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Home > The Secret History of Jaywalking: The Disturbing Reason It Was
Outlawed - And Why We Should Lift the Ban
________________________________________
The Secret History of Jaywalking: The Disturbing Reason It Was Outlawed -
And Why We Should Lift the Ban
By Ravi Mangla [1] / Salon [2]
August 22, 2015
"Jaywalk." The word seems better suited to a dance craze than criminal
infraction. The jitterbug, the lindy hop, the jaywalk. Some trace the
origins of the term to Syracuse, New York; others to Kansas City (home
briefly to a bar called Jaywalkers). One of the earliest references to the
practice is in an article in the Chicago Tribune: "chauffeurs assert with
some bitterness that their 'joy riding' would harm nobody if there were not
so much jay walking" (April 7, 1909). The quote reflects a mind-set of
entitlement among the motorist class, a readiness to allocate blame to the
lowest tier of traveler. In early America "jay" was a pejorative used to
denote a rube or rustic, someone unacquainted with the niceties of urban
refinement. To be called a jay was to have called into question your very
sense of belonging, your right to exist within the city proper.
* * *
Before the proliferation of automobiles streets were shared by all manner of
traveler. Crosswalks had not yet been established (the first one wouldn't
appear until 1911) and pedestrians had just as much right to the road as
streetcars and carriages. Cars, in their earliest incarnation, were seen as
interlopers, an unwelcome addition to the urban milieu. Traffic fatalities
were not looked upon kindly by the general public. Angry mobs were wont to
drag offending drivers (kicking and screaming, one would presume) from the
comfort of their cars. According to the Detroit News, upwards of 60 percent
of automobile-related fatalities in the 1920s were children under the age of
9. "One gruesome Detroit article described an Italian family whose
18-month-old son was hit and wedged in the wheel well of a car. As the
hysterical father and police pried out the child's dead body, the mother
went into the house and committed suicide."
By the close of the 1920s, automobiles had claimed the lives of more than
250,000 children and adults in the United States. In New York City,
temporary memorials were erected in Central Park to commemorate the dead, as
if casualties of combat. Automobile drivers were uniformly painted as
villains in newspaper editorials, a menace to civic well-being. Cartoons
depicted them in full reaper regalia, armed with sharpened scythes. The
phrase "jay driver" prefigures its more common counterpart, appearing in
print as early as 1905. (A 1907 headline in the Albuquerque Evening Citizen
reads "Jay Drivers Imperil Life Each Hour in Albuquerque.") The growing
tension between motorists and pedestrians had larger class implications.
While motorists tended to be men of means, the pedestrians they sought to
displace were largely working-class. Andrew Mellon, during his tenure as
secretary of the treasury, instituted a landmark tax reduction strategy,
lowering the top marginal rate from 77 percent to 24 percent. The
combination of lower taxes, flourishing markets and weakened unions led to
prodigious levels of inequality. The chasm between rich and poor reached its
pinnacle in 1928, with 23.9 percent of all pretax income channeled to the
top 1 percent of families. Even with improved methods of production,
automobiles were still out of reach for millions of Americans. As James J.
Flink writes in "The Automobile Age," "The automobile trade journals were
agreed in 1923 that 'illiterate, immigrant, Negro and other families' were
'obviously outside' the market for motorcars."
In 1923, Cincinnati residents pursued an ordinance that would require
motorists to outfit their cars with mechanical devices called governors. The
governors would switch off car engines if vehicles exceeded speeds of 25
miles per hour. Local automobile dealers mobilized to strike down the
measure. Over the next decade the auto industry pursued aggressive action to
take sole possession of public roads and, in turn, reshape the conversation
around cars. The American Automobile Association, or AAA, sponsored safety
campaigns in schools, educating students on the dangers of crossing the
street in unmarked zones. Boy Scouts handed out cards to pedestrians,
warning them against the practice of jaywalking. Mock trials were conducted
in public settings to shame or ridicule offenders. The National Automobile
Chamber of Commerce persuaded politicians and journalists to shill for their
cause. The Packard Motor Car Co. went so far as to construct tombstones
engraved with the name Mr. J. Walker. In Buffalo, beachgoers were treated to
a public performance by the National Safety Council, in which a jaywalker
was arrested, handcuffed and fitted with a sandwich board that read "I am a
jaywalker," and then ushered into a police wagon plastered with
anti-pedestrian slogans. ("Hell is paved with good intentions, but why crowd
the place? Don't jaywalk.") By the 1930s, jaywalking had been adopted as
common law in most major municipalities. The term was near ubiquitous, and
opposition to the automobile had softened to scarcely a whisper.
