Theory: An accurate description of a city can be extrapolated by observing how locals behave in the street.
In Portland, the pedestrian in the street is sacred. Bikes and pedestrians are pretty much honored and respected. I never see anyone in a rush. Everyone just lets each other go along. No hurry man, it's all good, your carbon footprint is lower than mine so just go along and take your time crossing the street.
This has caused me, and the drivers of Portland, a great deal of stress. I am from a city where drivers speed up if they see a pedestrian crossing the street. Here I am forever darting in and out of the street as I am used to doing in Chicago. In my mind, it's every man for himself, and the pedestrian is the lowest on the street hierarchy, not the top. Sometimes I'll just find myself jaywalking across the street with my zigzag anti-getting-hit-by-car plan all in place, and everyone just stops, and then I stop and we're all just frozen in the street and if they'd just stop respecting me we could all get along.
And here the peds respect the drivers too. I'll be walking with my friends, locals, and all of sudden I look around and they're not there. They've stopped minutes ago at the stop light even though there's no cars in the street.
I know, I know. I need to play by the rules...but it's definitely one of the hardest behaviors to change, and one that makes me stick out as a non-local, or just an asshole. Play by the rules, respect each other, and most importantly, deserve the respect others give you.
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5 comments:
This really hits a note with me, because I often put myself through an exercise I call Give Yourself Permission to Wait, in which I decide to obey traffic lights rather then take them as simply a suggestion, or as visual starting guns or timers. When I make a conscious decision that I don't HAVE to beat a light, that I do not have to hurry, the feeling of oppression and stress really lifts.
In my car (which is infrequent), the game becomes See If You Can Be Nice. This means letting other cars go first, stopping for pedestrians, etc. I have such an ingrained instinct to my right to compete with them that I need to be...magnanimous? to remind myself that I don't have to be a jerk. Also, when I'm nice to people it humanizes them for me, which in turn humanizes me.
I had your "why isn't everyone running against the light with me?" experience during a trip to Belgium years ago. People stopped at stop lights: pedestrians, traffic, everyone. The light turned red, and they just...waited. Patiently. I was astounded. And discovered that when everyone decides to obey the rules, the world suddenly becomes a calmer, saner place, and other people and cars stop being competitors.
In Tokyo I found the same peace: the unspoken agreement among everyone (EVERYONE!) that you simply obey certain rules of conduct, and voila, everyone benefits.
But yes, it is counter-intuitive to cede to someone when you are used to an Every Man For Himself society. You feel kind of like the snake in the garden. (But look! the apple is RIGHT HERE! What's wrong with you?!!?)
It really only truly works if everyone agrees to certain behavior. Here in Chicago it's car vs. pedestrian vs. cyclist. I try to to do the right thing (not always, and not always successfully) because I feel that I need to fight the beast within, be one more person closer to that nice society, but it's hard sometimes to not give up and resort to the fang. Maybe my bike and I just need to move to Portland.
That made me laugh out loud, the image of you stuck like a deer in headlights in the street. Hee.
I learned to wait at stoplights in NYC. Because NO ONE DOES, it is a constant shuffling battle to see who can move out into the street the farthest before the light changes green.
It made me so mad that I would just wait, and be the king rebel, just by waiting.
Traffic Theory is write up my alley.
Designing a self-driving car means making the car do everything a driver would do. That was the starting point. Very quickly it moved beyond matching average drivers to thinking of the greater good, engineering algorithms and sensors that work in tangent with the rest of traffic, including pedestrians, to get get everyone where they are going.
The transportation regulations of American cities have subtle differences. Portland (& SF) has something called Pedestrian Refuges, which allow pedestrians to stand safely in the middle of the road. Yet imagine trying to differentiate between a pedestrian in the road and a pedestrian on a Pedestrian Refuge. The refuges are wheelchair accessible, so curbs do not help the recognition process.
I liked the comments by RRRG and Hixx. As a tall pedestrian who waits at lights, people occasionally look up at me for the All Clear sign.
I eagerly await Part 2.
The fact that they're called "Refuges" speaks volumes, no?
I've come to expect a certain antagonism in traffic, and letting that
go is the difficult part. Like some adolescent who is used to being
angry at his parents I hold on to that anger as part of my identity.
Driving seems to be, for some, an expressive act, which in a way makes
it artistic, even though mostly what is expressed is anger or
frustration.
From the comments so far, and my own thought, it's becoming clear that
there are a lot of emotions going on. I like the thought of 'waiting
as protest' (Hixx) or 'doing the right thing to fight the beast within' (RRRG). Even Autodrive's tall beacon signaling the 'all clear' tells me that in any given street crossing there is an enormous amount of emotion being expressed. I'm not sure what to do with this realization.
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