Police fine 90 jaywalkers during morning commute

[Calgary14]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...383/story.html

Does anyone walk near this intersection? I had assumed the sidewalk portion of the street would be open by now but apparently not. It looks like the police were overwhelmed by the number of people walking on the side with no sidewalk. A $115 fine on the way to work would suck.

[polak]

It's a great day for the CPS.

[Temporary_User]

Shouldn't an enclosed pedestrian walkway be built?

Four officers writing 90 tickets is a money grab. One officer could have stood at the front and directed everyone to the crosswalk.

Four police officers wrote fines for two hours Tuesday morning and became so overwhelmed by the growing jaywalking crowd that they couldn’t nab all the offenders.

[taco.vidal]

Originally Posted by Calgary14

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...383/story.html

Does anyone walk near this intersection? I had assumed the sidewalk portion of the street would be open by now but apparently not. It looks like the police were overwhelmed by the number of people walking on the side with no sidewalk. A $115 fine on the way to work would suck.

Yep, I walk by here a few times a week. Early on in the demolition, only half the lane was closed and they had cones on the road where it seemed it was intended for walking. Now the entire lane is closed. It sucks because its a half block thats closed but if you want to use the lights then you need to cross, walk the entire block, then cross back, and if you're going to the bus stop, double back partially.

Whats ticketing going to do? Those people who go a ticket may or may not cross, everyone else will keep doing what they were doing. Its bad because the train station is right there so you have so many people there. Not sure what solution there is because the only option would be to close a lane of traffic to let people walk on the road.

I know the city has caught crap before for letting construction sites encroach on sidewalks and roadways for extended periods of times.

Does anyone know why this building is being dismantled rather than demolished? Is in the proximity to the new train station or something else about that location?

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by taco.vidal

Does anyone know why this building is being dismantled rather than demolished? Is in the proximity to the new train station or something else about that location?

Don't know too many people who would be on board with setting off a bunch of demolition charges right downtown.

[Dion]

[Temporary_User]

Extremely large image

Spoiler!

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There are still 3 lanes of traffic available. With so much foot traffic does it not make sense to cut that down to 2 lanes of traffic and allow pedestrians to occupy the 3rd lane?
Or could the construction site be cut back 3-4 feet and make a makshift sidewalk?

[photon]

Thanks for the pic Temporary_User, that is pretty dangerous IMO.

This ratio is kind of scary.

They wrote 90 tickets for failing to obey the sign and arrested six people who had been wanted on outstanding warrants for a range of offences.

But I've got no problem with writing tickets in this case, that looks far more dangerous and more importantly disruptive to other people than mild speeding. Don't people always say they should be catching speeders directly instead of photo radar? This is catching them directly.

And threat of punishment is what stops people from doing it, right? If you put a volunteer out there asking people to please not jaywalk that would have almost no impact (well maybe a little more impact in Canada than elsewhere). If you put a cop there asking people not to jaywalk almost no one will.

Which would be fine, except we'll need to increase the # of cops by an order of magnitude to watch every jaywalking site (let alone any other laws).

[Chill Cosby]

Even if it's a money grab, it's a good one. People are being a bit reckless and breaking the law due only to laziness. I'm perfectly happy with the police increasing their revenue from fines on the back of lazy people who are breaking the law.

[kermitology]

I got a warning from CPS as I crossed the train tracks by the east end of city hall. It's a short cross and I wanted to catch the light to cross 3rd St SE before in next train. Admitted to the officer that I was just rushing and he let me off. It's ridiculous though. I think that if it's safe to cross and no chance of entering danger, what does it matter? This in particular: cops should have been directing pedestrian traffic rather than ticketing.

[Barnes]

The 3, 300, and 302 all stop there. If it is possible to allow pedestrian access on the 7th ave side up to the train station there is no reason why 5th st can't accommodate pedestrians in the closed lane or under hoarding. It seems that if you own orange traffic cones you can shut down whatever you want in this city.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by taco.vidal

Yep, I walk by here a few times a week. Early on in the demolition, only half the lane was closed and they had cones on the road where it seemed it was intended for walking. Now the entire lane is closed. It sucks because its a half block thats closed but if you want to use the lights then you need to cross, walk the entire block, then cross back, and if you're going to the bus stop, double back partially.

So you have to walk a little further/double back? I get that it's a bit of pain but not the end of the world or worth it to jaywalk perhaps?

Given all the complaints about people and cars hitting the train, it seems like leaving it to people's own discretion when and which traffic laws to break seems like a somewhat dubious proposition.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by fotze

I think its more the appearance that the city bends over forward for the construction/new builds and fatas over the the rest of us who get no discernible benefit from it.

i.e. thousands of people have to tack on an additional 5 minutes each way for their commute because the city chooses to save the construction company $10k on a temporary sidewalk build. Then they ticket people to make money.

That being said do the people with the vests that work for the construction company actually have legal power to direct traffic? i.e. when they start directing traffic can I just (safely) ignore it? Annoying being forced to wait at a light for 10 minutes because they need to move a metal thing in the middle of rush hour. Fata your deadlines, they are not mine.

Yeah, I can understand the frustration. I guess I'd like to believe that there isn't an evil mastermind meeting of city departments and police sitting there rubbing their hands with glee and anticipating or purposefully setting up bylaw traps for people.

It would be ideal if car, bike and pedestrian traffic were not affected with construction but sometimes things just have to give a little.

As for waiting for the metal thingy or concrete truck, I guess I just defer to the big heavy thingy that would likely kill me or destroy my vehicle if I tried to get in its way.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Dion

I don't get it.

[squiggs96]

I have no problems with people who break the law being given a ticket. Yes, there are bigger problems in the world, but on the flip side, if you dedicate all of your resources to only the big problems, then the little problems become big problems. If there were no parking authority, I'd wager that parking downtown would be chaos.

For those saying it's a cash cow, I'm also fine with it too. The revenue comes from somewhere, so I'd rather it come from people breaking the law, rather than property and/or income taxes rising. Saying you have to cross a street and are too lazy to do it, doesn't seem like a good excuse to me. I just don't see what's so difficult about walking on sidewalks, and in a crosswalk when the indicator says it's allowable. It might save you 30 seconds, but there will be another light/bus/train in a few minutes.

[Northendzone]

Yeah, but they also got 6 dangerous criminals off of the streets.......and netted the city an additional $90k......

[bizaro86]

I seriously doubt all 6 warrants were for dangerous criminals.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by fotze

Interesting thread on this here. Actually goes into what the vest people are allowed to do and the city is apparently pretty strict about construction blocking traffic. Flaggers actually do have the right to direct traffic.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comm..._this_morning/

From that page, here are some more pictures:

http://imgur.com/a/LG553

Having walked that street recently and from the pictures, it is damn clear that jay walking in that fashion is a pretty dumb idea. You are either going to block road traffic or eat the hood of a car for breakfast just to save walking a couple maybe 50 more meters in total. And it's not like it's bad weather out!

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Yeah, but they also got 6 dangerous criminals off of the streets.......and netted the city an additional $90k......

Might want to re-check your math there.

[Hammertime]

Calgary is way over-policed. It's the only place I've lived where normal every day citizens tighten up and put their guard up when police are nearby. That shouldn't be the case in a free society.