If you’ve walked around the Frankford Transportation Center, you may feel like you’re taking your life in you hands crossing the street. If you cross Bustleton or Frankford Ave you may get the impression that motorists are just waiting for a chance to run you down. But it wasn’t until I got a walking tour pointing out the FTC issues that I started noticing other areas of the tristate area that were doing it right. Take in point this intersection at the Collegeville Diner in Collegeville:
This intersection is doing a few things. It’s alerting motorists to an oncoming insection by showing a brick colored crosswalk. It’s also inviting pedestrians to cross it by showing a path, several lights, and the Walk/Don’t Walk siganls.
The block of Frankford Ave crossing the FTC provides nothing but doom. Check out this guy crossing:
Poor guy, I wonder if he ever made it. People are going to cross where they’re going to cross. Our brains are smart enough to know the path of least resistance, even if it means putting us in danger. It is our community( i.e. the city) job to ensure that we can safely make it.
My amateur walkability suggestion is to at least give a crosswalk and “Yield to Pedestrian” sign. Best case, give it a light. That spot right there is the de-facto entrance to the center and doesn’t invite anyone to cross the street to shop in stores.
