Pedestrian Overcrossings: The Bad, the Ugly, and the Mildly Acceptable (Featuring Las Vegas!)
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- Опубликовано: 8 мар 2022
- Today's video lays out a typology of pedestrian overcrossings (i.e. pedestrian bridges or ped overpasses) and reviews the reasons we build them (as well as urbanist arguments against them.) Finally, your intrepid host heads out to the field to film some of the world's busiest ped bridges in their natural environment: Las Vegas Boulevard, AKA The Strip.
Along the way we review:
- a variety of pedestrian bridges in Portland, Oregon (as well as an Everett, Washington rail station and a super fun example in Tucson, Arizona)
- NCHRP 562, the pedestrian crossing analysis methodology that's been ubiquitous in transportation planning and engineering for sever years
- research on how well pedestrians understand how traffic signals work and who has the right of way in certain situations
And finally, we do some data collection and math on what could be considered the world's busiest signalized intersection, Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue. The pedestrian bridges were built in the early 1990s, but how would the intersection function today if you took away the overcrossings?
And, as an aside, we explain the absurd traffic levels at Tropicana (and Flamingo) by quickly running down the list of the largest hotels in the world (or at least the US), including the MGM Grand, the City Center (Aria), the Mandalay Bay, the Excalibur, the Luxor, the New York New York, the Park MGM, the Venetian and Palazzo, the Bellagio, and Caesars Palace. And don't forget massive trip generation at Harry Reid International Airport, Allegiant Stadium, and T-Mobile Arena!
Resources:
- NCHRP 562 nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
- Driver and Pedestrian Comprehension of Pedestrian Law and Traffic Control Devices (JOHN E. TIDWELL AND DEVIN P. DOYLE) onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs...
Image Credits:
- All from yours truly (and Google!)
Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (RUclips music library)
Twitter: @nerd4cities
Instagram: @nerd4cities
Contact: nerd4cities@gmail.com 
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not completely on topic, but around minute 5 you are talking about conflict points with pedestrians. that triggered a question i was wondering for some time now. in the german traffic rules there are basically two things that stand above every single rule.
the first is you have to actively avoid any type of accident and the second is you have to take extra care of weaker participants of the traffic.
so there is no right to go first, you may have priority but if someone acts unlawfully and there was a reasonable way for you to avoid a crash you may be partially co-guilty if it comes to a crash. hitting a cyclist or pedestrian with your car and you will have a very hard time to prove that you couldnt have done anything different to avoid the outcome. someone walking on the street while texting on the phone, not looking at all and if you hit him its basically your fault. the weather is bad and you cant see shit? there may be a maximum speed allowed, but if you cant reasonable navigate with that speed any accident will be your fault.
dont you have any of those principles in the US too?
i mean "who has priority" shouldnt be a question for pedestrians to answer. hitting one with a car is unlawful because of both of the two principles.
Great comment, and it goes deep, deep, deep into the heart of US transportation culture. I'm going to pin this.
As an American who doesn't drive and Hates how car centric this country is, I'm absolutely okay with the "right of way". If I'm on my phone or whatever and get hit, that's on me. Doesn't change if it's by another person or by a semi. Some people take having a non car centric way of life for granted. I feel like instituting rules like that will only make motorist more stubborn about car centrism.
@@jaredowens4825 But someone driving a car can sit there and hope that the person deserves it?
A driver should always be alert when driving a car. Pedestrians should always have right of way. You cannot expect a person without a driver's license to know the rules of the road. A pedestrian could be a tourist from another country and not know either. A blind, disabled, or elderly person is constitutionally entitled to be able to walk down the street, but even where they adhere to the signals and have right of way, they aren't fast enough to cross in time. By your precedent, then they are at fault when a driver lays down the gas the second the light turns green. Drivers having an excuse of right of war should never be a justifiable defense for manslaughter.
In the US, you also can't just plow somebody over because you have the "right of way." Unfortunately, you're not the only one confused by the wording. It's just a set of priorities. Of course, the consequences of getting into an accident due to negligence varies by state. As said, it's more of a cultural problem. I think fundamentally what you need to understand is that driving is not a choice for many in North America, and the US doesn't much like regulations. Just think of the consequences of those choices over generations of drivers.
I was definitely taught in driving school that "the pedestrian always has right of way". But that was more just a safety thing, not an actual rule. No idea if they teach that to everyone or just this one school.
"Justifying building a bridge based on how many are swimming across the river" - is an apt analogy, one that I've used, and I also add in that the river also has car-shaped crocodiles in it. Too often people complain about proposals to build pedestrian or cycling improvements, demanding there needs to be some significant number of walkers or bikers first, completely ignoring that no one currently uses the existing facilities because it is so hostile to anyone outside a car.
Not to mention swimming across the river also technically being illegal, in the US.
Also does a good job of expressing how horribly this decision-making misses the consideration that a huge portion of people “swimming across the river” love swimming in the river, and will be excited for better, safer, and more frequent opportunities to swim in river
Not to mention people also complain when people try to bike on roads with no bike infrastructure, but then they get mad about spending money on bike infrastructure. It makes no sense.
@@baddriversofcolga Makes sense if you dumb yourself down to their level, "NO SLOW BIKES, THAT SLOW DOWN TRAFFIC OR I MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY HURT THEM.ALSO NO I WONT BE GIVING OUT MY OWN MONEY FOR ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR ME"
@@baddriversofcolga Motorists believe bikes should be on þe sidewalks. Except in þeir neighborhoods. And ignoring objections from boþ cyclists AND pedestrians. And not wanting sidewalks to be made, maintained, or expanded. Again, except in þeir neighborhoods.
I once witnessed someone "jaywalking" across a 5 lane stroad in Austin, TX literally right underneath a pedestrian crossing. That's when I realized that a lot of these things are pointless. There's also no stairs to get up this particular pedestrian crossing so you have to walk up a ramp on both sides that's longer than the width of the road that it's crossing.
Omg I hate bridges in general because physically getting your body onto one of them can be really confusing and counterintuitive on foot. It pisses me off when I have to go what looks like away from a bridge to get to it's access point, because just walking toward it wont necessarily make me able to get onto it
walkability is pointless because pedestrians are whiny meatbags. this is why cities shouldnt waste resources on walkability, and instead focus on providing safe infrastructure for e bikes, e scooters and mobility scooters
@@mind-of-neo Or trying to do it on a bike where you have to ride your brakes the whole way down or you can't make the stupidly sharp corners...
tells you that they dont bother to actually ask the locals if this would work since they get easy funding. Image if they needed a number of locals approval to get things done
That's what happens when you need to make a crossing ADA compliant (which means every single one in the United States built or remodeled after 1990). Either you basically spend double for a long ramp (for wheelchair access) AND short stairs, or you just build the long ramp and make it unappealing to be used by actual pedestrians.
