A look at what's going on in Trinidad, on H Street, and in the larger area north of Capitol Hill.
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
What Is Your Experience With Jaywalking On H Street?
What is your experience with jaywalking on H Street? Do you jaywalk? Have you seen anyone get a jaywalking ticket?
17 comments:
Anonymous
said...
This is a much bigger problem on Bladensburg Road, where there's a median and the traffic goes much faster. Nobody uses the crosswalk there. I think two people were struck last weekend.
I jaywalk on Benning, H St & Bladensburg, but Bladensburg most of all because of the median, and the lights are timed for very short crossings. On H, I mostly do it when there is very little traffic, and have never worried about a jay-walking ticket. I do usually check if there is a cop in view before I do it tho.
I walk across wherever right in front of cops. This is the East Coast, we are allowed here since the whole "car culture" thing is different here than out west.
So many folks jaywalk on Benning Rd. I see parents pulling thier little children out into the middle of the street all the time. It's almost like there is some unwritten rule that using a crosswalk is "uncool" or the "square" way of doing things and they just run out in the damn road like a game of frogger.
I've never seen anyone have a problem with jaywalking per se, but I did encounter two cops hassling a (black) man for walking in the street car lane. This was more than a year ago, and he asked why he couldn't walk there if there was no street car yet, and the cops replied that he better get used to there being a street car there. I didn't stick around to see how it shook it.
what really annoys me is when I walk across a crosswalk at a stop sign (not light), and during my crossing, a car starts to proceed to cross and will come up a few feet away from me before I finish the crosswalk.
H St has more and more street and pedestrian traffic, and the streetcars will not be able to stop as quickly as a car or bus, so the police have been tasked with enforcing jaywalking laws to keep people from dying and keep H St moving. That being said, I've never seen jaywalkers hassled by cops, even when a cop is right there. Please don't jaywalk people! My aunt got hit by a car jaywalking and she nearly died.
Jaywalking here is sorta an odd topics. Most people Jaywalk, just as most bicyclists don't obey stop signs or even red lights. I'm not sure what this post is really getting at, but I've recently learned to not trust the motives of folks in the H Street region public square. I'm not sure if this is a slight of hand supporting the Street Car, or another blame cars for the a-hole pedestrians (I can be one at times) who get hit while jaywalking. In the end what good does it do to ticket the drunk Jaywalking from the liquor store to their favorite bench? Since this will likely impact blacks more than non-blacks, is this a subtle effort to shuffle blacks along? I have to ask, why now, after all these years?
Yes it is wrong, so is a cyclist running a red light and almost hitting pedestrians (me again - and if you wanted to know it hurts when an a-hole cyclist grazes you), yet this campaign now, like this post...well it suggests a wider motive which is chilling and should be noticed by all, black people in particular. Jaywalk and get fined, don't pay and fines increase, if your on parole well then... I mean it's interesting when you think of selective enforcement of the law and it's perhaps purposeful impact on demographic shift.
It's an interesting theory that a city with a black mayor and a very liberal City Council is launching a crackdown on jaywalking as a way to harass black residents. I tend to agree that the city should have higher priorities, but having said that I'm skeptical that anti-black animus is what's motivating it.
I too would like to think not. For several years I've tried to put blinders on and act like we are really one human race. Like a mosaic that's really one whole, but the events of late have shown that I was being optimistically foolish. In the end I got played by the very people I was working aside. The fault line in the action split largely along race. For the first time in years I saw things clearly for what they are. But there I was spending years building towards a greater community, to find out latter that I was really working myself and other blacks out of the community. So no I do not believe it's over the top. I think that's the idea is to do things so stealthy & so absurd and that way they are effective. Anyone who speaks out is marginalized, and then cast away. The concept isn’t new. In the end we are all humans, yet we are not all of equal value. Sadly in my efforts to help build community, I’d inadvertently become an Uncle Tom, and I will take that to my grave. The only thing I can do now is send out flares to warn others and perhaps speak out so that others don’t it caught up in the same miasma. I’ve build a fortress wall to find that I’m outside of the wall, and perhaps that was the intent. Not speaking out here is akin to adding another stone to the wall. Say what you will, agree or not, I’m living proof.
I was recently stopped, but not ticketed for crossing 4th Street NE while walking along H. There wasn't any traffic, but I was stopped by an officer on foot and given a warning.