* * *
In Marietta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, a young woman named Raquel Nelson
was stepping off the bus with her two children. They had been shopping at
the grocery store and it was late in the evening. The nearest crosswalk was
three-tenths of a mile from the bus stop, so she-like many of the regular
passengers-attempted to cross the busy road. She and her children were
struck by an onrushing van, and her 4-year-old son was killed. The driver,
it was later discovered, had alcohol and painkillers in his system. He had
two previous hit-and-runs on his record and was visually impaired in his
left eye. The driver pleaded guilty to fleeing the scene of the accident and
served six months in prison. Nelson, soon after the funeral was held for her
son, was charged with second-degree vehicular homicide, reckless conduct,
and crossing a roadway in an inappropriate manner-in other words,
jaywalking. These charges, in collaboration, carried a penalty of up to
three years in prison. In the end, Nelson was sentenced to 12 months of
probation, for doing nothing more than trying to get her children home.
Modern attitudes toward jaywalking can be traced to "broken windows"
policies implemented in larger cities like New York and Boston. In 1998,
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani instituted a citywide crackdown on the practice of
jaywalking. The fine for walking outside of designated crosswalks was raised
from a token $2 fine to a heftier $50 penalty. This past year, under the
stewardship of Mayor Bill de Blasio, that fine was once again raised, this
time to $250. However, just like stop-and-frisk before it, the clampdown on
jaywalking has disproportionately targeted people of color. The Department
of Justice report on the Ferguson Police Department revealed that 95 percent
of those cited for jaywalking are black. In Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, that
figure is 89 percent, even with a populace that is primarily white. A female
English professor at Arizona State University was forcefully pinned to the
ground by campus police after crossing the street to avoid sidewalk
construction. Instances like these fail at maintaining even the guise of
upholding public safety. So the question becomes, who is being served and
who exactly is being protected?
The criminalization of jaywalking may be in part justified if crosswalks
were in fact safer, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Crosswalks that
aren't supported by traffic lights or stop signs are no safer than unmarked
zones. One study published inTransportation Research Board of the National
Academies found that the risk of injury inside the painted lines was the
same as it was outside of them. On roadways with multiple lanes and
high-volume traffic the crosswalk proved the more precarious option. A
safety study conducted by NYU Langone Medical Center was even more decisive
in its findings: Of those injured, 44 percent had used a crosswalk with the
traffic signal on their side, while 23 percent had been struck crossing
mid-block. In what can only be attributed to dreadful luck, 6 percent had
been injured while on the sidewalk.
To compound the issue, most crosswalk buttons are nonoperational. Only 9
percent of buttons in New York City, the Department of Transportation
estimates, are responsive to user commands. The remaining 91 percent, which
are set to fixed timers, serve as placebos for Type A personalities or
germ-laden playthings for restive children. In car-centric cities like
Dallas, the number of functioning buttons is even lower. Many of these
buttons worked at one point but have been deactivated to improve efficiency
and flow. Explanations of this sort are par for the course. Efficiency has
been the mantra of the urban planning profession for the better part of 60
years. However, by prioritizing efficiency above all other ideals, such as
equity and livability, we strip pedestrians of their personal agency and
demote non-drivers to the status of second-class citizens.
* * *
Recent years have seen an uptick in pedestrian advocacy. The global
recession exposed sprawl for what it is: a blatant cash grab and
misappropriation of resources. For the first time auto usage is down in the
United States, and suburbanites are returning to the city in large numbers.