In Maryland, I was crossing with the walk signal, when halfway across, left turning vehicles started to cut in front of me. After several cars, a bus also turned. The bus driver stopped in the middle of the intersection, opened his window and yelled at me because he had a green. Again, I had a walk signal and thus right of way.
OK, that's just traffic engineering malpractice. Like literally.
@@CityNerd Having the green and being expected to yield to pedestrians is perfectly compliant with the rules. I don't like it, but I have made a habit of looking for the red pedestrian signal when turning to make sure I have 100% right of way.
@@CityNerd This is more on bad driving habits because those drivers did not yield to a pedestrian legally within the crosswalk. I wouldn't call it traffic engineering malpractice given the situation falls squarely within the rules of traffic operations and traffic law-although it sounds like an application of a flashing yellow arrow signal for the left turns would have been a better for the situation.
Green ball or green arrow? If the vehicles had a green ball, you had the right of way and that's a disappointing (but sadly not surprising) number of uninformed drivers (especially the bus driver). If they had a green arrow, then as CityNerd said, that's something that should not happen and will likely get the city sued.
We have those situations all over Portland including the university campus
Great video, as usual! Las Vegas is just a horrible place. I've been there 16 times, and I've walked there a lot. I was usually there for work during conferences, where taxi queues would get so long that it was faster to walk. And it was NOT a short walk; the traffic and taxi backups were just that bad, due to a total lack of any viable public transit.
It's actually gross how bad public transit is there, especially given how much of the traffic along the strip is going between casinos or to/from the airport. And the monorail is not public transit: it's designed to move you from one casino to another without going anywhere in-between that may be owned by a competing casino company.
Anyway, I hate pedestrian bridges with a passion (except for very few use cases where pedestrians are already at a higher level). Pedestrians should own the ground level always, as far as I'm concerned. But even I will admit that Las Vegas is car-infested to such an extreme degree that the bridges along the strip are justified.
I would love to go back to Vegas and film all of the things that are insane about it, but I think 17 trips to Vegas is just too many for anyone.
Its really depressing and if you think about it they technically had a blank canvas to work on for building a city. The city was built in a middle of desert in America with no one living there. So they had no restrictions whatsoever regarding already established buildings nor the natural roadblocks like swamps or mountains
@@Amir-jn5mo pretty much any place in america built post WWII you can see a pattern of car focused infrastructure, be it Las Vegas, Phoenix, or much of south Florida, so these places were built to easily accommodate cars
There are pedestrian overpasses in the casino lined Las Vegas Blvd. because tourists become idiots here and cross against the light and forget how to drive. Is it really that much of a bother to ride an escalator to an overpass?
Vegas has a taskforce of over 100 police officers dedicated to DUI enforcement. That should tell you something about the safety of cars and pedestrians. After 10 years they were only able to shrink it by 10 officers and that was mainly due to budget cuts, not the amount of drunk drivers decreasing that significantly.
@@charlesgallagher1376 If you are in a wheelchair, or accompanying a minor in a wheelchair, then yes, it is quite much of a bother to ride an escalator.
I live in Eastern Europe and rather than overcrossings, I love our undercrossings. They're well-used, connect to underground transport (where available) and often include things like musicians playing. They also shield you from the weather and in my experience are more accessible. Plus, they can include plenty of space for small low-rent shops that provides opportunities for small businesses.
I know I've heard people in the USA complain about safety concerns, but as long as they're well lit and built in places with plenty of foot-traffic, it's not really an issue. Also, there are usually alternative at-grade crossings not too far that you can take if you prefer not to go below ground late at night or anything.
...I just know in my town they'd have to raise the whole road, create an artificial hill. This is almost a swamp. Any basement has to be mechanically kept dry.
The issue in the USA is that we like to build something and then never maintain it. So instead of undercrossings being a clean safe experience ideal for shops, they end up dirty with a complimentary mugging experience.
At least a bridge will be self cleaned by weather and is in the open which discurages crime as less foot trafic is needed to ensure that witnesses will be around.
Really hard to get rid of the urine smell of undercrossings after even only a few years.
Both underpasses and bridges in the US consistently look like places to get murdered. Even in comparatively nice areas! You often see an utterly trashed bridge connecting two parts of an immaculate park. I bet the bridge is denominated road infrastructure, and not part of the park.
@@mageyeah7763 the US really needs to focus on making being outside more pleasant. An indoor mall is effectively the ideal "safe space" where you don't have many fears, maybe the universal one of pickpockets or someone kidnapping your child. (Again universal concerns).
So we should strive to have the outside feel as safe just minus air-conditioning.
I think a good start is obviously cleaning things but Disney did a study and found you need a trash can every 20ft in a park or people will start littering. (Honestly, thats a pathetic statistic)
But also focus on improving economic conditions to have less addicts and otherwise desperate people to reduce the number of people stressed into being criminals. (This won't stop everyone, recently a college girl was murdered in a town everyone considered safe and the motive apears to be "just felt like killing someone", so obviously you can't stop everyone from becoming a criminal with economics)
You know, my car can go up a hill (for a pedestrian/bike underpass) a lot better than my 71-year old Mom can handle a flight of stairs. 🤔
Yep, and the Dutch understand this - underpasses are preferred wherever possible, to make life easier for all the kids and older people biking
For what it’s worth I think many/most of the ped bridges in Vegas have escalators.
You don't even need to make the cars go up, people are a lot shorter than vehicles. We have many ped underpasses near me with the road at normal grade.
@@anthonybertrand6529 yes they have escalators and I haven’t been there just see him from the picture but people were strollers and packages in balance problems might we find it hard to be on escalators.
Or the cars can also go underneath!
My hometown made the second ring road "continuous flow" so they got rid of a bunch of pedestrian level crossings and placed new bridges instead, with elevators (that don't work anymore) and useless benches and glass walls that get dirty very easily, and make me wonder why would anyone climb to the overpass and chill there, on the bench, under scorching north central Mexico sun.
I prefer those long and massive bridges with winding ramps, you have to walk a mile but at least it's pretty cheap to maintain, and don't pretend they're modern and fashionable. Just a simple, ugly way to get pedestrians out of the way of cars.
Entonces, habemos como 50 hidrocalidos suscritos a este canal?
@@Jaurex parece ser que si
Yeah the "periférico" treatment tends to have shitty pedestrian bridges too infrequently placed. Decision makers on these topics almost invariably have personal vehicles and friends in the road building industry.
@@Jaurex o gente con ciudades que hacen lo mismo y se sienten identificadas
Algo me dice que esa magna obra que dices fue resultado del Progreso implementado por Moreno Valle jajaja.
My ideal would be underpasses for vehicles, while letting pedestrians cross at street level. I have a disability that makes going up a ton of stairs difficult.