17 comments:
This is a much bigger problem on Bladensburg Road, where there's a median and the traffic goes much faster. Nobody uses the crosswalk there. I think two people were struck last weekend.
I jaywalk on Benning, H St & Bladensburg, but Bladensburg most of all because of the median, and the lights are timed for very short crossings. On H, I mostly do it when there is very little traffic, and have never worried about a jay-walking ticket. I do usually check if there is a cop in view before I do it tho.
I'd rather them enforce littering laws.
I don't jaywalk anywhere.
I jaywalk. I've never seen anyone get a ticket. Is this really the issue the city thinks is most pressing?
I walk across wherever right in front of cops. This is the East Coast, we are allowed here since the whole "car culture" thing is different here than out west.
I jaywalk, I do what I want
So many folks jaywalk on Benning Rd. I see parents pulling thier little children out into the middle of the street all the time. It's almost like there is some unwritten rule that using a crosswalk is "uncool" or the "square" way of doing things and they just run out in the damn road like a game of frogger.
I've never seen anyone have a problem with jaywalking per se, but I did encounter two cops hassling a (black) man for walking in the street car lane. This was more than a year ago, and he asked why he couldn't walk there if there was no street car yet, and the cops replied that he better get used to there being a street car there. I didn't stick around to see how it shook it.
what really annoys me is when I walk across a crosswalk at a stop sign (not light), and during my crossing, a car starts to proceed to cross and will come up a few feet away from me before I finish the crosswalk.
argh.
http://i.imgur.com/ZNVFLz8.jpg
H St has more and more street and pedestrian traffic, and the streetcars will not be able to stop as quickly as a car or bus, so the police have been tasked with enforcing jaywalking laws to keep people from dying and keep H St moving. That being said, I've never seen jaywalkers hassled by cops, even when a cop is right there. Please don't jaywalk people! My aunt got hit by a car jaywalking and she nearly died.
Jaywalking here is sorta an odd topics. Most people Jaywalk, just as most bicyclists don't obey stop signs or even red lights. I'm not sure what this post is really getting at, but I've recently learned to not trust the motives of folks in the H Street region public square. I'm not sure if this is a slight of hand supporting the Street Car, or another blame cars for the a-hole pedestrians (I can be one at times) who get hit while jaywalking. In the end what good does it do to ticket the drunk Jaywalking from the liquor store to their favorite bench? Since this will likely impact blacks more than non-blacks, is this a subtle effort to shuffle blacks along? I have to ask, why now, after all these years?
Yes it is wrong, so is a cyclist running a red light and almost hitting pedestrians (me again - and if you wanted to know it hurts when an a-hole cyclist grazes you), yet this campaign now, like this post...well it suggests a wider motive which is chilling and should be noticed by all, black people in particular. Jaywalk and get fined, don't pay and fines increase, if your on parole well then... I mean it's interesting when you think of selective enforcement of the law and it's perhaps purposeful impact on demographic shift.
-Robby
Robby,
It's an interesting theory that a city with a black mayor and a very liberal City Council is launching a crackdown on jaywalking as a way to harass black residents. I tend to agree that the city should have higher priorities, but having said that I'm skeptical that anti-black animus is what's motivating it.
It's all part of the plan, mang
I too would like to think not. For several years I've tried to put blinders on and act like we are really one human race. Like a mosaic that's really one whole, but the events of late have shown that I was being optimistically foolish. In the end I got played by the very people I was working aside. The fault line in the action split largely along race. For the first time in years I saw things clearly for what they are. But there I was spending years building towards a greater community, to find out latter that I was really working myself and other blacks out of the community. So no I do not believe it's over the top. I think that's the idea is to do things so stealthy & so absurd and that way they are effective. Anyone who speaks out is marginalized, and then cast away. The concept isn’t new. In the end we are all humans, yet we are not all of equal value. Sadly in my efforts to help build community, I’d inadvertently become an Uncle Tom, and I will take that to my grave. The only thing I can do now is send out flares to warn others and perhaps speak out so that others don’t it caught up in the same miasma. I’ve build a fortress wall to find that I’m outside of the wall, and perhaps that was the intent. Not speaking out here is akin to adding another stone to the wall. Say what you will, agree or not, I’m living proof.
-Robby
I was recently stopped, but not ticketed for crossing 4th Street NE while walking along H. There wasn't any traffic, but I was stopped by an officer on foot and given a warning.
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