{"id":3425,"date":"2008-07-31T14:12:03","date_gmt":"2008-07-31T18:12:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/"},"modified":"2008-07-31T14:12:03","modified_gmt":"2008-07-31T18:12:03","slug":"calgarys-scrambling-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary’s scrambling too!"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Cross-posted from Spacing Montreal\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

CALGARY<\/strong> — I’m in Calgary at the moment, en route to Hong Kong, where I will be doing a master’s degree for the next couple of years. This is a fast-growing, fast-changing city, and there are a couple of interesting changes that I noticed while I was here. One of them is the introduction of two new scramble crossings<\/a> in the Eau Claire neighbourhood of the city’s downtown area.<\/p>\n

Often associated with Tokyo’s famous Shibuya Crossing<\/a>, scramble crossings are in fact a North American invention, originating in Kansas City and Vancouver in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

Scramble crossings disappeared in North America for several decades, victims of the postwar dominance of the automobile. Attitudes have changed, though, and the crossings are making a comeback. In 2003, Montreal installed them without much fanfare in the Quartier international, at such corners as McGill and St. Jacques and Viger and St. Urbain; they can also be found at several other intersections, like Monkland and Girouard in NDG. There is nothing to indicate that pedestrians are allowed to cross in all directions — some figure it out but others seem hesitant to cross diagonally.<\/p>\n

In Calgary, by contrast, the city has made a big deal of its new pedestrian scrambles, accompanying their installation with plenty of instructional signage. Painted lines in the intersection let pedestrians know that it’s okay to cross diagonally. Based on what I’ve seen, it doesn’t take long for people to grasp the concept, and with each light cycle there are people who cross in all directions. Prominent signs prohibit drivers from making right turns on red.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In Toronto, city officials are on the verge of turning the intersection of Yonge and Dundas, one of the city’s busiest, into a scramble crossing. Some commenters on Spacing Toronto<\/a> worried that it would used as a way to increase the amount of time vehicles have to pass through the intersection, thereby increasing the time pedestrians have to wait to cross, but this strikes me as a bit paranoid — the advantages of having an exclusive pedestrian phase at a busy corner outweight any disadvantages that come from having to wait a few seconds longer for cars to pass.<\/p>\n

Where Montreal is concerned, however, a more legitimate problem would be the issue of jaywalkers. Whereas Calgarians hardly ever jaywalk, refusing to cross against the light even when no cars are coming, Montrealers aren’t nearly so patient. They would likely take advantage of the green light for cars to cross outside of the pedestrian phase of the light cycle, which could be dangerous if motorists aren’t paying attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted from Spacing Montreal\u00a0 CALGARY — I’m in Calgary at the moment, en route to Hong Kong, where I will be doing a master’s degree for the next couple of years. This is a fast-growing, fast-changing city, and there are a couple of interesting changes that I noticed while I was here. One of themContinue reading “Calgary’s scrambling too!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4028,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[661,8139,38,1154,21,468,19,54],"class_list":["post-3425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walking","tag-calgary","tag-kansas-city","tag-montreal","tag-north-america","tag-other-cities","tag-tokyo","tag-toronto","tag-vancouver"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCalgary's scrambling too! - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Calgary's scrambling too! - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cross-posted from Spacing Montreal\u00a0 CALGARY — I’m in Calgary at the moment, en route to Hong Kong, where I will be doing a master’s degree for the next couple of years. This is a fast-growing, fast-changing city, and there are a couple of interesting changes that I noticed while I was here. One of themContinue reading "Calgary’s scrambling too!"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-31T18:12:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Christopher DeWolf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Christopher DeWolf\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/\",\"name\":\"Calgary's scrambling too! - Spacing Toronto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-07-31T18:12:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/070f581d3a4115c1461242f9612e87b5\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Calgary’s scrambling too!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Toronto\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/070f581d3a4115c1461242f9612e87b5\",\"name\":\"Christopher DeWolf\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93c8aca91d7cfbd895846128d058930b?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93c8aca91d7cfbd895846128d058930b?s=96&d=blank&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Christopher DeWolf\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.urbanphoto.net\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/chrisdewolf\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Calgary's scrambling too! - Spacing Toronto","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Calgary's scrambling too! - Spacing Toronto","og_description":"Cross-posted from Spacing Montreal\u00a0 CALGARY — I’m in Calgary at the moment, en route to Hong Kong, where I will be doing a master’s degree for the next couple of years. This is a fast-growing, fast-changing city, and there are a couple of interesting changes that I noticed while I was here. One of themContinue reading \"Calgary’s scrambling too!\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Toronto","article_published_time":"2008-07-31T18:12:03+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Christopher DeWolf","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Christopher DeWolf","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/","name":"Calgary's scrambling too! - Spacing Toronto","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0","datePublished":"2008-07-31T18:12:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/070f581d3a4115c1461242f9612e87b5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0","contentUrl":"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3103\/2715431685_3e416441d8.jpg?v=0"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/07\/31\/calgarys-scrambling-too\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Calgary’s scrambling too!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/","name":"Spacing Toronto","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Toronto Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/070f581d3a4115c1461242f9612e87b5","name":"Christopher DeWolf","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93c8aca91d7cfbd895846128d058930b?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/93c8aca91d7cfbd895846128d058930b?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Christopher DeWolf"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.urbanphoto.net"],"url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/author\/chrisdewolf\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}