Honestly, I disagree - why spend this huge amount of money on car infrastructure. If there is a place where there are a lot of people walking on the street, then maybe just maybe, cars need not drive there...
That would take a lot more space and be much more expensive. Most pedestrians can use 45 degree stairs easily and you can put in lifts for those that cant. For cars you want to keep it below 10 degrees. Also for pedestrians you can put in lifts or escalators, but for cars that's not an option. Thirdly, because cars weigh more a car bridge will need to be much sturdier then a pedestrian bridge.
@@SirBlade666 It's not necessarily the best solution, just a personal preference. It certainly wouldn't work in every scenario. I happen to live a few blocks away from a highway in an area that gets a lot of pedestrian traffic. There are a lot of pedestrian bridges, but pedestrian deaths by people who cross without using the bridge still very much happen. And none of the bridges have lifts.
Another alternative is to move the "street" (actually pedestrian) level one story up. It doubles the amount of store front property, and prepares coastal cities for the day when the streets are permanently flooded by the rising ocean.
@@SirBlade666 I don't think anyone mentioned a car bridge. The pedestrians are still the ones on a bridge.
Also remember that lifts can fail unexpectedly, meaning that, without gargantuan ramps, an elevated overpass is only sometimes accessible. I do recognize that with a car underpass, there are still gargantuan ramps -- for the cars instead of for the people. However, it's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. The ramps of a car underpass are an inherent design element. The ramps of a pedestrian overpass are a separate design consideration requiring you to make a separate argument. Making multiple compelling arguments is usually more difficult than making just one. The ramps of a pedestrian overpass also increase the width of the arrangement -- assuming city planners don't want to replace the level sidewalk with a ramp up and back down to the overpass which everyone must now deal with even if they don't want to cross. The ramps of a car underpass fall in the same footprint as a level road. The ramps of a pedestrian overpass require structural support. The ramps of a car underpass are on the ground.
3:46 The Rattlesnake Bridge in Tucson was somewhat controversial at the time. Being Tucsonans are mostly historically opposed [except just recently] to any infrastructure improvement projects. Most people just saw this as a waste of money at the time because the pathway it carries didn't go anywhere. The bridge now connects some of Tucson's bicycle/pedestrian loop system. It gets utilized and I'm glad it turned into something else than to put graffiti on.
I lived in Vegas just off the Strip for a while and always found these a huge pain to cross. They can be super confusing and a ton of time to your trip if you're actually trying to get somewhere rather than just a tourist wandering on the Strip.
I also lived in Berlin a while back and they had a lot of underground pedestrian crossings there in the busy neighborhoods. I even went to an illegal techno party in one under Alexanderplatz in 2006.
I do want to so something with underground ped passages -- illegal techno party probably qualifies as highest and best use
@@CityNerd I've encountered a lot of people who are fearful of pedestrian underpasses, especially tunnels, because of a perceived risk of mugging.
I don't know if muggings are more common in undercrossings, but I think it's plausible the fear can be traced to urban legends.
@@CityNerd If you're looking to do an underground pedestrian passage video, look at Winnipeg Manitoba's underground passage at portage and main! It is the iconic Winnipeg intersection that has hosted many city celebrations or big events and has been closed off to pedestrians for almost 40 years. Its a big topic of debate every once in a while in the city.
@@NelsonBrown They're definitely more shady, and out of public view. Irreversible and other movies probably third-hand traumatized a lot of people in this regard. In practice, in denser urban areas, underground passages are just defacto homeless shelters and smell like piss. No one's gonna pitch a tent on an overpass.
Theye underpasses also fit nicely with metro stations, and there's shops there too!
While I understand the arguments for them in the Strip, it’s clear that the purpose of these overpasses is getting mainly tourists to go from one hotel/entertainment center to another. I can actually relate to the guy not wanting to have to take a non-direct path that would likely take longer and just making a run for it
I also used to cross the busy "Pragsattel" in Stuttgart directly, instead of three ped phases. German drivers run red light not quite as often I suppose
idk, there isn’t really much else there tbh, so like…where is he going to/from in the first place?
There are several lines here that sound so tongue in cheek but delivered so well I was legitimately confused. But, I enjoyed this. So well done.
I also especially enjoyed the delivery on this one. Peak snark achieved.
it's an acquired taste
Now I'm just imagining pedestrians trying to cross and then the flashing "Don't Walk" starts so they return from where they came like "We'll try again next time." Haha.
Well, technically Don't Walk means you are not supposed to walk forwards or backwards if you take it literally.
@@Taladar2003 Gotta walk between the flashes of light.
It's crazy to me there were that many respondents who thought that.
@@CityNerd I remember a bunch of pedestrian education happening in the late 90s. Is that the result of the survey that found that people didn't know what don't walk meant?
Thankfully now nearly all ped signals have symbols instead of words. A flashing red hand is more intuitive to tell pedestrians that the actual static red hand "don't cross" phase is coming soon, usually with a second countdown timer.
The thing that always got me about Japan/Tokyo - busiest or not, it never felt as uncomfortable as elsewhere. Not at any of the pedestrian crossings nor at any of their stations. Despite the sheer mass of people it's still so orderly and respectful ...
... on the other hand there's some countries where crossing a road irrespective of how the pedestrian crossing is designed requires you to stare down any approaching car into stopping as otherwise you'll just get immediately murdered. If you succeed, your reward is survival and getting honked at, probably.
So, yeah. Design your pedestrian crosses but maybe also ... I don't know. Change how society fundamentally works? Can't be too difficult.
I completely agree. Every time I have to cross at the signal as a a walker the car turning right seems to want to mow me down. Of course there’s some exceptions with some of the cars being polite. Rather the people in the cars.
Japanese culture is generally extremely consciousness and responsible, especially by comparison to the totally irresponsible no-accountability culture in the US. I feel like the infrastructure could be identical and you'd feel completely safe if it were a Japanese city.
@@AlexandarHullRichteractually tokyo is yhe dirtiest city in japan because people from other countries live in tokyo responsibility was a thing before japan existed and before egypt exisited also if a group of
mexican guys are irresponsible does that mean irresponsibility is mexican culture ?
@@AlexandarHullRichterjapan would look different if wasnt the bomb i meant japan would look the same like serbia
@@estelalopez3563 I don't know where you're going with that, but it sounds like you're agreeing with me? You say Tokyo is the dirtiest City in Japan because people other than Japanese people also live there? That sounds like supporting evidence for what I was saying, like you're saying Tokyo would be cleaner if only Japanese people lived there, and not foreigners?
I don't know how you're bringing Mexicans into that.
My main complaint with how the overpasses were done in your Las Vegas example is that they were too far from the intersection making more difficult to cross both directions in the same trip. It looks like you would have to go down to street level and then back up again, which is really stupid.
