Making an Intersection Unsafe for Pedestrians to Save Seconds for Drivers
How the redesign of a street in a walkable college town reflects our broader values for cars over people.
Today, I bring you to Orange, California, a small college town that hosts Chapman University. Being in Orange County, you may think this area is just a big highway with suburban neighborhood houses. While that is true for much of Southern California, that would be a mistake in the case of Orange.
The story focuses on a redesign of one intersection in this town. The case highlights how we’ve elevated the value of moving cars quickly at the expense of everything else, even in highly walkable areas.
Walkable Orange County
Old Towne Orange is indeed one of the most walkable places in all of Orange County. It has an intact little downtown with shops, restaurants, and other civic institutions. It is a remnant of the old streetcar neighborhoods that are still some of the most desirable places in the US.
Chapman University is a medium-sized liberal arts college with around 10,000 students. I happened to work at Chapman before moving to my current university.
I have fond memories of working and living in Old Towne Orange because the university is tucked directly into the neighborhood. I walked to work, joining the many students and community members who lived around the area. A car-free life is feasible here (I did it for a year and a half).
This is all setting the stage for the re-design I wanted to highlight with this article. One choice that makes the walkable area a little less pleasant and more unsafe for pedestrians just to placate impatient drivers.
“Fixing” a Street That Wasn’t Broken
The intersection is at Lemon Street and Palm Avenue. It is not a major thoroughfare, but rather a neighborhood street that sits between two parts of the Chapman campus. The popular film school is adjacent, along with a newly constructed dorm a block away. It’s also only a few blocks from Orange’s Metro Station that can take students into downtown LA in an hour.
It is safe to say, the Palm and Lemon intersection sees a lot of walkers.
A few years ago, the Lemon and Palm intersection was a four-way stop sign. It was simple, cars always had to stop, and pedestrians always had the right of way to walk. It makes sense, as it’s in the middle of a neighborhood and college campus.
There was nothing broken about this intersection. It was working fine. Sure, there were a lot of people walking, so cars had to move slowly and wait a bit longer—ideal, considering the dangers cars can pose to pedestrians.
But the city of Orange disagreed.
The university requested a change from the stop signs to a traffic signal in order to “better organize traffic and reduce conflicts between the various road users (motorists and pedestrians).”
The city did an “engineering analysis” to ascertain the request. The study found that “the combined volume of pedestrian and vehicle traffic rises to the level where installation of the signal is justified.” The traffic engineering study concluded, “a signal could also improve the quality of traffic flow at this location.”
A Street For Cars Not for People
In 2020, the city removed the stop signs and installed stop lights, fulfilling the request of the university. Chapman actually offered to pay for the construction costs of $600,000, too. The city would still be responsible for any upkeep.
The concession for pedestrians was that the signal would be an all-walk pedestrian scramble.
The change makes the intersection more annoying for a pedestrian. Previously, walkers always had the right-of-way at the four-way stop. In the new system, pedestrians have to press the beg button, wait for the light to cycle through its routine, and then walk across the street.
With the change, the light always sits green for drivers on Palm, so cars are now always flying through that street when they previously had to stop at a stop sign. Why don’t lights ever sit idle with the pedestrian crossing on and the cars must wait?
Now an Unsafe Street
Even worse than the annoyance, the street is much less safe than before. Drivers now do not want to get stuck at the light, so they are consistently running red lights, as shown in the video below. I was only filming for less than 15 minutes and I captured two drivers ripping through red lights in that short span.
One of the most frustrating things is that the change only saved seconds for drivers. I am not exaggerating when I write seconds because just past this intersection in all directions are stop signs or a busy thoroughfare.
The end result of this $600,000 upgrade is that drivers blast through Palm and Lemon only to slam on the brakes at any of the upcoming intersections. It makes no sense. This choice simply made the street more unsafe for everyone.
To recap, “upgrading” the intersection…
…makes crossing slower and more annoying for pedestrians.
…promotes higher speeds in a residential campus area.
…tempts drivers to run red lights.
Beyond a College Town, Street Design Values in the US
Those familiar with
’s work at Strong Towns and in Confessions of a Recovering Engineer may recognize the priorities of speed and “Traffic Volume” for drivers over that of safety and comfort for pedestrians. The “upgraded” intersection at Lemon and Palm illustrates this mismatch in values.In a neighborhood between parts of a university campus, in one of the most walkable areas of the county, the priority for the street was to move cars faster. A few seconds saved for drivers means a worse experience for students and anyone else living in the neighborhood.
This one choice by itself doesn’t ruin the charm of Orange nor make Chapman unlivable for students. It just makes that particular street a slightly worse pedestrian experience (although, I could foresee an accident at this spot in the future).
While Lemon and Palm is just one intersection in a random college town, the values of this street re-design are replicated at intersections, streets, and areas across the country. Every city has its own Lemon and Palm.
These decisions added together make walking in the US unpleasant at best and unsafe at worst. All this to save drivers an imagined few seconds.
Where I live in Brooklyn, traffic enforcement leaves a lot to be desired. There's one intersection in particular, with a stop sign against one-way traffic, where car after car will go right through as if it weren't there — and this is in an area lined with shops and restaurants. As a pedestrian, you have to step off the curb and make eye contact with a driver to get them to stop, and that doesn't always work. Signaled intersections are generally far more predictable and easier to deal in my experience. There's plenty of red-light-running, but it's usually just the last car or two in the cycle.
Separate but related issue: Curb cuts that drop pedestrian traffic to street level. How about elevating the crosswalk to make pedestrians more visible AND create what is in essence a speed bump. Intersections that do this are much more ped friendly!