but I’ve never found anything.

[loloquwowndueo]

> I'm not sure where you're from, but I have seen very few of these.

Well I’m not sure where you’re from but I have seen tons of these pedestrian bridges :) wouldn’t it be better to inconvenience the car by building an overpass? The car has an engine and doesn’t get tired.

On beg buttons: I did not invent the terminology. Look it up.

[giantg2]

Where is that?

Source for your beg button claim? I've only seen that term used with a political spin. (And yes, I tried looking it up)

[loloquwowndueo]

You can’t have looked too hard if you didn’t find it.

[giantg2]

Please be more charitable. I legitimately looked. All I found were biased pieces calling them beg buttons. I'm asking for an unbiased source calling them that. It seems the real term is a pedestrian call button.

[loloquwowndueo]

The CBC is pretty objective and unbiased in their reporting : https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/councillor-takes-steps...

I’m sure you’ll find a way to disqualify that also, but well. By the way this was like the fourth result on a ddg search, there are many more if you care to actually look and read.

[Retric]

In the event of high foot and road traffic you could have A or B go 3D. The fact it’s pedestrians suggests they have a lower priority.

[giantg2]

Or that the infrastructure is cheaper

[loloquwowndueo]

Oh now I know you are a troll. It would be cheaper to build level intersections with traffic lights. Why then are billions spent on wide freeways, exchanges, overpasses when it’s road over road but when it’s about pedestrians then sure, do whatever is cheapest because they’re already on foot, how much of a hurry can they be in?

[giantg2]

I'm not a troll. What do you think is cheaper - an overpass or a foot bridge?

[afuchs]

Neither. Both cost significantly more to build and maintain than at-grade intersections. That's part of the reason more and more grade separated highways are being demolished and replaced with surface roads.

[loloquwowndueo]

A troll bridge for car-centric people who can’t see beyond their little metal box with wheels would be cheaper of course.

[fifticon]

"well excuse me for lacking sufficient amounts of metal:-)"

[randomname11]

Not to mention speed limits. Around here almost all traffic exceeds the speed limit, yet plenty of drivers still complain about pedestrians not adhering to the rules.