Yeah, you do in a lot of cases. There are locations where you don't have to (through NYNY and The Bellagio, for example), but yes, usually dumb if you're trying to cross to the opposite corner.
As soon as I saw the Excalibur, the exquisite low hanging fruit that it is, I got goosebumps in anticipation of the incoming snark. I was not disappointed.
Someone has to do it
Having grown up in Las Vegas, I remember when they were putting in the first pedestrian bridges at Tropicana. I think the original rationale for them was partly because of the normal pedestrian behavior on the Strip (which is to basically ignore the flashing don’t walk at any signalized intersection and keep crossing despite what conflicting vehicles may be doing), there were a lot of problems at the intersection. Throughput would break down in peak periods and with high pedestrian activity, or often even just a regular day...and vehicle backups could easily propagate to nearby intersections. I believe the intersection had the highest rate of auto/ped collisions (and possibly also fatalities) in the state for several years prior, so something had to be done.
The one downside to many of the Strip’s pedestrian bridges is the bridges were all constructed much later than the adjacent properties, so they kinda had to be shoehorned in. With many of the adjacent properties built incredibly close to the right of way, the bridges are often not situated close to the actual intersection. Bridges are a few/several hundred feet from where the crosswalk would normally be, and in some cases may have been purposefully located so that adjacent property owners could maintain an ‘iconic’ visual sightline (e.g. the MGM lion statue on the NE corner at Tropicana) or to purposefully connect with a property entrance (e.g. if memory serves, the New York New York was under construction at the same time as its adjacent ped bridges, and was purposefully designed with second floor entry tie-ins; also I think the Bellagio contributed a good chunk, if not all, of the bill [not NDOT or Clark County] for the first two bridges at Flamingo so that they could tie in the bridges on their corner directly to Bellagio’s second floor mall area). So the result ended up being that crossing multiple legs of an intersection via bridges takes a lot more time walking than may be ideal.
But at least for the Strip, the good of pedestrian bridges outweighs the bad. They’ve added several bridges since the originals debuted at Tropicana in the 1990’s, and there’s still more slated in long-range plans at some mid-block locations (between the big intersections that already have them). Recently announced was a concept for the Sahara intersection to connect all four corners with one continuous oval-shaped bridge.
I remember my horror as a foreign visitor on first encountering the Californian interaction between pedestrian crossings and right-on-red. The walk signal is a lie? How are pedestrians meant to cross?
As a lifelong Californian, I have grown to hate the right-on-red law, as a pedestrian and a driver. Trying to take a right on red at a busy intersection is so stressful I usually don't even bother. You have to watch for oncoming traffic but also watch for pedestrians, who might be approaching the intersection from your right, meaning you can't see them at the same time as you look for oncoming traffic from your left. And visibility is usually not too great in busy downtown areas, so you have to creep out into the crosswalk to get a decent view of traffic, which makes me feel like a jackass and also isn't terribly safe. For what? So I can save thirty seconds on my trip?
they don't. they just get hit
@@craig5180 Bruh really. Right on reds aren't that hard for a car. I rode a bike for years in non pedestrian friendly areas and the only issue with right on reds are with pedestrians and bikes. Drivers would get mad even though bikes and pedestrians have the right of way when crossing the sidewalk. But come on man. You need to be evaluated if you're having a panic attack every time you need to turn right on red. You're gonna shorten your lifespan worrying over something so common.
More people need to be talking about this. Incredibly dangerous and terrible.
Right on red means treat it like a stopsign, and works best for areas with good visibility. The main intention is that a right hand turn has 2 conflict points (oncoming traffic turning left, and traffic from the left going straight) so its easy enough to identify when its clear and go, a pedestrian in a crosswalk means you can't go. (Which often gets your car out of the way and improves traffic flow).
Important things to not is that many intersections have signs to tell you not to, usually on busy roads or with poor visibility.
That said i have seen countless CT drivers treat a right on red as a green, which is terrifying.
Im also used to NY laws where you must stop if a pedestrian is in any part of a crosswalk, including waiting to cross. This cost my cousin a road test because he didn't see someone waiting to cross. (Exception for lighted/controlled crosswalks, and lots of people only wait for pedestrians to clear their lane)
I'm sure all this is basically the same in California as Northeast states.
Where I live some of the busiest intersections are lowered into the ground and lidded, so pedestrian crossing is on ground level without interfering with traffic. I assume it's expensive, but it's certainly nice.
Having an entire elevated or underground pedestrian street system is cheaper and (in cities with bad weather, which is most US cities) more comfortable than fighting heavy vehicles for surface space. Such street systems are often integrated with metro stations
I’m so excited you did this video. Couple months back city beautiful channel criticized the pedestrian overpasses in Vegas and I couldn’t have disagreed more! Like you said given the spirit of the Vegas strip and the fact it is a post war car centric boom town, the Vegas pedestrian overpasses work, keep people safe, and take you directly to many destinations and encourage WALKING. It is much faster and more fun to walk the strip than to call a ride share or take that useless monorail. But Vegas is an exception to the rule, in this case.
Yeah, definitely the exception to the rule! I'll come back to the Strip for a future video -- I definitely have a love/hate relationship.
Sadly it won't happen in NYC or LA because the land will either be to valuable that the owner will lobby the city council, or to invaluable that it leads to mass protests.
When I lived in Korea, I noticed a lot of theirs have elevators on them, though in busy city centres it was more common to have crossings go under the road (and there'd be a full shopping mall all the way along the road underground connecting all the crossings).
It might be an interesting topic to cover skyway systems. Like the nearly 10 mile long skyway system built in downtown Minneapolis that provides year-round overhead pedestrian crossings space and interior passageways. It is almost a city unto itself, especially during the Minnesota winter weather.
It would be interesting to do a study on the effect that those skyway systems have on street level retail.
I don't know it, so I just looked it up right now and, my goodness, it looks horrible! To me, at least, it would feel like being stuck in an airport all day. 🤣
@@NealCMH "street level retail" in areas with brutal weather deserve to perish. It is a huge shocker why people would choose the protective comfort of an indoor space instead
@@NealCMH a lot of the retail in downtown Minneapolis is on the second floor of buildings because of the skyways.
In Venice there is no alternative to pedestrian overcrossings. The whole city has a romantic flair despite being plastered with pedestrian overpasses.
Lol. I guess there's little chance that someone will try to run under the overpass
The bridges in Venice for the walkers are not as high as the ones in Las Vegas. At least it doesn’t look that way from the pictures.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 The streets in Venice - which are exclusive for pedestrians - are already elevated to the sea, so the many small brides don't rise much higher (1 to 2 meters I would say). Longer bridges also rise higher since the bigger canals are intended for bigger boats.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 Indeed they aren't. There's only three big bridges (like the Rialto) across the Canal Grande and they are about as tall as the Vegas ones at the beginning of this clip (as I am familiar with both cities) but only half as long as the Canal Grande is only half as wide as the Strip. The multitude of bridges connecting the 114 islands of the six sestieri, however, rarely rise more than 2 meters above street level. The same goes for the bridges on the outer islands like Murano, Burano, Lido, Pellestrina, Mazzorbo and my fave, Torcello.
