Hard to paint them over if the cars driving thru the area dont stop or swerve to avoid the crew in them.
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Someone driving by or walking across might not even know that those crosswalks weren’t painted by the city.
Oh no, people might think they are real and look out for pedestrians!
I'll go ahead and do the devil's advocate thing because I get tired of this algorithmic bubble that feeds us sensational headlines that rile up our emotions. This is a scourge that needs to end.
As weird as all this seems, there is some level of planning and engineering that goes into designating crosswalks otherwise the city is liable for whatever accidents and mistakes drivers and pedestrians may make. Privately made crossings also need to be studied to ensure they're not making more danger than less, because there's a LOT to consider before you can just say "lets make THIS a crossing!" (Road speeds, turns and other areas of the road that may change traffic velocity suddenly, signals nearby, the locations of existing businesses or parking areas, etc.)
I'll also add that Seattle had some renegade sidewalks put in by residents as well. The city replied with a statement about paint being the main reason. Anti slip, reflection, ADA requirements to get to the crosswalk, and bicycles/motorcycle considerations being the main reasons to remove them. Seattle did come back through and put in a crosswalk but it took resident action to get the city to do something about it.
Riding both motorcycles and bicycles I don't want my tire washing out taking a turn or stopping only to find out the city never put that in.
I firmly believe in community action to get a city focused on the right goals, sadly not many places have active participation from residents, so I'm not at all surprised when a city gets lazy or distracted or doesn't serve their population. Places where neighborhoods have regular meetings for whatever reasons tend to be squeakier wheels and get the oil faster.
You are both technically correct and also describing a system where the average person can make a request and get the results of a study to find out whether a crosswalk can exist where people are already crossing the street. Many of thses kinds of requests are 'lost' or actively ignored because the city doesn't have the budget to even look into the feasibility. That also results in statements about never receiving requests because people don't know how to get them to the right place to count as a request.
In my experience cities aren't liable for very much at all. Sure aren't liable for potholes destroying tires, why would they be liable for crosswalk injuries?
Yes, a lot of the time cities will push back lower-priority requests or expenditures because they're understaffed, underfunded or in some cases corrupt in some way, but lets not start looking at city planning like some kind of Machiavellian monolith, for the most part they do everything they can to avoid pedestrian problems and liability because most cities do in fact pay a GODDAMN FORTUNE in court costs and settlements and lawsuits from people injured.
I am not sure what kind of liability you're referencing, but suing cities for pedestrian injuries is a thriving industry.
Yes except this has happened several times where residents have made it exactly to specifications in areas where crossing is already fully legal.
I got a ticket for parking next to a red curb after the resident painted it. Had to go down to the city and get confirmation it was fake to get the ticket dismissed.
Not really angry about that one. Taught me good info about the government back then.
Or pedestrians might think they are real and get run over because they aren't up to proper spec for a crossing.
Besides being painted in reflective road paint, which these ones are, what else would cause a pedestrian to be run over?
As long as it looks like a crosswalk, and drivers can see it, I'm not sure what else you would need.
Depending on location there's additional stuff, mostly signage notifying drivers. With great variation in requirements depending on the road.
Signage is definitely important. You can't just throw shit down on the pavement and have it be treated as a sign itself.
There can be a ton of factors to consider before a county can decide a crossing is "safe" such as nearby turns, speed limits or changes to speed limits, existing signals or traffic changes that could change the velocity of oncoming cars suddenly, business access locations, and likely a thousand other variables that need to be considered.
Reflective paint on a road doesn't at all guarantee a car can stop in time, particularly if the traffic is already being affected by other changes, this is why we have whole departments in cities who hire people schooled and educated about these things so we don't make unsafe road crossings.
(I am not a city planner/engineer but used to have to pull plans and permits all the time, every single little thing you walk on every day in cities have far more depth and consideration than most people understand, but we would suffer disasters without such codes.)
the city is sending crews to remove them.
The city seems to be overreacting. It's just a crosswalk, there's no reason to remove the families who painted them. Sheesh
Straight to El Salvador /s :(
This happens all the time in cities. The good cities take it as prompting to perform a traffic study and determine whether a crosswalk would be safe there, then implement one if possible. This happens in Seattle sometimes.
