Philadelphia Needs to Legalize the Pedestrian Scramble (AKA: Diagonal Crossing)

Philadelphia NEEDS to legalize the pedestrian scramble (diagonal crossing) at some of the busiest intersections in town. So I am pleading with city officials to make this change.

Diagonal crossing (often referred to as the pedestrian scramble) allows pedestrians to cross an intersection in every direction... at the same time. Vehicular traffic is stopped in all directions.

Think of all of the time we could save by not having to cross one street to then cross over another. The fastest routes between two points IS a straight line, right?

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Plus, pedestrians always ASSUME they have the right away. If you've driven through Center City, you find yourself dodging pedestrians who are trying to beat out a traffic light.

So it'll be MUCH better for drivers too if the lights stop all traffic, and the pedestrians can zig right across the street all at once.

It's legal in other US cities. In fact, it works at some of the busiest intersections in New York City. Even the intersections along Broadway in Nashville now allow for the pedestrian scramble.

I went to Emerson College in Boston, which is an urban city campus, located right across the street from the Boston Common, and I probably wouldn't have graduated college with out diagonal crossing.

As a college student, who is a late person in general, the idea of waiting for traffic at the busiest intersection in the city was infuriating. I didn't have time for that! So the diagonal crossing at Boylston and Tremont streets helped me.

Here's a video of how efficiently it's working in Chicago:

So I am begging the city of Philadelphia to bring this to some of our busiest intersections along Market and Broad Streets... at least to start. What about like my favorite intersections 12th and Locust too?