@@ixlnxs thanks for the information
In Hong Kong there are quite a few pedestrian overpasses that are more like pedestrian highways that go for quite long distances. They are really practical there as the streets can be very crowded, and if you need to quickly get to the Wan Chai ferry, it's nice not having to stop at a dozen intersections.
bike highways are the best solution to decarbonizing the US, as e bikes are a direct replacement for cars
I really like pedestrian overpasses I've used in Tokyo, but they are generally connecting multiple large commercial buildings and/or transit centers. They also have great crosswalks.
There is a gray line between "subsidizing vehicle traffic by removing non-motorized traffic to highway overpasses" and "separating modal uses to avoid conflict." If done correctly, an overpass can help turn a stroad into a road. If done poorly, an overpass is an excuse to provide better driving conditions (when not considering induced car traffic) at the expense of, inconvenience to, and subsequent reduced mode share of non-motorists. Your video is basically a description of this. I like it.
I went to Las Vegas with a former girlfriend, back in 2008. We both learned that pedestrian infrastructure is great, if you're okay staying on the Strip. But say you want to go to an In and Out burger just off the strip about a half a mile walk from our hotel. It was literally a game of Frogger.
Moral of the story, if you're on the Las Vegas Strip and you're feeling In and Out Burger, get Doordash.
They built an In-N-Out Burger on the Strip a few years ago (on the Linq Promenade, which didn't exist in 2008). Problem solved!
Aint the same as eating it there. Also if you want to go to another cool area in the Vegas valley that has decent pedestrian infrastructure. Go to downtown summerlin pretty nice shopping district with good restaurants
I just went through the same ordeal! It’s insane how hard it is just walk half a mile the way the roads are designed.
Have you been to Minneapolis? Their downtown Skywalk system is great. It's a bunch of enclosed passageways between buildings that go over streets and are designed to fit into the looks of the nearby buildings. Its intent is to give pedestrians a way to get around downtown when it's cold more than it is to keep them from conflicting with traffic, but it works really well for both purposes.
Different video for later. Spokane too!
Tsuen Wan in Hong Kong comes to mind in the number of pedestrian overcrossings. In fact, you could traverse multiple shopping centres, apartment buildings around the suburb without ever setting foot on ground level. The intersection around Tsuen Wan Garden Lucky Court comes to mind in terms of pedestrian crossings over a large intersection, there is essentially a contiguous walk from there all the way to Tsuen Wan MTR station 500m away.
Or the escalators in central, when you think about it, it's really a long continuous pedestrian overcrossing. But really so many great over crossings to mention in HK. The new ones in ETST by Ave of the stars. Yau Ma Tei to Elements, etc.
I remember one time I was trying to cross the street in Downtown Los Angeles, I pushed the button and waited for the Walk signal. And when I got the OK to Walk signal and attempted to cross the street, about 10 cars made a left turn directly in front of me, and none of them yielded. Every time I stepped off the curb, another car would come and turn right in front of me. And to add insult to injury there was a police car just sitting there at the intersection watching it and he didn't do anything. And to add insult to the insult, about a decade earlier, I got a jaywalking ticket, for stepping off the curb when the Don't Walk Signal was flashing.
I love the pedestrian overpasses as I can keep walking without waiting for signals and can stay away from cars. I typically visit twice a year (the CES and NAB shows) and I’ll often walk from the LVCC to my hotel, which might be NYNY , the Luxor, or wherever.
My peeve is when the stairs/escalators are far from a straight line. I don’t mind going up or down in the transition, but I don’t want to walk right/left - or backwards - to my destination.
The best example I’ve seen is in Makuhari, Chiba, Japan. It’s a “new”, reclaimed-land city, so it was planned from scratch. Rather than just elevated crossings, there is an elevated pedestrian-only world with businesses at street and elevated levels. The car level is a bit dark and dreary, but the pedestrian level is open, sunny, and landscaped. Going out drinking is great. You can stumble back to the hotel without worrying about cars driving from the unexpected direction. Unfortunately, there’s no 3rd level for bikes, so they have to battle the cars, but on the bright side… trains. Yeah, check out Makuhari some time.
Lol your assessment of Noah as contrarian for contrarian’s sake is pretty spot on…kinda his schtick
Yeah there was still enough of the distinctive avatar to figure it out
Recently went to Vegas for CES. Generally disliked the city, not my scene. But I did find the pedestrian bridges convenient and they’re pretty well maintained. It makes a lot of sense for that area. Annoying to have to walk around to the stairs each time but probably much less annoying than if we actually had to cross the street.
The pedestrian bridges at LVB & Tropicana are actually pretty recent; only opening in the mid-1990s. And all of the other pedestrian bridges over and around LVB are even newer. The intersection has its own Wikipedia article, which includes an early-90s photo of the intersection. (The location of the Tropicana hotel is one of those proposed for a baseball stadium, for the relocated Oakland A's.)
The Strip -does- close, or mostly close, to vehicles sometimes, for special events. The biggest of those is New Year's Eve, but there are others.
I would love to see a video centred around european urban improvement points. A lot of europe is great, but this video really reminded me on some of the terrible 60s car centric hellscapes I grew up near.... I feel like top 10 worst european cities for transit would be fun haha
I agree. In the past 30 years, many euro governments went out of their way to follow the worst possible American example they could find in matters of urbanism.
Overpasses work great when you don't have to return to street level to continue the journey. Having the entrances on the first floor instead of ground makes a huge difference.
Overpasses can work over highways but underpasses are much proffered.
Also, how a video on "green bridges"? Either a discussion on their use or just a list of the longest/most green bridges.
Underpasses/tunnels are typically avoided if all possible due to possible safety issues with lack of lighting and flooding. A dark and long underpass or tunnel could attract the homeless to sleep or do other more illicit things there. There's also the issue of an underpass complicating the drainage plan for that area.
Overpasses over the highway are much more visible to encourage people to not loiter on them and there's no issue with drainage.
Your Excalibur/Motel 6 jab made me laugh out loud. My mom and I were just barely talking about it, when it was brand spankin' new and dazzled the imagination! My memory could be fuzzy, but it seems like it was one of the first ostentatious, themed destination hotel-casinos. There was Ceasars and Circus Circus, but definitely no Eiffel Towers, NYC skylines, Space Needle rip-offs, or pyramids back then. Even the Luxor is shuffling toward life as as the world's largest Days Inn.
