[Mpls] Pedestrian Rights

[Tracy Nordstrom]

To all Mpls Issues List Pedestrians,   The recent posts on pedestrian safety, particularly crossing traffic, really hit a nerve with me.    I live on a supposedly "calm" Minneapolis Parkway where the posted speed is 25 mph.  We have a dangerous mid-block crosswalk at 34th Street and East Calhoun Parkway which is the only stroller/ wheelchair/ bike/ rollerblade access point to the lake for 3 blocks either direction.  This crosswalk cuts across two lanes of traffic and is in the middle of a 3 block "throughway" with no intersections, parking, or narrow roadbed to slow traffic.  There is signage, but no current striping on the roadbed.    Through NRP buy backs, both Mpls cops and Park Police have clocked cars blowing through this posted crosswalk at 40, 45, even 50 mph.  Anecdotally, I have been nearly hit on several occasions while crossing with my neighbor's kids and my son in his stroller.  One morning, a motorist from 1/2 a block south of me sped up as I entered the crosswalk, slammed to a near stop just in front of me, rolled down his window, and spat at me.  I can't tell you the ire it raised in me (in front of kids, no less!) to have someone 1) so blatantly ignore a law I thought everyone had drilled into them in elementary school ("pedestrians have the right of way"), and 2) so rudely demonstrate his complete lack of understanding, nay contempt,  for those of us on foot.   Our neighborhood has purchased police buy backs the past three summers to issue citations to violating motorists.  We staged, in conjunction with the 5th Precinct, a citizen's "take back the street" day last summer where neighbors wrote down license places of those who didn't stop at stop signs, violated noise ordinances, or didn't stop for pedestrians.  It has even been suggested by our block club that pedestrians in ECCO be issued personal safety flags to wave when crossing E. Calhoun Parkway!   I am interested in keeping pedestrian issues out front on this issues page, and in our city.  We all claim to want a liveable, pedestrian-friendly place, but cars still seem to have the upper hand.  What suggestions do people have for improving the lot of us on foot (and on bikes, rollerblades, whatever)?  What can be done to calm the raging car culture throughout our fair city, but especially on streets where citizens feel the heightened sense that strolling on foot should have priority.    Is it time for a "Calm Down" day (year, lifetime) in Minneapolis?   Tracy Nordstrom East Calhoun