For today's blog post about Otis Drive (SR-61) I thought I'd go check it out in person during the "peak AM" auto traffic hour. Here's my report of approximately 5 minutes of experience this morning: As I approached the intersection at Otis Drive and Mound Street — the intersection at the corner of Alameda's Krusi Park — I saw 3 adults and 1 dog approaching from the other side. They pressed the button to activate the Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons. The beacons started flashing, but the people and their dog did not start crossing.

Instead I saw a work truck speed through the intersection toward the Bay Farm Bridge. I believe the truck had a City of Alameda logo on its side. If the city is following best-practices for managing their vehicle fleet, a manager will be able to pull up GPS-based tracking records for their fleet, verify, and if verified inform the driver of this vehicle that they violated California Vehicle Code Section 21950. Anyway, after that pickup truck cleared the intersection, the three adults and the dog crossed successfully over to the northbound (park) side of the street.

(Otis Elementary School had already started for the day, so I assume one or two were adults going to the park with the dog, and the other was heading to an office or a bus.)

I thought I'd go take some video from the other side of the street. (I hadn't filmed with the 3 adults and 1 dog in direct view, since I figured it would be rude to take video of people's faces without asking their permission — and I wasn't going to shout across 4 lanes of auto traffic to ask.)

I pressed the button to activate the RRFB lights. I waited until it appeared that all 4 lanes of traffic had cleared, and I started to walk across. As I stepped into the 1st of the 4 lanes, a vehicle started entering the crosswalk in the 3rd lane. Since I had my phone in my hand, I lifted it up and recorded.

I had waited until all 4 lanes of traffic were clear with no oncoming traffic that I could see. The RRFB lights were flashing. While I had my phone out of my pocket, I didn't have it raised nor was I looking at it. I set out with the goal of carefully crossing the intersection to the other side, so that I could then stand on the other side to take a video of the auto traffic without the faces of pedestrians in view. But instead I found myself almost automatically lifting up my hand and recording the driver cutting me off within the intersection. He was far enough away that in the moment it didn't feel like an immediate physical danger. I mumbled something to the effect of come on, man!

I stood for a few moments on the other side... and figured I had much better things to do with the day. I pressed the button again, turned on the RRFB, waited until the intersection was clear, and walked back over the north side of street — this time with no drivers intruding on the crosswalk.

I don't feel I was unsafe in my own decisions in the moment in this situation, but writing about this afterwards I do feel a bit foolish. Why go to a place that I knew would be unpleasant at that hour? After I lifted up my phone and turned on the camera, did I have less than 100% of my attention focused on my surroundings? I was debating whether it's worth sharing this video and this experience. I'm doing so because I think it is a concrete illustration of the issues with this intersection and a real problem facing real people every day.

The fact that in ~5 minutes this morning I collected enough "content" for a blog post is bad. City staff driving city vehicles shouldn't be ignoring RRFBs. That dude in the yellow car shouldn't be entering the intersection while the RRFBs are flashing and while I am visible. There are at least two things going on here:

1. There's an almost moral rot in the culture of American driving these days. Why is a professional driver of a fleet vehicle not driving slowly enough to stop at all traffic signals? Why did the man in the yellow car not pay attention to me or other cars when I was in the crosswalk? You could say it's because Alameda doesn't have enough police in order to compel these drivers to follow the law. You could also say that the behavior of these individuals is just representative of our broader agreement to simply not care that much about safety on roads. I am a 6'1" tall male. This morning I was wearing a light-colored pastel hoodie. What would have made me more visible? More importantly, how are pedestrians who are younger or older or shorter or slower treated by motorists at this intersection?
2. Toward the specific issues that are under the direct control and responsibility of Caltrans: The fact that these drivers sped through this crosswalk despite the activated RRFBs in both the case of the 3 adults and in the case of my own crossing (and in the prior case of the 1 year old baby hit in their stroller) demonstrates that the physical design of this intersection and this street is very wrong. This 4-lane "highway" encourages unsafe driving, and the intersection at Otis/Mound does not provide any meaningful mitigations to actively or passively protect people using the crosswalk. Following the USDOT Safe System approach would guide engineers to redesign this intersection so that it's more forgiving to everyone — so that pedestrians benefit from multiple layers of protection and so that honest mistakes by drivers aren't that big a deal. Instead: Caltrans is proposing to install an additional pair of RRFBs at this intersection. Why? The current pair doesn't accomplish anything useful! If anything, the RRFBs give pedestrians a false sense of security. Caltrans is also saying they will extend the current bulb-outs, but when you actually look at their engineering diagrams, you can see it's to add ~1 ft in order to specifically change the slope of the wheelchair ramps (not to further protect pedestrians or increase visibility). Caltrans District 4 has no idea what's actually happening at this intersection, doesn't want to know, and doesn't want to follow current engineering best-practices or Caltrans-wide policy to redesign this street to be safer and more forgiving to all of its users.

I don't have to go across or along Otis Drive to get where I need to go in the mornings or on weekdays. (I think I've only walked along Otis Drive or crossed that intersection on weekends previously.) So I'm just not going to ever go back to this crosswalk. And if I do need to get around this area for some reason, I'll walk around the entire area to reach the signalized intersections (despite their current faults, the Otis/High and Otis/Broadway signalized intersections are at least not as bad as the false sense of security of the RRFBs at Otis/Mound). I'm not looking for trouble.

For the sake of those 3 adults and that 1 dog and that 1 year old in the stroller and all the people who emailed into the Alameda city Transportation Commission who do need to cross here during the "AM peak" hour or any other time of day because of where they live and where they're trying to get to, Caltrans must perform a road diet along the length of Otis Drive between High and Broadway and truly fix the intersection at Otis/Mound.