Edit: 13:14 Not to mention the time honored tradition of openly sharing a spliff with your pals on the busy sidewalk in front of Shake Shack.
I have noticed a welcome trend in Ireland of placing crosswalks atop ramps either in small towns or beside roundabouts.
It would be a simple safety practice to reduce the carnage of the equivalent of 17 pedestrian deaths in the US every day.
Excellent jab at the Excalibur
"... while watching the Canaries get relegated... AGAIN!" Very cold... and VERY funny!
You camouflaged that bluecheck SO SO WELL.
Another hit! Great video
This is one of the all time funniest videos I've ever seen. Well done. Sticker "You can watch the Canaries get relegated. Again." LOL!
Topic suggestion, why buses suck in the US, not just because they are infrequent but also because they stop too much and have unoptimized routes
Hey, would you consider doing a video focusing on how to effectively integrate rail freight and industry into a city without creating enormous ghettos? I ask because I'm from Detroit, MI, and I feel many of the issues in rustbelt cities (excluding Chicago) are not covered in your videos. Pittsburgh, PA is often touted as a success for it's transition to knowledge economy, but other economic potentials are ignored, namely it's position on the Ohio river connecting the East Coast to the Mississipi River system.
Namely, what are the principles that create effective industrial zones which integrate into and complement the liveability of an urban space? Are we cursed to only have enormous factories in the middle of nowhere? Perhaps a whole video is too much, but I think industry is inescapable in big "transit cities" - the cities on our major trade routes- and a video on how to effectively integrate them instead of disregarding them altogether [a highly classist attitude IMO], would be very appreciated!
Interesting point that you bring up. I agree that the loss of urban industry is a shame in some ways.
I am here 80% because of the great content and 20% for the tour of different stadiums:)
Nice topic to be analyzed! Congrats!
"The Excalibur: The World's Largest Motel 6"! That's why I stay there when I visit! Good call!
I like that he's so much more down to earth than most of the other "urbanist" / transportation youtubers.
Do you have examples? Just curious
I love the intangible sarcasm about the romantic lack of noisy carcinogens of a pedestrian bridge over a freeway
Love your channel!
When talking about that study about what people don't know about pedestrian laws/rules it confirmed a hunch I've had for ages. Whenever I've walked in tourist heavy areas, I would calm myself down when pedestrians did things that were stupid, dangerous, or insane by reminding myself that it wasn't these people's fault since many of them had no idea how to be pedestrians because they were probably visiting from somewhere without sidewalks/decent pedestrian infrastructure. Amazing that the data backs that up!
As a pedestrian I really appreciate them. Even when they are inconvenient, they are safer. Any time you are crossing a street, even a well-signaled one, you are depending on the good behavior of drivers. Not something I like to risk my life on.
if you risk your life when crossing a street where you have a priority, theres a big problem
@@asddd. Makes me wonder if you've seen a street.
@@asddd. Also called, "You're in the United States".
That’s true and there’s a lot of crossings for walkers that the car is turning right and doesn’t want to wait for the walkers to go they just kind of bully themselves across because the car is bigger.
@@brucegardner8992 oh I have, and here no matter the size of it you don’t risk your life by crossing it
Pedestrian over crossings come in 3 forms.
1. The rather inconvenient kind of patch work, where you have to either climb a rather long set of stairs, or take even longer and usually rather steep ramp, which you can use if you use any wheel based transportation device (wheelchair, stroller, scooter, unicycle, bicycle, skateboard etc.). While these ramps are technically accessable, the ramp height and length may pose some requirements for physical ability. These usually live around freeways where space alongside the freeway is limited due to buildings, roads or geographic features.
2. The inconvenient kind, where you have only a set of stairs to climb a short-medium distance (3-5 meters / 10-16 feet). No ramps, inaccessable by any wheel based transport device, unless elevators are provided. These are rarely found where I live, but in the UK these seem to be quite common around railways and in the US these seem to be quite common around stroads.
3. The convenient / only slightly inconvenient kind, where you have shallow ramp (which causes no detour) or no ramp at all. Truly accessable to all forms of non-motorized traffic. With these, the pedestrian walkways are (at least locally) 1 level above the busy roads. No need for physical exercise, and you barely notice that you went over a road. Access to buildings is provided at the overpass/ramp level, no need to climb a set of stairs to get where you are going.
The 1st case may be ok in relatively rural and quiet areas (due to cost constraints), as long as the ramp doesn't contain more than 1 sharp turn (if you are on a bike, you can go quite fast at least on 1 side of the bridge). The 2nd kind shouldn't really be built at all, as we really should get rid of inaccessable transit infrastructure. The 3rd kind is really nice to use. Based on the video, the overcrossings seemed to be some hybrid between 2 and 3.
That comment about the Canaries was spot on.
In the smaller cities I lived in the Pedestrian over pass is most likely to be in either a place with a lot of traffic deaths, or a vulnerable target like near an elementary school. The two I know of in my area is by an elementary school near a 6 lane Stroad that happens to be on a 25 degree hill and the other one is near the Park and Ride station for the bus. Because something like 20 people in the last 2 years died J walking from one side to the other to catch a bus before it was built.
"Excalibur - the world's largest Motel 6."
As usual, you speak from great experience.
Literally in this case...unfortunately
@@CityNerd Actually in this case, the world's largest Motel 6 is... you guessed it, on Tropicana just east of the intersection in question, within a 1/2 mile.
Morristown, Tennessee has double decker sidewalks that span main street in the downtown area and connect at and between several intersections and connect to local businesses on both levels. I was there on a pretty nice Saturday afternoon and I was pretty much the only one using it, since it's a fairly small town. It didn't seem warranted at all, but it gave the area some charm
Relegated! So hilarious! You’re so eloquent!
Dude you're spot on plus you talk like Gary Vider. What's not to love?
Great video!
I also notice a lot of pedestrian bridges in college towns, too, which makes sense considering the foot traffic in such areas. UVA has a great pedestrian bridge with a grassy center to extend the centerpiece of the university, the Lawn. Definitely a great blend of form and function as a lot of students cross it during the school year. It's described as "A 100-foot-wide concrete pedestrian bridge with grass along its center connects the Central Grounds with the South Lawn Project across Jefferson Park Avenue; it terminates at an open semicircular colonnade-like structure intended as a “Commons” area that allows views to the mountains to the south."
In NY, we primarily have pedestrian overpasses almost exclusively over highways and expressways. There is also one well known pedestrian overpass that connects the island of Manhattan to Randalls/Wards Island, and another one from the Bronx to the same island.
I've only been in Las Vegas one time, and it struck me as visiting some kind of a zoo. To your point, I liked the pedestrian over crossings, for the reason you mentioned, which is they come out on floor level for all sorts of both outdoor and indoor walkable entertainment places, as well as offering escalators to the street level if you need that. They were very heavily used, as well, indicating that I was not the only city nerd who like to walk everyplace in an environment like that.
