Atlanta needs to improve its unsafe crosswalks

Paint is the cheapest way to improve pedestrian safety.

But all over Atlanta, traffic engineers have skimped out when it comes to painting safe crosswalks — putting pedestrians and cyclists at risk.

No intersection exemplifies the problem more than Monroe Drive, 10th Street and the Atlanta Beltline.

Atlanta Beltline Inc. and the City of Atlanta Department of Transportation recently began a project to overhaul the intersection that serves as the gateway from the Eastside Beltline Trail into Piedmont Park. The project is supposed to improve pedestrian safety by raising the intersection at the crosswalk to encourage cars to slow down.

But the project in its current state leaves a lot to be desired.

Over this past weekend, I spent about half an hour watching the interplay between cars and people at the crosswalk.

Cars often blocked the pedestrian crosswalk — intruding upon the space that’s supposed to be devoted to walkers and cyclists during the walk signal. Worse yet, cars repeatedly ran the red light — at almost every traffic signal change — causing pedestrians to have to wait before being able to safely cross Monroe Drive.

Please study the featured image that goes with this column. Notice the car speeding north through the intersection while the walk signal is on while another southbound car is totally blocking the crosswalk. 

Solutions do exist. 

For starters, install a red light camera and start ticketing cars that ignore yellow and red lights. Again, this is one of the most heavily used pedestrian intersections in Atlanta, warranting extra enforcement for cars that do not respect red lights.

But the most important improvement that can be made is painting a bold intersection, making it clear to cars that this space represents a safe crossing for the large volume of pedestrians and cyclists who traverse it daily.

Remember, paint is cheap. Yet it can be one of the most effective ways to let cars know that pedestrians have the right of safe passage when crossing a street.

During my recent trip to New York City, I was envious of the extra attention city leaders give to pedestrians in a multitude of ways, but especially when it comes to painting bold white lines — referred to as ladder or zebra crosswalks — to clearly identify where pedestrians have the right of way. 

The former transportation planner for the City of New York, Janette Sadik-Khan, author of the book “Streetfight,” became famous for liberally using white and green paint to convert spaces once used for automobiles into areas for pedestrians and bicyclists.

For some reason, Atlanta and Georgia stopped making ladder crosswalks the norm — opting to use much less paint by marking intersections with thin white lines that are all too easy to ignore when driving in a car.

At the 10th Street and Monroe Drive intersection, we desperately need a well-marked ladder crosswalk painted as soon as possible — marking an extensive territory where cars are not welcome when the walk signal is on. 

My sister, Elena, timed the walk phase and calculated it was less than a third of the time that cars were allowed to cross through the intersection. Yes, she and I suffer from the same disease of being urban observers — and critics.

She also observed it would be ideal to paint a bold white stop line at least 10 feet before the crosswalk to let drivers know where to stop when the light turns yellow.

A ladder crosswalk also is needed at the southern end of that intersection. Cars repeatedly blocked that crosswalk while stopped at the red light. 

Other innovative solutions can be implemented — even though they’re a bit more expensive than using an ample amount of white paint. 

Some cities use pavers to let drivers know they’re approaching a pedestrian crossing. The change of surfaces on a road often signals to drivers to tap on their brakes. Other cities place pavers across the whole intersection to let drivers know they should be cautious when driving through.

Atlanta has come a long way in my lifetime — I can remember when almost no one rode bicycles in town — and there seems to be more of a concerted effort to make the city safer for pedestrians.

The “improvements” at 10th and Monroe do include a time segment for “a scramble,” when traffic is stopped on all sides and pedestrians can cross the street on the diagonal. But there are no traffic markings to indicate to pedestrians or drivers that people are allowed to cross diagonally.

An example of how it can be done is just a few blocks away — the “rainbow crosswalk” at 10th and Piedmont. There are diagonal lines in addition to the multicolored crosswalks that clearly show pedestrians have the ability to cross diagonally. 

Another example of a clearly marked scramble can be seen alongside the Tufts University campus, where an artistically painted crosswalk lets drivers know it’s not a traditional place for cars to have free range.

As a city, we can do so much more to institutionalize and implement the practice of safe pedestrian crosswalks. The more pedestrians we have on our streets, the livelier and more vibrant Atlanta will be. 

While doing research for this column I ran across this 2020 video about Japan’s Shibuya Crossing, considered the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world.

Yes, we are a long way from creating such a safe pedestrian space as Shibuya Crossing. But we certainly can do better than what we have done so far.

Time to get out the pedestrian paint, Atlanta.