Adam Tuss, WTOP-FM (Washington, D.C.), May 21, 2009
It is known as the most deadly intersection in all of Fairfax County: Route 50 in the Seven Corners area. Seven pedestrians have been struck and killed while trying to cross the road since 2001.
Shops and businesses, including a Home Depot and a bus transfer station, line both sides of Route 50. But proper crossing areas (Patrick Henry Drive and Cherry Street) sit more than a mile apart, which entices people to make the dangerous dash across the roadway.
Transportation leaders think they have come up with the solution: A long, overhead pedestrian bridge designed to carry people out of harms way.
{snip}
One of the biggest pedestrian challenges for planners in the Seven Corners area, the ethnic diversity that is present.
“One of the things that we’ve learned over the years is that when folks are new to America, they may not be familiar with the speed that a vehicle travels, in the dark, with headlights and things like that,” says Wells. “But folks who have been crossing already will now have a safe way to cross.”
Original article
(Posted on May 21, 2009)
Comments
““One of the things that we’ve learned over the years is that when folks are new to America, they may not be familiar with the speed that a vehicle travels, in the dark, with headlights and things like that,” says Wells. “But folks who have been crossing already will now have a safe way to cross.””
- this Fairfax County Pedestrian Program Manager Chris Wells character must be brain-dead. Because someone is “new” to America does that also mean that they’re therefore new to cars and headlights? Of course in that case they would have to be uh, from the uh, jungles.
Home Depot. I’m guessing day laborers.
“One of the biggest pedestrian challenges for planners in the Seven Corners area, the ethnic diversity that is present.”
But how can this be?
Diversity is our strength; should not the cars now be able to magically glide through the delightfully multihued pedestrians, and cause no harm to anyone?
I just don’t understand what has gone wrong here; nor do I understand the need to construct, this “overhead pedestrian bridge.” Please tell me that the bridge will at least be a rainbow of colors, so as to foster acceptance of the: citizen, immigrant, and undocumented alike.
If not, I will cry spasmodically and quite possibly collapse into a coma!
A man who appeared to be hispanic was at the self checkout. I don’t believe he just crossed the border because he spoke English without an accent.
I know he spoke English without an accent because he couldn’t understand what he was reading on the screen and was raging in a loud voice about how he put the money in but the machine wouldn’t complete the transaction. A store worker calmly tried to explain that he didn’t put in enough money to complete the transaction. He put in more money and it went through but he was mumbling about the incident as he left.
I wanted to say something but he looked like the type of hispanic that would cut your throat if you disrespected him in any way.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Forgot the link to google maps: http://tinyurl.com/okycxv
The amount of times that I have been driving along and have had to stop to allow people to cross at an area of road that is not a pedestrian crossing or walkway, is incalculable.
I live in this area, and I can absolutely say that there are tons of day laborers who hang out by this Home Depot. It seems to be the go-to place for day labor in this area.
I find it amazing that the paper acknowledges that “folks [who] are new to America” are the reason this bridge has to be built. That seems to imply that the fatalities were all non-white non-citizens. For a mainstream news source like WTOP to admit that immigrants are dying of their own stupidity is profoundly politically incorrect.
Totally unnecessary. An intersection with a traffic light and crosswalks is just 100 yards away but they are too lazy to use it. So the county will spend big bucks on this unneeded bridge. Its how they spread the swag around with projects like this one.
I don’t think this is so much a problem with immigrants as it is a problem with pedestrians not being respected in America. Having lived in Germany for six years, where roads are designed with pedestrians in mind, it was a huge culture shock to come back to America and find miles of freeway with no pedestrian bridges at all; those things are everywhere in Germany. America’s culture, for the most part, has evolved around the automobile because of our cheap fuel prices, so we have strip malls and big box stores with huge parking lots, yet very little pedestrian only shopping areas and safe road crossings.
Peter K, in Los Angeles we have some pedestrian bridges, and a few pedestrian tunnels, but mostly we just walk over or under on the sidewalks that are on every street that crosses the freeway. What’s the big deal? These people are hit because they are Mexicans and have the cultural traits of Mexicans, including carelessness. I have witnessed the problems railroads have with Mexicans, including mothers with small children, crossing through the freight yards. I have seen them ducking under the cars rather than climbing over the platforms. The railroads fence off the yards, and holes are immediately cut. If these people will so freely court death in a rail yard, it’s hardly surprising that they are equally thoughtless on the public streets.
Peter K,
Sir, you make an interesting observation. The thing about the states is that nobody intends to do any walking if they can help it, other than walking the short distance to their car. So when people see a walker, they don’t know how to react. Plus, walkers are the last thing they see. Where I live, the police even view walking a suspicious behavior for a White person. As a walker, I’ve been stopped numerous times by the police and asked to produce ID. They don’t know what to make of it when I tell them I’m out doing an errand. I’m sure they’re stunned that a White person who has a car might chose to walk somewhere.
It’s a very interesting subject. I don’t know how we got this way, but we are. We moved from NYC some years ago and this is the way we found things. The only other person I know of that walks anywhere besides my wife is a 90 yr old man and he tells me the same thing, that the police used to stop him and tell him about how dangerous walking was, etc. When they start talking to me about how dangerous walking is, I just say that it’s as good a way to go as any other. That usually stops them in their tracks. They don’t know how to respond to that.
Tom Iron…
Where I live, plenty of people walk. They usually go to a track but in the mornings or evenings, I see pleny of walkers in my neighborhoods, walking by themselves or walking their dog. Many places in the USA have sidewalks, these migrants could use them. If lack of walking areas are the problem, then wouldn’t whites be getting killed at the same rate?