I wonder if there will be an evolution of the upper ped level to the point that the ped level becomes the surface level and the cars will be mostly hidden by lids below.
It has definitely evolved that way. The first time I visited Vegas, everything WAS on street level -- the MGM had big lion-mouth street-level entrance that just doesn't exist anymore, for example.
I think the pedestrian overpasses I've found in Stockholm are great. There's one semi-motorway-ish road (Örbyleden) with 3 overpasses:
1. There's a metro overpass with a pedestrian overpass. Why not just build one in with the metro. The path already follows along the metro to the square.
2. A dedicated pedestrian overpass, where an elementary school is on one side of the road with the neighbourhood on the other side. An overpass here is a really safe method. Connecting the school grounds to the neighbourhood directly.
3. A T-intersection of a similar road, where there's two overpasses, one for each road. This connects all the paths together, and there's no stairs and only a gentle rise up over the road, so it kinda feels seamless.
The crossing road (Huddingevägen) has yet another connecting two bus stops together, as well as the two neighbourhoods. The distance between these is quite short.
Then a final one I want to mention is closer to the inner city, at the Globen metro station and shopping centre. Since there's already an overpass over the metro tracks for obvious reasons, and the shopping centre is also quite elevated (since it has parking on the level with the road), having an overpass straight from the metro to the shopping centre just makes sense. The road it crosses has sidewalks, and there's a crosswalk 50 m away as well if you really want that. Plus it's not illegal to cross the road anyway (but watch for cars).
My nephew's wedding was at the Bellagio. We stayed directly across Las Vegas Boulevard at Paris. We walked to the wedding using the pedestrian bridge. It was a hassle. My daughter was three-years-old at the time, so I carried her much of the way. After the wedding, we took a taxi to get back across the street.
That's amazing
I am a new subscriber. I enjoy your conversations. I have traveled to Hong Kong many times and in the central business district (Central) they have put most of the pedestrians up on overhead walkways. This is a full right of way for pedestrians. The walkways are a complete way to move around the busiest part of the city. There are still sidewalks at street level below, however there may not be as many pedestrian cross walks. Traffic on the streets can move quickly with most of the pedestrians above. You can enter most office buildings, hotels, malls, etc from the walkways and they are covered in case of rain. I have found it an enjoyable way to move about this area. In Mong Kok, another busy area there are similar walkways. Hong Kong also has the world famous escalators going from Central up the mountain to the high-end residential mid-levels. Hong Kong moves a lot of traffic through this very busy city with their safe pedestrian walkways.
I used to live in a little town called Harvey, ND. You wouldn't think a town like that would need a pedestrian bridge (1600 people). But there was a railroad switching yard plunked right in the middle of town that was 7 tracks wide. As you noted in the video, it made sense. I used it 2-3 times weekly to walk to the downtown area. It was definitely not ADA compliant. But you also don't want pedestrians mixing with a rail yard!
Largest motel 6 is the best description I've ever heard for Excalibur
I've lived in Vegas for 20 years and the points about making a forgiving transportation system are super important because drunk and high pedestrians will not follow a signal. People on their way to their fourth bar that night will walk directly into incoming traffic to save themselves that 180 seconds if you let them. And frankly getting taxis and questionably sober drivers to yield to pedestrians just... doesn't really work as often as it should.
People talking about how hard it is to climb all of the stairs to a pedestrian bridge are absolutely right. I hate these things off the strip. The ones on the strip, however, are accessible by multiple elevators, so at least there's that.
I love the video and thanks for the analysis c:
3:30
"Building a bridge based on how many people are swimming across the river"
What a fantastic quote. Mind if I use that with credit to you? It's such a great way to sum up so many bike and pedestrian infrastructure problems
It's not mine -- I've heard it many times, but not sure who the originator is!
I was thinking you’d include discussion of skyways-elevated pedestrian bridges in downtowns such as Minneapolis, St. Paul, Calgary (called Plus 15s there) and perhaps a few other cities. Having worked in DT Mpls for 20 years I developed a love-hate relationship with them. They definitely hurt street-level vitality, but it does encourage a highly dense compact downtown which (in pre-Covid times) which supported scores of businesses on the second level. It also really encouraged people to get out of their building no matter the weather (you may have heard about Minnesota winters). Dallas, Houston, Toronto, Montreal & Chicago also have notable tunnel networks.
Separate topic for me -- those are interior-to-interior, and I'm excited to cover it when I get around to it!
When I went to Las Vegas, I remember there was an intersection in which we had to go up to a pedestrian bridge, go down, then go back up to another bridge and down again, and cross ANOTHER bridge just to cross the street
Yeah, it's not all as well coordinated as I wish it was.
Your sarcasm is on a level I've never experienced from an American. You could definitely fit in over here in the UK if you ever fancied moving. Haha!
Navigating Las Vegas on foot can feel so convoluted and confusing. Multiple times sidewalks will taper off into asphalt and you’re stuck in the back lot of a hotel or next to an intersection without a crosswalk. Then you realize that you were supposed to walk across to take that ped bridge you passed by 10 minutes ago.
The pedestrian bridge over westside hwy that connects to Stuyvesant High School is great too
Had to Google it -- I've been there (around Westfield) and didn't remember it!
I've lived in Las Vegas since the 1970's. So the traffic on the strip was HORRIBLE until they removed the pedestrian traffic from the intersections. Here are some of the big issues we had. Tourists walk slow. They are tourists. There were SO many tourists that during the entire duration of the light, there were no gaps for vehicles turning right to traverse the crosswalk. So traffic would back-up, especially on west-bound Flamingo wishing to turn right on to Las Vegas Blvd.
People would also enter the crosswalk long after it was safe to do so and even AGAINST the traffic lights. There was a train of people jay-walking with the knowledge that traffic couldn't move until the last jay-walker in the train was through. So through traffic was being blocked for several seconds.
The results: casualties in the crosswalk. Half of the pedestrians are also inebriated. Now you have someone down on the road, traffic has to stop and create a traffic jam. Some how an ambulance had to get through that jam to the victim and haul them away. Traffic might be immobalized for several minutes.
The solution: very expensive pedestrian by-passes and fencing at the intersections to keep pedestrians OUT of the intersection. It worked. As you noted, without having to factor in pedestrians, the traffic engineers were free to design intersections and roadways optimized exclusively for vehicles. Traffic on Las Vegas Blvd has DEFINITELY improved and fewer drunks are getting dragged down the street under a truck... in front of other tourists. It's a win.
My jaw legitimately dropped at the improvements to the road you time-traveled on at the beginning of the video.
Yeah, PBOT is really doing good (and long overdue) work in outer southeast these days.