Drivers are required to stop for pedestrians when crossing the street at marked crosswalks and at intersections as well. That’s right it’s perfectly legal to cross the street at an intersection even without the aid of crosswalk striping on the pavement.
https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2014/09/12/crosswalk-law-1-0/
Not like anybody stops for pedestrians, but they're supposed to at least.
You might be talking about the case in Seattle where some people argued that the pride flag crosswalks in Capitol Hill weren't up to code.
No I'm talking about things that happen in the city I live in
Oh. I live in Seattle too. Wasn't aware of that story.
The Capitol Hill Seattle blog is a good one to subscribe to, lots of good local coverage
I'm more of a West Seattle blog person. :)
Just remember to read the Stranger, Seattle's only newspaper,
Oh hey I used to live near Sawtelle. Honestly the city department there is fucking terrible.
I parked there once using street parking when I was first looking for apartments and I got ticketed for being in a no parking zone when there wasn't a sign or a red line saying no parking.
Went to the city's office and despite photo evidence we still got denied an appeal.
Huh. Sounds like an easy way for the city to generate revenue.
I think he might have had better success if he painted the crosswalks to the same specifications as the ones the city uses.
If it blends in with all the other crosswalks, nobody will likely notice, at least until it gets repaved and the lack of documentation would be written off as some sort of administrative error.
Anybody know where an individual (as opposed to a road construction company) can source the correct type of road-marking paint and/or thermoplastic?
Asking for a friend.
Does painting a crosswalk really increase safety? I feel like the type of person not pay attention and run someone over is the type of person to not care if there's a crosswalk, not pay attention, and run someone over.
I don't understand why you would expect it not to increase safety.
It gives a visual cue to drivers that it is more likely someone is intending to cross at this location.
Any time I see an intersection I assume there might be people. Downtown where I’m at there’s rarely crosswalks at intersections unless it’s a major through road.
Checking Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_crossing#Safety
The safety of unsignalled pedestrian or zebra crossings is somewhat contested in traffic engineering circles.
Research undertaken in New Zealand showed that a zebra crossing without other safety features on average increases pedestrian crashes by 28% compared to a location without crossings. However, if combined with (placed on top of) a speed table, zebra crossings were found to reduce pedestrian crashes by 80%.
A five-year U.S. study of 1,000 marked crosswalks and 1,000 unmarked comparison sites found that on most roads, the difference in safety performance of marked and unmarked crossings is not statistically significant, unless additional safety features are used. […] This study only included locations where vehicle traffic was not controlled by a signal or stop sign.
Traffic accidents are reduced when intersections are daylighted, i.e. visibility increased such as by removing adjacent parked cars.
Research undertaken in New Zealand showed that a zebra crossing without other safety features on average increases pedestrian crashes by 28% compared to a location without crossings.
See, that's mostly what I was thinking. "Zebra stripes" make pedestrians feel safe to cross, and have virtually no impact on drivers who can easily just ignore them. But paired with other things they are a good addition, especially since it tells pedestrians where to cross.
I'd like to see the methodology. A zebra crossing also increases foot traffic compared to a location without crossings.
The quoted Wikipedia article has some source references which I chose not to include for conciseness/readability.
Yeah. Our brains are conditioned to assume people are more likely to be in a crosswalk. It's also why I drive slowly past long rows of parked cars. I've been conditioned to assume a kid is going to jump out.
Most folks are not conditioned to be thoughtful.
It's probably incremental but, IMO, a crosswalk does imply a certain amount of pedestrian traffic that might encourage a smidge of extra attention and double checking from some drivers, vs a location that gives the appearance of having very infrequent pedestrian crossingsmay be far less frequent. That not to say that complacency is any kind of excuse. But it is how people are on average.
On a large scale I have no idea but it does for me when I’m driving.
A crosswalk at an intersection, especially an unmetered one, serves as a warning that there’s enough regular pedestrian traffic or a risk that dictated it was needed.
Helps me, personally, to be extra aware for crossers.
Isn't the government "we the people"? So you know the government DID paint them. Fuck those guys, they just mad because the contractor that paid them off didn't get their cut and now they are.
If the "government" can't be bothered to do the job they were elected to do the people will have to step in.
But the city said they never received a request for crosswalks in that area
Assuming this is truthful, at least submit the request first. Maybe save yourself a little work.
And specifically in this case, Angelenos can download the MyLA 3-1-1 app to make requests easily. I do it all the time.