Younger generations seem especially keen to escape the isolationism and
uniformity of suburbia. With this migration is a renewed desire for
walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. And while cities have been generally
receptive to these entreaties, modern planning still begins and ends with
the automobile. Until the scales of power and privilege are balanced, cars
will continue to exercise their dominion over city roads.
20's Plenty for Us, a not-for-profit organization founded in England,
advocates for a 20 mph speed limit on urban and residential streets.
Campaigners maintain that reduced speed limits would allow pedestrians and
cyclists safer access to roadways and dramatically lower the number of
traffic collisions. Moreover, pedestrians struck by a vehicle traveling less
than 23 mph have a 90 percent chance of surviving the accident (compared to
only 25 percent when met by a car traveling over 50 mph). The organization
presently has 250 chapters operating across the United Kingdom. Pedestrian
organizations with similar aims have blossomed around the United States, but
few have the means and resources to expand their influence beyond the local
level.
In New York City, the pedestrian plaza has experienced an unlikely
renaissance, with Times Square serving as the highest-profile example.
Despite the initial resistance from area businesses (and taxicab drivers),
the pedestrianization of the iconic square is now viewed as an unqualified
success. Foot traffic has increased, injuries and noise pollution have
plummeted, and three-fourths of Manhattanites surveyed, many of whom stood
in opposition to the project, now approve of the changes. Several more
streets (including a pocket of 33rd Street, near Penn Station) plan to
launch pilot programs over the coming year.
* * *
For the past four months, in my hometown of Rochester, New York, I have been
lobbying to convert a popular side street into a shared space. The street in
question-Gibbs (for the odd reader familiar with downtown Rochester)-is a
one-way thoroughfare, anchored by a renowned music conservatory and
century-old concert hall. The narrow street, easily accessible on foot (or
via transit), links two larger and more lively roads, East and Main. At this
point, I have met with school administrators, city planners, urban activists
and architects, and have made disappointingly little headway.
Shared spaces are the democratic alternative to the autocracy of the
pedestrian plaza. They seek to restore the natural order of the road by
granting equal access to all modes of transportation. By eliminating
traditional demarcations, shared spaces promote open communication and
cooperation between drivers and pedestrians. Describe this concept in a
meeting and watch the frown form on the face of your interlocutor. (You may
as well be stomping on the table and chanting "anarchy.") Despite clear
evidence of its safety and efficacy (see: Europe), the approach struggles to
gain traction on this side of the pond, especially in smaller and midsize
cities where the car is king.
Rochester has taken tentative steps to retrofit its infrastructure, adding a
network of dedicated bicycle lanes and sharrow markings. The Inner Loop, an
underused freeway from our industrial past, which has acted as a garrote
around the neck of the city's poor, has been partially entombed beneath a
layer of gravel (with plans to build a city street and cycling track on the
burial site). While bulldozers continued their task of erasing the Loop, the
city quietly greenlit a $157 million overhaul of a highway interchange in
the Rochester suburb of Gates. For a little context, the highway redesign
comes in at seven and a half times the cost of the long overdue Inner Loop
revisal. The two projects may not be in direct opposition of one another,
but they do send mixed signals about the priorities of local leadership. In
a city hemorrhaging wealth, we can't afford to hedge our bets.
Attempts to lure young talent to our snowy shores tend to focus exclusively
on job creation (with corporate tax credits handed out like Sunday coupons).
But as much as young people need jobs, they also yearn for livable
neighborhoods with vibrant street life. The car-dependent cities of our past
risk becoming fossils in the future. (How can street life be expected to
unfold when everyone is just passing through?) The revival of cities like
Rochester will depend less on the breadth of their highways than the state
of their streets. And the first step involves returning to pedestrians what
was wrongfully taken from them, so that jaywalking is no longer a
provocation but the rule of the road.
