CIty needs to do more work to increase road safety

At the beginning of the semester, an MSU student was hit by a vehicle while riding her bicycle across the Michigan Avenue and Harrison Road intersection. The police said it was her fault.

I won’t try to quarrel with laws that treat bicycles as vehicles, but the fact is, this is a dangerous intersection for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists alike. And the fact is I have been complaining about the danger to city and state governments for the past 25 years, but nothing has been done — unless you want to count coming up with a pie in the sky 100-year vision for a Michigan Avenue corridor.

Of course, the underlying problem is that many motorists don’t bother to look for pedestrians or cyclists at any intersection, let alone yield right of way, even when right of way clearly belongs to those on foot or bicycle. And some pedestrians and cyclists are guilty of paying insufficient attention or of trying to assert right of way, legal or not, in the face of unyielding traffic.

But the Michigan Avenue and Harrison Road intersection has an additional problem that makes it needlessly extra dangerous, a problem that could be fixed for no cost if there was someone competent enough in city or state government to fix it.

The pedestrian walk sign for crossing Michigan Avenue is mistimed, and has been for years and years. This gives misleading information to pedestrians and vehicles about how much time there is to cross and who has right of way, which inevitably leads to confusion and games of chicken.

The northbound traffic light stays green for 34 seconds. The walk sign lasts 4 seconds, blinks “Don’t Walk” for 15 seconds, then turns “Don’t Walk” for the final 15 seconds of the cycle. It only takes about 20 seconds to walk the whole way across at a relatively slow three miles-per-hour pace, but even a jogger ends up crossing the second part from the median against a blinking “Don’t Walk.”

Maybe authorities actually expect pedestrians to wait at the median for a second cycle, because they imagine asking vehicles to yield would cause traffic congestion (it wouldn’t!). But the reality is pedestrians ignore the walk sign for the simple reason that it is stupid, which every new Brody freshman learns within a week. I’ve crossed against the light with, among others, a city councilwoman and a judge, not to mention parents with impressionable children.

Sadly, even if the politicians and bureaucrats have a sudden attack of common sense and fix the timing of the walk signal, and make some other minor safety improvements, this will remain a dangerous intersection. My advice, whether walking, biking or driving, is: Pay attention! Be careful out there!

_Eliot Singer,
East Lansing resident_