Comment by nmeofthestate 5 days ago
> pedestrians have to press the beg button
Please. This is the most drama-queen characterisation of a signal-controlled pedestrian crossing I've ever seen. In fact it's the first time I've seen anyone grinding their teeth at the injustice of a signal-controlled pedestrian crossing.
I'm a pedestrian, and a car driver, and a cyclist and I think this is a reasonable way to control an intersection. Anti-car urbanism is sliding into being a bit of a pseudo-religion for cranks IMO.
I want to confirm that it's a religion for me. I'm not a spandex-wearing hobbyist; I ride my bike or take public transit because it is practical and inexpensive. I do not bike for fun.
The structure of the built environment which accommodates automobiles is hostile to human life. It has been—in the short run—convenient for the growth of a certain type of economy which is also hostile—in the long run—to human life.
As Ben Franklin might say, we have paid too dearly in blood, turf, and CO2 for this strip mall whistle.
If anything is worth the reverence of worship—and perhaps nothing, in your philosophy, is—few candidates can compete with the human life, community, and sustainable industry which a car-centric environment precludes.
Edit: Oh, except maybe the natural world it threatens.
Hopefully it's not the last. We need to flip the script on cars vs pedestrians, especially since there has been a long history of anti-pedestrian propaganda funded by the automobile industry.
Meanwhile, car-centric environments contribute to air pollution and sedentary lifestyles. They limit public spaces, reducing community interactions and fostering loneliness, while also exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities by obstructing access to jobs and essential services for those unwilling or unable to burn cash on these inefficient, extravagant rolling idols of conspicuous consumption.
Their environmental impact, I shouldn't have to remind you, doesn't end with urban sprawl leading to inefficient land use and loss of green spaces, but includes, of course, plant-rocking CO2 emissions.
So, yeah, I think it's pretty debased that we featherless bypeds have to press a single goddamn button to tread a single square foot of earth in deference to cars.