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it-was-outlawed-and-why-we-should-lift-ban
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ravi-mangla
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Secret History of
Jaywalking: The Disturbing Reason It Was Outlawed - And Why We Should Lift
the Ban
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Secret History of Jaywalking: The Disturbing Reason It Was
Outlawed - And Why We Should Lift the Ban
The Secret History of Jaywalking: The Disturbing Reason It Was Outlawed -
And Why We Should Lift the Ban
By Ravi Mangla [1] / Salon [2]
August 22, 2015
"Jaywalk." The word seems better suited to a dance craze than criminal
infraction. The jitterbug, the lindy hop, the jaywalk. Some trace the
origins of the term to Syracuse, New York; others to Kansas City (home
briefly to a bar called Jaywalkers). One of the earliest references to the
practice is in an article in the Chicago Tribune: "chauffeurs assert with
some bitterness that their 'joy riding' would harm nobody if there were not
so much jay walking" (April 7, 1909). The quote reflects a mind-set of
entitlement among the motorist class, a readiness to allocate blame to the
lowest tier of traveler. In early America "jay" was a pejorative used to
denote a rube or rustic, someone unacquainted with the niceties of urban
refinement. To be called a jay was to have called into question your very
sense of belonging, your right to exist within the city proper.
* * *
Before the proliferation of automobiles streets were shared by all manner of
traveler. Crosswalks had not yet been established (the first one wouldn't
appear until 1911) and pedestrians had just as much right to the road as
streetcars and carriages. Cars, in their earliest incarnation, were seen as
interlopers, an unwelcome addition to the urban milieu. Traffic fatalities
were not looked upon kindly by the general public. Angry mobs were wont to
drag offending drivers (kicking and screaming, one would presume) from the
comfort of their cars. According to the Detroit News, upwards of 60 percent
of automobile-related fatalities in the 1920s were children under the age of
9. "One gruesome Detroit article described an Italian family whose
18-month-old son was hit and wedged in the wheel well of a car. As the
hysterical father and police pried out the child's dead body, the mother
went into the house and committed suicide."
By the close of the 1920s, automobiles had claimed the lives of more than
250,000 children and adults in the United States. In New York City,
temporary memorials were erected in Central Park to commemorate the dead, as
if casualties of combat. Automobile drivers were uniformly painted as
villains in newspaper editorials, a menace to civic well-being. Cartoons
depicted them in full reaper regalia, armed with sharpened scythes. The
phrase "jay driver" prefigures its more common counterpart, appearing in
print as early as 1905. (A 1907 headline in the Albuquerque Evening Citizen
reads "Jay Drivers Imperil Life Each Hour in Albuquerque.") The growing
tension between motorists and pedestrians had larger class implications.
While motorists tended to be men of means, the pedestrians they sought to
displace were largely working-class. Andrew Mellon, during his tenure as
secretary of the treasury, instituted a landmark tax reduction strategy,
lowering the top marginal rate from 77 percent to 24 percent. The
combination of lower taxes, flourishing markets and weakened unions led to
prodigious levels of inequality. The chasm between rich and poor reached its
pinnacle in 1928, with 23.9 percent of all pretax income channeled to the
top 1 percent of families. Even with improved methods of production,
automobiles were still out of reach for millions of Americans. As James J.
Flink writes in "The Automobile Age," "The automobile trade journals were
agreed in 1923 that 'illiterate, immigrant, Negro and other families' were
'obviously outside' the market for motorcars."
In 1923, Cincinnati residents pursued an ordinance that would require
motorists to outfit their cars with mechanical devices called governors. The
governors would switch off car engines if vehicles exceeded speeds of 25
miles per hour. Local automobile dealers mobilized to strike down the
measure. Over the next decade the auto industry pursued aggressive action to
take sole possession of public roads and, in turn, reshape the conversation
around cars. The American Automobile Association, or AAA, sponsored safety
campaigns in schools, educating students on the dangers of crossing the
street in unmarked zones. Boy Scouts handed out cards to pedestrians,
warning them against the practice of jaywalking. Mock trials were conducted
in public settings to shame or ridicule offenders. The National Automobile
Chamber of Commerce persuaded politicians and journalists to shill for their
cause. The Packard Motor Car Co. went so far as to construct tombstones
engraved with the name Mr. J. Walker. In Buffalo, beachgoers were treated to
a public performance by the National Safety Council, in which a jaywalker
was arrested, handcuffed and fitted with a sandwich board that read "I am a
jaywalker," and then ushered into a police wagon plastered with
anti-pedestrian slogans. ("Hell is paved with good intentions, but why crowd
the place? Don't jaywalk.") By the 1930s, jaywalking had been adopted as
common law in most major municipalities. The term was near ubiquitous, and
opposition to the automobile had softened to scarcely a whisper.