The pedestrian bridges on the Las Vegas Strip are better than at-grade crossings, but S Las Vegas Blvd is still an annoying stroad. Walking distances on the strip are longer than most people realize, and having to repeatedly access pedestrian bridges considerably adds to that, not to mention that not everyone can go up and down stairs. The bridges are also a source of bottlenecks that do not easily accommodate the amount of pedestrian traffic at peak times. And yes, that bus is overcrowded and slow, taking almost an hour to go between downtown and Mandalay Bay, so there is no good way to get around the strip.
Ideally, I would like S Las Vegas Blvd to be converted to a wide pedestrian space with underpasses for the crossroads and elevated rapid rail transit. Maybe that is too much to ask, but I think the amount of pedestrian traffic and revenue generated by the area does warrant some major improvements
This channel is very interesting and the comments are always an equally interesting entitlement fight lol
I suppose a related topic suggestion would be a round-up of the best/worst pedways in downtown areas. And since summer is getting closer in the northern hemisphere, maybe a best/worst city beach and shoreline integration episode would make sense. It would give you the opportunity to dunk on Robert Moses inspired highway building while highlighting cities that either corrected that mistake or never made it to begin with.
There is a ped overpass that was built decades ago in my hometown to connect another town together. When the interstate was getting built it split through a section of the two towns that shared a school system, so they needed a safe way for kids to walk past the highway. Later on, the school system was split so the walkway doesn't get used as much.
I loved it
Overhead bridges are a huge thing in Singapore. They are almost exclusively built over freeways where there is no way to put a pedestrian crossing and it connects towns. It made walking possible.
I don't know about busy, but trying to cross Leesburg Pike in Tyson's Corner, VA was insane. We were at a conference at the Sheraton (I think) and wanted to walk to Starbucks (this gal needs her chai, okay?)... not only is there a divided road with many lanes, but the Metro line running down the middle. And we needed to be diagonal. I do love a "Ped All Ways Xing" and this would have been an ideal place for it. But given how few folks were actually walking, maybe not. I think it was Springhill road... but I know the intersection just south-ish of there was even bigger.
There was a pedestrian crossing went over the highway in my town (40k pop). It was mainly used by kids to get to school and they tore it down when the highway expanded with no alternative (thanks TxDOT!)
Yeah, a lot of these are near schools. Crazy TxDOT wasn't required to do a "same or better" accomodation
@@CityNerd Initially they said they were - a pedestrian crossing with signals through the service road and below the highway (they even made a cute graphic for it). Somehow it got scrapped
one of my worst experiences as a driver was a near miss with a pedestrian caused by excessively "permissive" phasing.
It was a fairly high-speed intersection. I was intending to turn right. I had a green globe and both of the crosswalks which I would cross had the "do not cross" signal.
After I had entered the intersection and initiated the turn, the right crosswalk changed to the "walk" signal and a person stepped out right as I was about to drive through the crosswalk. I wasn't even able to register what happened until I was completely past the crosswalk. Zero chance of stopping. Fortunately, there was no collision.
permissive phasing needs to be outlawed
Where I live, the train station and our downtown are on opposite ends of a highway. An overpass would allow those who came by train (when we get one) to get downtown without running the risk of being hit by a passing 18 wheeler or car on the highway. It also allows those living downtown or in the nearby suburbs to get to the station without feeling like they need a car.
Uijongbu station in South Korea has several underground tunnels that connect busy intersections nearby directly to the train station. there's also room for shops in those tunnels.
A pedestrian bridge is usually better than no pedestrian bridge.
They are frequently a band-aid trying to fix a deeper problem.
One pedestrian overcrossing I've seen that I really liked was in Shanghai. It was a circular crossing over a very busy intersection. Since it's a big circle, crossing diagonally doesn't require crossing two different streets (and waiting for two sets of lights) like it normally would. And although its not "romantic", it IS in a part of the city with great views of skyscrapers, and people do frequently get their picture taken on it.
This is why I love living in the Netherlands. I cross the street wherever I damn well please.
I lived in Las Vegas for 18 years before moving to SF. We owned 5 cars in Las Vegas, down to 1 that has less than 7,000 miles a year on it.
My 2 mile commute walk has three options for crossing a very busy stroad and freeway. Each is a couple hundred feet from the next.
Two are street level signal controlled intersections. [The freeway is underground at this point.] Unfortunately whoever programmed the walk time made it barely long enough to cross during the Walk + Don't Walk phase - and I don't walk slow! I avoid these when possible, I don't trust the drivers.
The third is a pedestrian overcrossing, from a sculpture garden to a park. The bridge itself was designed to be a sculpture, it's clean and attractive. Both sides have ramps and stairs, the ramps are just long enough. I will take this bridge whenever possible, stop in the middle, and look down on the bumper to bumper cars, full of drivers who would rather spend 45 minutes in traffic than walk 2 miles through a sculpture garden and a park.
For an American city, mine handles non-car transportation better than most.
I lived in 'Vegas and worked servicing slot machines on the strip before, during, and after the construction of the ped bridges at Trop and Flamingo. By the time construction began in the early '90s pedestrian traffic at those intersections had become a disaster. Something needed to be done, you can argue about what would have been the best solution but IMHO the bridges worked out well. During construction, you could get caught in traffic delays there that were monstrous.
Lansing, Michigan area seems to have smartly placed pedestrian bridges around elementary schools that are on or adjacent to very busy "stroads".
One case where overcrosses (or undercrossed) are actually good is when they are at-level with entrances to local locations. For example, the ground floor at the Azrieli mall in Tel Aviv, Israel is basically just parking. One entrance is onto a bridge to cross the main street (5 lanes in each direction), with both stairs/escalators and elevators at each side of the street.
This is probably more a of a thought starter in the context of this channel, but in my virtual fantasy cities (Cities Skylines) I always build long elevated "designer" pathways with lots of on/off ramps. I realize it would not work exactly the same IRL, but the concept could be adapted. In these simulations, the three layers (elevated pedestrian walkways, ground level streets and tunnels for heavier traffic) keep citizens safe, traffic flowing and encourages walking by offering better views that are above the noise with direct paths to primary destinations.
There is an over-crossing in Santo Domingo located at Avenue Maximo Gomez and RD - 1 with a massive over-crossing. These are two massive roads with almost nonstop traffic in one of the more desirable parts of the city. The over-crossing allows pedestrians safe passage from the public transit station (NOTE: the subway is soooo clean) to Sambil Mall and neighboring streets. It is a great over-crossing in that it is simple to navigate but it is an exactly ridiculous sight
I don't see the overcrossing in Google Maps -- is it new? I think the latest imagery from that part of Santo Domingo is 2018.
@@CityNerd I mixed up the malls so I gave you bad information by accident. Sambil Mall is down the road at Maximo Gomez and is on google street view!