Pedestrians Vote With Their Feet--Diagonal Crosswalks Are a Hit

To some, it’s an ingenious solution to the problem of getting people across the street without getting them hit by a car. To others, the crazy crosswalks that dot Beverly Hills and Old Pasadena signify a breakdown in the social order, a kind of legitimized chaos.

At the very least, the diagonal crosswalks look funny.

Instead of one set of pedestrians crossing on green lights with the flow of traffic--while other pedestrians wait at red lights--those at diagonal crosswalks wait on all four corners until the cars are stopped in both directions. Then they cross any which way they like.

No need to jaywalk on these corners. The quicker diagonal is acceptable--downright encouraged, in fact, by signs.

“It goes against everything mother told you,” said 27-year-old Jill Frankel, who lives in Beverly Hills. “But it looked like a quicker way to get to where I wanted to be--and legally, no less.”

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Beverly Hills installed 10 diagonal crosswalks (also known as scramble crosswalks) in its business district in late 1986, primarily in an effort to improve safety.

With the exception of two particularly busy intersections--where cars tend to back up--the program has been successful, said Bijan Vaziri, the city’s associate transportation engineer. The two problem signals have been changed.

The system works because in traditional crosswalks, pedestrians and cars come into conflict when the cars make turns. Diagonal crosswalks segregate the two groups. Traffic cycles in Beverly Hills are 60 seconds: 20 seconds for north-south traffic, 20 seconds for east-west traffic and 20 seconds for pedestrian traffic.

“It’s a statement that the roadways are not only for cars, they are for pedestrians also,” said Serop Der-Boghossian, a former traffic engineer for Beverly Hills and Pasadena who now is a traffic consultant for a private firm.

A friendlier pedestrian environment also means increased foot traffic for downtown businesses, said Chrissy Pearce, manager at Crate & Barrel in Pasadena, which sits on a scramble-walk corner.

Put simply, Pearce said, “It makes it easier for customers to get across the street.”

This is not the first time scramble crosswalks have been used in the Los Angeles area.

In the 1940s, similar programs were tried, then canceled, in the city of Los Angeles--as they were later in Las Vegas, on Long Island and other places. “It was a disaster,” said Brian Gallagher, a Los Angeles transportation engineer.

In New York, the odd-looking walks were dubbed the “Barnes Dance,” in honor of Henry Barnes, the New York City traffic commissioner from 1962-68 who tried to introduce the idea. New Yorkers soundly rejected it, although they were more receptive to one of Barnes’ other grand ideas: one-way traffic on the avenues.

Boston, in contrast, embraced the crossings and now has more than 600.

Traffic engineers say the system can work only in a particular type of intersection.

Diagonal crosswalks won’t work if traffic is too heavy because the cars get backed up during the pedestrian crossings, requiring longer green lights for autos and more wait time for pedestrians. Nor can the street be too wide because the time allotted for pedestrians to cross would grow prohibitively long.

Drivers also have to be willing to wait during the down time.

In Old Pasadena, two diagonal crosswalks along Colorado Boulevard have fared well because most of the drivers using that route are there to enjoy the vintage district and look around, said Min-Der Day, the city’s principal traffic engineer.

Los Angeles residents should not expect to see scramble crosswalks any time soon.

A just-completed review of the system, including computer models and interviews with pedestrians and drivers, reaffirmed that it is not an appropriate traffic management plan for the city, Gallagher said.

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Most streets are too wide. Traffic volume in most places is too high. And most drivers and pedestrians have indicated that they would not tolerate added delays, Gallagher said.

Even supporters acknowledged that some people get confused and cross with the green light for cars. There are also skeptics, especially among newcomers and tourists.

“I thought it was odd the first time I saw it, but many things are odd in California,” said Marlo Goldstein, an attorney who moved to the Westside seven months ago from Washington, D.C. “So I ignored it and crossed horizontally because I had no faith in the drivers and thought I’d get hit.”