Safety First

A few weeks ago, when I got off the bus at the stop nearest my workplace, a man got off with me. While we waited for the light to turn green, he muttered under his breath, "I hate this." I feel him. It's a dangerous intersection for pedestrians. There is no cross walk for us, and no light that tells us when it is safe to walk. In fact, there is never a safe time to walk. One side of the intersection has a left turn arrow for drivers, and everyone else is left to their own devices, including pedestrians. There is plenty of tension. Pedestrians are always at the mercy of drivers, and sometimes there is not a lot of it to go around.

It is one of a few busy and potentially dangerous intersections on my commute route. Another is further up Penn Avenue, toward downtown, where it intersects Fifth Avenue.

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There is pedestrian crosswalk with a little white pedestrian light here. It isn't much less dangerous. Drivers making the left onto Fifth over the wide intersection rarely stop for pedestrians already making their way across. And they are generally driving fast if they have not been stopped at the red light.

Over the last two weeks, it has been especially treacherous. There is road and sidewalk construction on the Mellon Park side. Rent -A- Fence along the fence protects the trees by order of the City of Pittsburgh. While the work goes on, the sidewalk is closed, and you cannot cross on or to that side. Though you don't know that until you are on the median. You can still cross sidewalk to sidewalk on the other side of the street, but because of the Bakery Square development construction further down, you cannot safely continue down Penn Avenue on the sidewalk. That stretch is effectively closed to pedestrians. But people, including me once, get caught everyday half way.

I am more conscious of bodily safety outside of my car than I was within. Sometimes I worried about crashes, or hurting someone else, especially someone on a bike, but rarely about my own fragile self. A few weeks before I gave up my car, my girlfriend and I were walking through a supermarket parking lot. Someone driving very fast through the lot, who seemed to see us, just barely missed hitting her with their car. It almost seemed as if they were calculating the time it would take for her to get out of their way- and betting on it. It was terrifying. I did something I can't remember doing before. I yelled an obscenity as they drove away. They yelled back at us. My anger shook me and shocked me. It stayed in my body for some time after, and in my mind for longer.

I think about it sometimes as I am walking on Penn Avenue's sidewalks. Penn Avenue, where cars speed by, and the wind from buses sometimes feels like it will blow you clean off the map, even when you are squarely on the sidewalk. The buses I ironically feel so safe riding at other times. Then I am not angry, just a little scared.