posted by Mike Madison at 10:10 AM /
Can the School District and the Police Department in Mt. Lebanon please get a handle on morning pedestrian traffic on Cochran Road outside Mt. Lebanon High School? There are cars, cars everywhere between 7:45 and 8 a.m. There are torrents of kids coming down Florida Ave. (which hits Cochran just above the high school) -- and the kids sweep through traffic to cross Cochran, dodging cars as they go. Traffic is usually moving slowly, as it should, but sooner or later, someone and something are going to collide.
The Pittsburgh region doesn't have much of a pedestrian culture, so kids here grow up more or less oblivious to the risks of walking near traffic. Drive through Oakland on a sunny afternoon to get a clearer taste.
What should we do? One possibility involves shipping middle schoolers to Manhattan for a weekend and turning them loose. They'll learn some walking smarts in a hurry; New York drivers aren't as polite or forgiving as Pittsburghers. A second would involve teaching your high schooler not to be an idiot. Traffic signals and crosswalks were put on this Earth for a reason. Use them.
Fantastic hypotheticals aside, how about this? There are crossing guards all over Mt. Lebanon, escorting kids to and from elementary and middle schools. How about a crossing guard or a traffic cop or two or three -- at the intersection of Cochran and Washington, at the intersection of Florida and Cochran, and at the Horsman Drive entrance to the high school? Either make sure that kids cross in the crosswalks, and with the traffic signal (if there is one), or create safe crossing passage where one doesn't currently exist.
The Pittsburgh region doesn't have much of a pedestrian culture, so kids here grow up more or less oblivious to the risks of walking near traffic. Drive through Oakland on a sunny afternoon to get a clearer taste.
What should we do? One possibility involves shipping middle schoolers to Manhattan for a weekend and turning them loose. They'll learn some walking smarts in a hurry; New York drivers aren't as polite or forgiving as Pittsburghers. A second would involve teaching your high schooler not to be an idiot. Traffic signals and crosswalks were put on this Earth for a reason. Use them.
Fantastic hypotheticals aside, how about this? There are crossing guards all over Mt. Lebanon, escorting kids to and from elementary and middle schools. How about a crossing guard or a traffic cop or two or three -- at the intersection of Cochran and Washington, at the intersection of Florida and Cochran, and at the Horsman Drive entrance to the high school? Either make sure that kids cross in the crosswalks, and with the traffic signal (if there is one), or create safe crossing passage where one doesn't currently exist.
Labels: mt. lebanon high school, pedestrians
3 Comments:
How about rails along the sidewalks à la Fifth Avenue in Oakland?
Spoken like a true Californian. ;-) Attitudes toward jaywalking were one of the most striking differences I found when I first went west. In Seattle I was confounded by pedestrians who would stubbornly wait for the crossing light, even when there were no cars for blocks in any direction. Texas is not quite so bad, but still not like the northeast, where I can expect drivers to predictably ignore me, rather than screwing up my timing by slowing down when I step off the curb. I was so happy visiting Boston after years in Texas, when I could comfortably jaywalk again.
I was one of those kids crossing Cochran at Florida 20 years ago. (There was, however, a crossing guard on Cochran at Lebanon), it never seemed like a problem back then, but Lebo traffic seems heavier now, so maybe there's need for another crossing guard, or a signal. Expecting the kids not to jaywalk, though, will require a massive change in local attitudes, I think.
You can take the boy out of the West Coast, but you can't take the West Coast out of the boy, right?
But this isn't my optimistic, blond disposition shining through. When I'm in Manhattan, I can jaywalk with the best of them.
The problem in Pittsburgh isn't that kids today are acting like cynical jaywalking New Yorkers. On Cochran Road, that would still be a menace -- but at least the kids would be self-aware.
The problem in Pittsburgh is that kids are naive, arrogant, oblivious jaywalkers, stepping off the curb into traffic without giving a moment's thought to whether a multi-ton machine might be rolling toward them. They're shocked, shocked! to discover that they're about to be struck by a car.
Mt. Lebanon (and Pittsburgh) drivers are not without fault. In my experience, most people in Mt. Lebanon are extremely respectful of the speed limits around schools in the morning and in the mid-afternoon. Otherwise, however, when it comes to pedestrians they are often naive and oblivious to the point of open hostility.
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