Third district police officers aren’t about to slap the cuffs on Silver Spring’s jaywalkers. But they aren’t handing out free passes, either.
As a matter of fact, officers issued a dozen jaywalking tickets during one 45-minute span in early January, third district Sgt Tom Harmon told Silver Spring’s pedestrian safety committee last week.
“We have not targeted pedestrians,” Harmon insisted. “But that doesn’t mean that pedestrians don’t have to follow the rules.”
The tickets were issued to pedestrians crossing against the light at Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive, Harmon said. A few also went to jaywalkers crossing Fenton Street at the entrance to the Whole Foods parking lot. There is no crosswalk at that location.
Contrary to allegations made during January’s citizens advisory board meeting, no tickets were issued to people crossing Ellsworth Drive between Fenton Street and Georgia Avenue, in the Downtown Silver Spring shopping center, Harmon said.
When asked if jaywalking laws would be enforced at other downtown intersections, Harmon explained that the PD would keep its focus on drivers. However, officers wouldn’t be dissuaded from ticketing jaywalkers.
Each jaywalking ticket carries a fine of $40, Harmon said.
Image courtesy of Flickr user Fazen.
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Huzzah! Huzzah! Now how about they target jaywalkers crossing Colesville Road. At night. During rush hour.
And Silver Spring looks awful European in that photo.
Editor’s note: Italian, to be specific. Oddly enough, I don’t have any photos of Silver Spring jaywalkers. I chose the Italian pic only because it showed people walking through auto traffic. — JD (Feb 5, 2008)
How bout a picture from Frogger instead?
So pleased to see this happening. And while we are at it, can we also see some enforcement in:
a.)Drivers who stop their vehicles in the middle of the road on the right hand side during evening traffic on that same stretch (Fenton through downtown), slap on their hazard lights, and just sit there blocking a line of traffic. Seriously, just take your lazy ass to the parking garage or at least pull off onto Ellsworth! The left lane doubles as a turning lane and with the Metro Buses it can take a good 20 minutes to go .3 of a mile!
b.) In the same regard, how about the city enforces the parking meter hours on the street (Colesville through downtown) before jacking up the fees?
Re: “Fenton Street at the entrance to the Whole Foods parking lot. There is no crosswalk at that location” I disagree. There may not be a full fledged MoCo $100k signed, marked, and lighted crosswalk but a crosswalk exists there. Read the drivers manual.
Fenton & Ellsworth? That is lame. That intersection is pedestrian only half the time anyway. Georgia/ Colesville or Colesville/ Wayne-2nd Ave is a real problem. The honest pedestrians have a problem crossing because the left hand turning lane has to first wait for the jaywalkers!
Buzz wrote:
I haven’t read a driver’s manual in a loooong time, which goes a long way to explaining my “driving” abilities. Please elaborate on your statement.
Thanks!
Just tickets? I think being placed in the stock on the Big Green Lawn should be the punishment for jaywalking. I am sick of people, usually teenage boys with their asses hanging out of their pants, who slowly saunter across traffic, basically daring drivers to hit them. Believe me, having been behind the wheel more than once when this happened, these kids have no idea how close they are to a haggard commuter snapping and actually taking them up on their dare. Bang, zoom!
Ticket the little creeps, and pull their pants up, too! (Harrumph)
Working out at WSC you get a good overhead view of the myriad of things going on on Fenton St. The other night I watched an argument between a jaywalker and a driver making a U-turn in the middle of the block. sigh…
DTSS has got to fix the ridiculous traffic patterns before they start slapping people with $40 fines for crossing streets when it’s obviously clear and safe to do so – because 80% of the time don’t walk signs are up, it’s for no good reason. Some examples..
*Walk signs when your direction has an arrow and hence opposing traffic is stopped – i.e. – spring and georgia.
*Middle median walk signs so at all these STUPID automobile oriented intersections where each direction gets it’s own green light you can at least cross halfway – i.e. 2nd and colesville.
*HEck… take out the green arrows entirely, give them the same delayed oncoming green so they can turn, but make them still yield to pedestrians – IT’S AN URBAN DISTRICT.
Anywho… I’m just sick of the auto-happy traffic patterns in the middle of the CBD.. if ya chose to drive through the CBD instead of taking transit or walking, it SHOULD take a while… to start slapping fines of pedestrians who are taking advantage of the MANY MANY obviously safe crossing times is just insulting to our intelligence… Ya wanna fine pedestrians that mess up traffic doing it, cause they’re stupid and it makes someone stop short or whatever, FINE… but when it’s perfectly safe and simply a bi-product of our RIDICULOUS traffic patterns, that’s just a load of bull…
paul_silver_spring, I think my problem with your argument is that you think the “CBD” extends considerably further out than it really does. Spring and Georgia isn’t in middle of the CBD – it’s on the fringe, at best. And, I hasten to add, that light works properly. I’ve crossed that intersection dozens of times. You’re apparently not noticing the left turn green lights or something. I really don’t think there’s any walk light optimization to be done.
If we took out those green left turn lights, cars would be turning when the light was red (and the walk was on!) because they would have to delay their turning so much. You can see an example of this at 16th and E-W Highway when coming from Bethesda.