* * *
In Marietta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, a young woman named Raquel Nelson
was stepping off the bus with her two children. They had been shopping at
the grocery store and it was late in the evening. The nearest crosswalk was
three-tenths of a mile from the bus stop, so she-like many of the regular
passengers-attempted to cross the busy road. She and her children were
struck by an onrushing van, and her 4-year-old son was killed. The driver,
it was later discovered, had alcohol and painkillers in his system. He had
two previous hit-and-runs on his record and was visually impaired in his
left eye. The driver pleaded guilty to fleeing the scene of the accident and
served six months in prison. Nelson, soon after the funeral was held for her
son, was charged with second-degree vehicular homicide, reckless conduct,
and crossing a roadway in an inappropriate manner-in other words,
jaywalking. These charges, in collaboration, carried a penalty of up to
three years in prison. In the end, Nelson was sentenced to 12 months of
probation, for doing nothing more than trying to get her children home.
Modern attitudes toward jaywalking can be traced to "broken windows"
policies implemented in larger cities like New York and Boston. In 1998,
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani instituted a citywide crackdown on the practice of
jaywalking. The fine for walking outside of designated crosswalks was raised
from a token $2 fine to a heftier $50 penalty. This past year, under the
stewardship of Mayor Bill de Blasio, that fine was once again raised, this
time to $250. However, just like stop-and-frisk before it, the clampdown on
jaywalking has disproportionately targeted people of color. The Department
of Justice report on the Ferguson Police Department revealed that 95 percent
of those cited for jaywalking are black. In Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, that
figure is 89 percent, even with a populace that is primarily white. A female
English professor at Arizona State University was forcefully pinned to the
ground by campus police after crossing the street to avoid sidewalk
construction. Instances like these fail at maintaining even the guise of
upholding public safety. So the question becomes, who is being served and
who exactly is being protected?
The criminalization of jaywalking may be in part justified if crosswalks
were in fact safer, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Crosswalks that
aren't supported by traffic lights or stop signs are no safer than unmarked
zones. One study published inTransportation Research Board of the National
Academies found that the risk of injury inside the painted lines was the
same as it was outside of them. On roadways with multiple lanes and
high-volume traffic the crosswalk proved the more precarious option. A
safety study conducted by NYU Langone Medical Center was even more decisive
in its findings: Of those injured, 44 percent had used a crosswalk with the
traffic signal on their side, while 23 percent had been struck crossing
mid-block. In what can only be attributed to dreadful luck, 6 percent had
been injured while on the sidewalk.
To compound the issue, most crosswalk buttons are nonoperational. Only 9
percent of buttons in New York City, the Department of Transportation
estimates, are responsive to user commands. The remaining 91 percent, which
are set to fixed timers, serve as placebos for Type A personalities or
germ-laden playthings for restive children. In car-centric cities like
Dallas, the number of functioning buttons is even lower. Many of these
buttons worked at one point but have been deactivated to improve efficiency
and flow. Explanations of this sort are par for the course. Efficiency has
been the mantra of the urban planning profession for the better part of 60
years. However, by prioritizing efficiency above all other ideals, such as
equity and livability, we strip pedestrians of their personal agency and
demote non-drivers to the status of second-class citizens.
* * *
Recent years have seen an uptick in pedestrian advocacy. The global
recession exposed sprawl for what it is: a blatant cash grab and
misappropriation of resources. For the first time auto usage is down in the
United States, and suburbanites are returning to the city in large numbers.
