So as of Monday, CA AB1909's LPI provision is in effect. LPI is Leading Pedestrian Indicator - when the crosswalk signal says you can go before the traffic light turns green. AB1909 says that this applies to bicycles too.
I've been doing this for the past year, even though it was not legal yet, as an advance scout to see if I ran into any problems. And I did: scrambles. 🧵
A scramble is when the pedestrian signals say walk simultaneously in all directions. Let's go! Doowutchyalike! All traffic lights stay red during the scramble. SF and Oakland have a few intersections like this.
But what about bikes? They are now allowed to proceed. The problem is that cyclists may not expect pedestrians to be crossing in front of them. This is easily dealt with by cautious cyclists like me, but not all cyclists are cautious. 🧵
@jef I think the Dutch have many all-way walk+bike intersections and very little trouble with the conflicting motions. Anyone barreling into such space at 20mph is at risk to themselves as much as others.
@hembrow@spacehobo@jef If the pedestrian all-way-walk intersections in SF and Oakland are anything like Portland's 11th & Couch, that's a pretty cozy affair and I don't think the diagonal would be an issue for people on bikes sharing that crossing time with people walking, assuming they're going slowly enough to yield to all four perimeter crosswalks. Note peds outnumber bikes there, I could see it becoming a problem on any route with steady levels of bike traffic.
@enobacon@hembrow@spacehobo Here's Folsom & 4th - two one-way four lane stroads. This afternoon I was waiting on Folsom for the pedestrians to go first and watched a delivery e-cyclist zoom through on 4th, nearly hitting three peds. https://www.google.com/maps/
@jef@hembrow@spacehobo I don't think 25mph urban one-ways count as stroads, even when overly wide. Also there's no bike infra on 4th. The nearly hospitalization you saw probably lacks any remedy in traffic law or infrastructure, at least not starting from these designs.
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