Pittsburgh drivers - pedestrians

[doo dah]

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

The blurb on the Pitt webpage mentions how his style won him an appearance on Candid Camera in 1963, winning him national fame. I remember his sequence from Flashdance, though I wasn't aware of who he was at the time, so I didn't pay as close attention as I otherwise would have.

I don't know if he would have helped me as a driver as I might have found myself paying more attention to his movements than what he was actually communicating.

I remembered seeing him on Candid Camera when I was little, and when I moved back to Pgh in 1975, he was still there, and this made me happy

[LIRefugee]

Originally Posted by doo dah

I remembered seeing him on Candid Camera when I was little, and when I moved back to Pgh in 1975, he was still there, and this made me happy

I wish I could have seen him, he seemed like one of those memorable characters that gave Pittsburgh a bit of flair. The only guy like that I can think of now is Mr. Fenderbiker.

[minthotchocolate]

Originally Posted by gortonator

In a major city, that would be once an hour. Or you could just follow SCR around, I guess

Maybe if you are in many places at once. I lived in Indianapolis, Sacramento, San Francisco, Chicago and I've never seen this kind of stuff as often as I see here. And certainly I've never lived in a place where drivers just ignore a pedestrian standing on a crosswalk

[captainmidnight]

Originally Posted by rockthecasbah121

I think downtown Pittsburgh, particularly all of Grant street, needs its lights adjusted. There's something really off with the flow of traffic that causes both pedestrians and cars to act erratically. Some of the crosswalks will flash the walk sign literally only once, and then it immediately goes back to the do not walk. If you obeyed the law, one person would cross per cycle. Then there are left hand turns across traffic that are only green long enough for one car to get through, but the turning lane can hold upwards of 10 cars. If people decide to actually obey the law in that situation, it causes gridlock.

Lastly, if you are caught stopping anywhere downtown for any reason and blocking traffic, it should be an automatic one year ban of your license. I'm tired of people idling on Grant street during rush hour, particularly whoever delivers food to Jimmy John's. They'll park their truck at what is a designated bus stop for over a half hour.

Part of the problem is people cross against the light at intersections with dedicated left turn signals, i.e Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Avenues. I see it all the time. Someone crossing at Grant and Sixth will go on the 'No Walk' sign while traffic turning left onto Sixth has the green arrow. The car stops and wait for people to cross. Given that this phase is short, the Grant Street light has turned green all around and only one (maybe two cars) has been able to turn. At rush hour, you don't can't really yield on green safely to turn so traffic queues in that turning lane spilling out onto the through lanes. Also, sometimes will make the left while the light is yellow or just turned red. It is all a domino effect/