I Am a Pedestrian Today

My blog today may sound like a militant declaration, but it’s nothing more than a comment on being a pedestrian in Melbourne and its suburbs. You’re guessing right, I will talk about jaywalking in the city and how pedestrians are treated in the suburbs. In case you wonder how expensive is crossing the road in Melbourne when the traffic light is red or you are within 20 m of a pedestrian crossing and decide to jaywalk, it’s $60. A parking ticket is at least double, and my fine for 0.5 sec on the red light (I crossed the intersection half a second after the light turned from yellow to red) was 5 ½ times that amount… We’ll come back to red-light and speed cameras later. I remember when Mayor Giuliani raised the fine for jaywalking in New York in 1998 from $2 to $58 (ouch!), but policemen didn’t really care to re-enforce it. I've never been caught, or I just escaped punishment. I thought that official measure was unfair because in a fast paced city like New York, people will always rush to cross the streets and if they can do it without waiting for the light to change, they always will. Melbourne’s pace is ten times slower, yet people rush, like me. I feel that cars are more privileged and looked after than pedestrians in this city. Distances between lights and between pedestrian crossings are long (of course I'd like that if I drove, too!), and green light time for pedestrians is shorter than for cars. So, I hereby confess (and admit to not feeling guilty at all) to always trying to SAFELY cross the street independent of the traffic light color and location of the pedestrian crossing. In the city. Now moving home, to the suburbs, I feel in danger and offended when I try to cross the street. Seriously. As a pedestrian in Mount Waverley, or in any other suburb, I will not be given priority to cross at least at street corners, neither alone nor holding my daughter’s hand. Have I been spoiled all these years in the US, as a pedestrian? I have to wait until the cars passed and then I can set foot on the road to cross (this is not jaywalking!), although I know they (car drivers) will get anyway to their destination before I do, even if they let me cross first… There are few pedestrians around anyway, so a courteous driver would not have to stop too often. But by law cars have priority where there are no pedestrian crossings, so they pass fast in the suburbs, dangerously fast, even at crossings and roundabouts. Thinking back about California, I remember how I had to allow pedestrians to finish crossing before I could drive over the crossing behind them, and if I didn't I could get a fine. Hmmm, that was courteous... How about looking at a place without cars, roads, and pedestrians now? This picture shows Port Douglas, Queensland, from a boat coming back from the Great Barrier Reef.