If it was 1874, instead of hitting your local baseball diamond tonight, you’d be grabbing a few friends and heading to a competitive walking match. Yes, walking was a national pastime, according to author Matthew Algeo: "Watching people walk was America’s favorite spectator sport."
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Driving in the city sucks. There are other cars and buses and bikes and people—god, so many people. And cars—being heavy metal machines capable of moving at great speed—are also highly dangerous. Instead of trying to accommodate everyone in an unhappy medium, cities are increasingly designing streets for pedestrians over cars. Check these ambitious projects all over North America doing exactly that.
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In one of the most ambitious announcements of his term so far, Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged yesterday to eliminate traffic deaths in New York City. In 2013, there were 286 traffic-related fatalities.
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We were all taught how to cross a street: Look both ways. But, in some cities, you’ll also have to ask permission by pressing a tiny button and waiting your turn. Those little buttons on walk signals have been nicknamed "beg buttons"—because walkers are pretty much begging to be able to cross.
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Last month, London reached a grim milestone: Six cyclists were killed within 14 days, sparking a massive "die-in" protest. London isn’t alone; 176 cyclists or pedestrians were killed in NYC last year. The rapidly rising death toll is spurring a race to build a technology to warn drivers before they hit someone on foot or bike.
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Walkers are making L.A. unsafe for cars, a ban on a crucial spice won’t be very nice for Denmark, and tourists flocking to Detroit’s urban ruins are ruining Detroit even more. It’s our final look at What’s Ruining Our Cities this year!
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Hey, using your feet is cool again! Chances are, you know someone in your life who walks to stay healthy, to explore their city, or simply to commune with their neighborhood. Whether they’re commuting on foot, illegally accessing abandoned infrastructure, or simply enjoying a Sunday stroll, here are some gift ideas for the walkers in your life.
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Before the invention of the car, jaywalking wasn’t a recognized concept. Want to get across the street? Then just walk across the street—nobody’s going to stop you. But the rise of the automobile posed a new problem for people of the early 20th century. While the median state-designated speed limit for American cities was just 10 miles per hour in 1906, the pace of American streets soon increased enough that people who wanted to cross them were suddenly putting themselves in harm’s way. So cities across the U.S. started to regulate where and when pedestrians could cross. You can see the faint pedestrian crosswalk lines painted on the street in the scene below from Detroit circa 1917.
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