Younger generations seem especially keen to escape the isolationism and
uniformity of suburbia. With this migration is a renewed desire for
walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. And while cities have been generally
receptive to these entreaties, modern planning still begins and ends with
the automobile. Until the scales of power and privilege are balanced, cars
will continue to exercise their dominion over city roads.
20's Plenty for Us, a not-for-profit organization founded in England,
advocates for a 20 mph speed limit on urban and residential streets.
Campaigners maintain that reduced speed limits would allow pedestrians and
cyclists safer access to roadways and dramatically lower the number of
traffic collisions. Moreover, pedestrians struck by a vehicle traveling less
than 23 mph have a 90 percent chance of surviving the accident (compared to
only 25 percent when met by a car traveling over 50 mph). The organization
presently has 250 chapters operating across the United Kingdom. Pedestrian
organizations with similar aims have blossomed around the United States, but
few have the means and resources to expand their influence beyond the local
level.
In New York City, the pedestrian plaza has experienced an unlikely
renaissance, with Times Square serving as the highest-profile example.
Despite the initial resistance from area businesses (and taxicab drivers),
the pedestrianization of the iconic square is now viewed as an unqualified
success. Foot traffic has increased, injuries and noise pollution have
plummeted, and three-fourths of Manhattanites surveyed, many of whom stood
in opposition to the project, now approve of the changes. Several more
streets (including a pocket of 33rd Street, near Penn Station) plan to
launch pilot programs over the coming year.
* * *
For the past four months, in my hometown of Rochester, New York, I have been
lobbying to convert a popular side street into a shared space. The street in
question-Gibbs (for the odd reader familiar with downtown Rochester)-is a
one-way thoroughfare, anchored by a renowned music conservatory and
century-old concert hall. The narrow street, easily accessible on foot (or
via transit), links two larger and more lively roads, East and Main. At this
point, I have met with school administrators, city planners, urban activists
and architects, and have made disappointingly little headway.
Shared spaces are the democratic alternative to the autocracy of the
pedestrian plaza. They seek to restore the natural order of the road by
granting equal access to all modes of transportation. By eliminating
traditional demarcations, shared spaces promote open communication and
cooperation between drivers and pedestrians. Describe this concept in a
meeting and watch the frown form on the face of your interlocutor. (You may
as well be stomping on the table and chanting "anarchy.") Despite clear
evidence of its safety and efficacy (see: Europe), the approach struggles to
gain traction on this side of the pond, especially in smaller and midsize
cities where the car is king.
Rochester has taken tentative steps to retrofit its infrastructure, adding a
network of dedicated bicycle lanes and sharrow markings. The Inner Loop, an
underused freeway from our industrial past, which has acted as a garrote
around the neck of the city's poor, has been partially entombed beneath a
layer of gravel (with plans to build a city street and cycling track on the
burial site). While bulldozers continued their task of erasing the Loop, the
city quietly greenlit a $157 million overhaul of a highway interchange in
the Rochester suburb of Gates. For a little context, the highway redesign
comes in at seven and a half times the cost of the long overdue Inner Loop
revisal. The two projects may not be in direct opposition of one another,
but they do send mixed signals about the priorities of local leadership. In
a city hemorrhaging wealth, we can't afford to hedge our bets.
Attempts to lure young talent to our snowy shores tend to focus exclusively
on job creation (with corporate tax credits handed out like Sunday coupons).
But as much as young people need jobs, they also yearn for livable
neighborhoods with vibrant street life. The car-dependent cities of our past
risk becoming fossils in the future. (How can street life be expected to
unfold when everyone is just passing through?) The revival of cities like
Rochester will depend less on the breadth of their highways than the state
of their streets. And the first step involves returning to pedestrians what
was wrongfully taken from them, so that jaywalking is no longer a
provocation but the rule of the road.
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [3]
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Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/culture/secret-history-jaywalking-disturbing-reason-
it-was-outlawed-and-why-we-should-lift-ban
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ravi-mangla
[2] http://www.salon.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Secret History of
Jaywalking: The Disturbing Reason It Was Outlawed - And Why We Should Lift
the Ban
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