I’m all for compromise, but let’s be realistic: there’s bad drivers and bad peds, and both are contributing to the problems. There’s only so much pedestrian optimization you can do to 16th, Colesville, Georgia, and E-W Highway before you turn Silver Spring into a traffic grid-lock nightmare – which, incidentally, would be a problem for peds anyways.
I’m so sick of the “its ok for me to jaywalk and break the law in downtown Silver Spring because its an urban area and cars are bad and evil” arguement. Just because you don’t like a law doesn’t mean you get to break it. Just because you walk doesn’t give you the right to break the law because its more convenient.
For me personally, I don’t have as much as an issue with the jaywalkers as the poor drivers who think that a.) they can park on the side of the road and block traffic and will to drop someone off/pick up someone and b.) drive around the CBD making ridiculous u turns, illegal turns, stops, etc. because they have no idea where they are going or what they are doing.
I metro 50% of the time and drive the other 50% of the time, only when its necessary. That is, when traveling to and from work, and when traveling out of Silver Spring completely for errands and/or traveling in general (the lack of useful stores in Silver Spring such as a Target for said errands is another arguement for another day).
I would LOVE, LOVE to commute to work vial rail or bus everyday. I work in the Twinbrook area of Rockville, either a 40-45 rail ride or a bus ride that only comes every 40 minutes, so metro for me isn’t feasible and I have to drive.
There is a metro plan in place for people like me, its called the Purple Line, and it would help out my commute immensely by giving me a feasible metro option. Of course, it often seems that the same people that don’t want driving in the urban CBD also don’t want the Purple Line running through their not-so-urban residental areas.
I don’t see getting cars out of the CBD as a possibility either. Metro runs all through DC and people are driving there everyday (though dealing with the same problems as us on a larger scale).
DMZ – I used to live in Georgian before their rents went too high, so I know that intersection quite well. Unless it’s changed in the last year, this is how it works trying to cross georgia:
One direction on spring gets a green left arrow and green solid light at the same time (i don’t recall which way is which). At this point, no one gets a walk across georgia. Next, the other direction gets a solid green but no formal arrow – although the other direction has a red light. At this point both sides of the intersection get a walk across georgia. Hence, turning cars at this point have opposing traffic stopped but have to (but generally don’t) yield to pedestrians on their left turn.
The SMART way to work this intersection would be – give both directions left arrows, and give each side of spring street the walk sign across georgia when the left arrow directs traffic away from that crosswalk. Simple. Actually BETTER for cars (both directions get an arrow) and pedestrians don’t get frustrated not being able to walk when it’s clearly perfectly safe. Add “halfway” walk signs on the medians and that intersection becomes even MORE efficient for pedestrians.
I’m not just an angry pedestrian folks – I’m an engineer, I analyze the world around me, that’s just the way I work. And when I find things that are irrational, yea, they piss me off. If you wanna hand out $40 tickets to every pedestrian that screws up traffic or puts themselves in harms way, fine. But anyone with half a brain is intelligent enough to get across a street by looking at the traffic patterns, remembering when which light changes where, and crossing when it’s safe. Handing out tickets to pedestrians who do this safely and don’t impair traffic flow is simply ridiculous.
You don’t see cops wasting their time with nonsense like this in manhattan, and sure, you can’t get out the holland tunnel and expect to be at the queensboro bridge in 5 minutes – but it’s a city, you don’t expect to… if ya wanna get to queens faster from jersey, ya go down to bayonne, hop over staten island and avoid manhattan all together. On a smaller scale, this is how DTSS should treat the issue. There are plenty of ways into DC around DTSS, if you think they’re faster than going through an URBAN AREA, so be it – avoid downtown. If DTSS adds 5 minutes to your 45 minutes commute into the district because it takes a while to get through busy intersections that aren’t geared towards automobile traffic, then so be it.
A clarification on the issue of crosswalks: Legal crosswalks exist at the intersection of all public streets, whether it’s a 4-way intersection or a 3-way intersection, and whether or not the crosswalks are actually striped. Pedestrians have the right of way at all crosswalks, striped or not, unless there is a traffic signal and the signal does not permit them to cross. (Pedestrians are allowed to begin their crossing on a WALK signal, or a green signal if no separate pedestrian signal exists.)Pedestrians are only prohibited from crossing between two consecutive signalized intersections. Example: Crossing Georgia Avenue mid-block between Ellworth and Colesville is illegal because each of those intersections is signalized. Crossing Georgia mid-block between Colesville and Cameron is legal because there is an intervening unsignalized intersection at Fidler Lane. In the latter example, pedestrians crossing at the Fidler Lane intersection have the right of way. Pedestrians crossing mid-block at other locations between Colesville and Cameron do not have the right of way but must yield to vehicles. Drivers always have the responsibility however to avoid a collision.
Buzz and Larry – you are right on it and we need to spread the word. There are many such unmarked ped crossings in downtown SS and I think we need to fight to have theses signed & marked — although cars seem to ignore the ones we do have marked — so may be a futile battle. And those folks who got ticketed in front of Whole Foods entrance need to appeal.
Also if the crossing mid-block (basically Whole Foods-to-Pier One) is not a legal crosswalk (which it IS), WHY did the county a few weeks back tear out a chunk of sidewalk on each side and place handicap ramps there??!!