by Dr. Anne Mulhern
A few days ago, the city of Lowell proudly unveiled a new development; the crosswalk in front of City Hall had been repainted! It is no longer a recognizable crosswalk anymore; it is a symbolic memorial to veterans.
City of Lowell! Please don’t! Stop! No more!
Why have you never decided to paint the stop signs green and make them square instead of octagonal or pulse the stop lights in aquamarine, mango, and puce?
The reason: you recognize that stop signs and stop lights are traffic signals, and that one important property of traffic signals is that they should adhere to well-established conventions regarding their shape, size, and color and the text printed on them.
This way, drivers who see these traffic signals will be able to identify them immediately. If the drivers have been properly trained, they will even know what the signs mean and how to respond to them.
City of Lowell! How is it that you haven’t realized that pedestrian crosswalks are traffic signals too and that therefore the same standards and expectation should hold true of pedestrian crosswalks?
I can only assume that it is because you do not, in your heart of hearts, really believe that pedestrians are traffic. That is why you consider it praiseworthy to turn pedestrian crosswalks into street decorations, as you would never do with stop signs or stop lights.
As far as I am concerned, you have not made that crosswalk better, you have removed it entirely and simply replaced it with a memorial.
For October, Lowell officially celebrated “National Pedestrian Safety Month”. It touted a reduction in pedestrian traffic fatalities between 2023 and 2024. Pedestrian traffic fatalities in Lowell are on the rise again this year, however, and Massachusetts is bucking the national trend with increasing pedestrian fatalities in the state overall.
The fashion for converting crosswalks to street decorations can not be helping. When a municipality shows that it does not consider pedestrian crosswalks to be real traffic signals, should we wonder that drivers in that municipality follow their lead?
Lowell is a dangerous city. Since I moved to this city about 15 years ago I have observed at least two traffic accidents that occurred right where I live. I bike through new traffic debris at various high accident intersections frequently. A good proportion of Lowell drivers are decent and careful; but another are the sort that visibly speed up when they see a pedestrian step into an intersection.
I had fondly imagined that Lowell city government possessed a core of basic common sense that was preventing it from falling victim to the current fashion for decorating pedestrian crosswalks. I am desolated to find that mere accident is likely a sufficient explanation for it having refrained until now.
City of Lowell! Please reconsider! Recognize that pedestrian crosswalks are real traffic signals and stop replacing them with street decorations, forthwith.
How can whatever you think is gained by the practice be worth a single additional pedestrian injury or fatality?
Signed,
An Obligate Pedestrian
6 responses to “Opinion: Pedestrian Crosswalks are Traffic Signals, not Decorations!”
While I completely agree that they city and others far too often do not regard pedestrians and their safety as important as vehicular traffic, on the topic of painted crosswalks, studies have shown that painted crosswalks, decorative asphalt art by dangerous intersections, etc. actually lead to improved visibility, natural traffic calming, and otherwise SAFER streets for pedestrians and other users. Just one example: https://data.bloomberglp.com/dotorg/sites/43/2022/04/Asphalt-Art-Safety-Study.pdf
How much have you looked into this? A number of studies have indicated that crosswalk art often makes them safer. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/08/crosswalk-art-safety-bloomberg/. https://www.sharonlohr.com/blog/2024/4/15/does-asphalt-art-improve-traffic-safety. https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2025/09/03/study–pavement-art-improves-safety
As a person who once published a peer-reviewed statistical paper (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-74958-5_5) I can immediately tell that none of the links above are links to actual studies. What they are is spin; articles meant to persuade regardless of fact, or possibly just articles generated so that the authors can continue to pay their rent.
The Bloomberg article hides the following probably true phrase, on p. 24 as is common when even the numbers you got don’t say what you want them to say.
“Despite a slight increase in overall (+1%) and vulnerable user (+8%) crashes at crosswalk art sites, ”
But it contains many pretty pictures of people painting designs on the street, because that must be what really matters to traffic engineers these days.
Ladies, if you don’t have six degrees you can’t disagree. Sorry.
I prefer to say they are traffic signals, not traffic suggestions!
Excellent slogan, slorunnr.