It sounds like a board game but the city isn’t paying games. They are very serious in their new initiative of putting pedestrians before drivers and have proven it by implementing an experiment called the, “pedestrian scramble”.

On August 28th, reports the globeandmail.com, one of the busiest intersections of Toronto, Yonge and Dundas, turned into a free-for-all-pedestrians. The traffic light configuration stops all vehicles in every direction to allow pedestrians to cross the street in any direction they please, including diagonally.

Drivers will have to wait up to almost a minute before they are allowed to proceed, where as before the longest wait time was 30 seconds. Green lights for drivers have been reduced by almost 10 seconds to allow more crossing time for pedestrians.

Other cities, like Montreal, Tokyo, San Fransisco and Miami, have already implemented the ‘pedestrian scramble’ as far back as the 1950s. These pedestrian scrambles have been widely accepted and have had pedestrians dancing in the streets. By the way, here in Toronto we call it ‘pedestrian priority phase,’ as the term, ‘scramble’ immediately brings to mind disorderly conduct.

Other Toronto intersections for future consideration are:

  • Yonge and Bloor
  • Bay and Bloor
  • Bay and Dundas

The article explains that the whole point of the scramble is for pedestrian safety as it completely halts the possibility of vehicles turning into streams of pedestrians. As you may have noticed, green light advances for cars arrive just prior to pedestrian green lights. Many pedestrians begin crossing the street as soon as they notice opposing car traffic has the red light, forgetting about the advanced green for cars.

The enigma here is that at Yonge and Dundas, cars cannot make left hand turns. Essentially the pedestrian scramble here is more ‘symbolic’ than pragmatic. Pedestrians will still be able to cross when cars have their green light while at other intersections where cars are allowed to turn, pedestrians will have to wait for their special signal. Critics suggest that pedestrians may become impatient at these intersections, increasing the incidence of jaywalking and the danger of traffic accidents.

It’ll be interesting to see if this initiative actually benefits pedestrians, and if drivers are able to cope with their increased wait times.