The end of jaywalking in New York. The city is returning its streets to pedestrians

A practice that turned people crossing overpasses into criminals is now ending after more than a century. Racial discrimination was also a reason New York City backed away from fining crossing the street outside of a crosswalk.

The new legislation allows pedestrians to cross the street even in places that are not officially marked as pedestrian crossings if it is safe to do so and traffic is not endangered. According to supporters of this law, access to urban space should be equal for all, regardless of race or ethnicity.

The move came after years of debate and studies that showed minorities were more likely to be fined for minor infractions like crossing the street outside of a crosswalk, leading to growing tensions between communities and police. Proponents of the new law hope the change will not only reduce these differences but also strengthen relationships between communities and local authorities.

What is jaywalking and where did it come from?

While today the term “jaywalking” is associated exclusively with pedestrians, the first mentions of jaywalking on the street were in horse-drawn carriages and automobiles and appear in 1905 in Kansas: “jay drivers” who did not drive on the right side of the road. The term quickly spread to pedestrians, and in 1909 The Chanute Daily Tribune warned, “The jay walker needs attention as much as the jay driver, and is just as much a nuisance.”

“In the early days of motoring, it was the driver’s job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them,” says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. “But under the new model, the streets have become a place for cars — and if you’re a pedestrian, it’s your fault if you get hit.”

Originally, the legal rule in the US was that “all persons have an equal right to the road, and that in the exercise of that right everyone should exercise due care not to endanger other road users”. However, over time the streets became the domain of road traffic, both practically and legally. This video aptly describes how people moving on the streets became potential criminals.

New York’s Mullberry st. in 1900. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

How to get people off the street

The automobile lobby in the US became heavily involved in the vilification of jaywalkers in the 1910s and 1920s. In 1912, for example, Popular Mechanics magazine reported that the term was in common use in Kansas City: “A city pedestrian who pays no attention to traffic laws at intersections, but wanders the entire street, crosses in the middle of the block, or tries to save time by takes a diagonal route through an intersection instead of keeping to a crosswalk, is referred to in Kansas City as a ‘jay walker.’” The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1917. Today, in the US, the word is often used synonymously with its current legal definition, i.e. for crossing the street illegally.

New York City Councilwoman Mercedes Narcisse, a Brooklyn Democrat who sponsored the new bill, said it would eliminate racial disparities in enforcement, noting that more than 90% of jaywalking fines issued last year went to black and Latino residents.

Penalties for normal movement

“Let’s be honest, every New Yorker crosses outside of the crosswalk. People are just trying to get where they need to go,” Narcisse writes in her emailed statement. “Laws that penalize common behavior in everyday movement should not exist, especially when they unfairly affect minority communities.”

Jaywalking is illegal in other US cities and states. Currently, you can switch wherever it’s convenient for you, including Denver, California, Kansas City, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia. Similar rules apply in most European countries, including the Czech Republic, which order pedestrians to enter the road only under certain conditions, which differ from state to state. The exceptions are the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Great Britain, states which assume that their citizens are able to judge for themselves when it is safe for them to cross and when it is not.

Normal movement or offense?

In Britain, there is a hierarchy of responsibility in road traffic from 2022. In short, it means that those who drive the vehicles capable of causing the most damage also bear the greatest share of responsibility for reducing the risk to others. With this amendment, the island state mainly aims to increase safety for the most vulnerable road users.

A more equal public space for all

The new law allows pedestrians in New York to cross the street even in places not officially marked as crosswalks, as long as it is safe to do so and traffic is not endangered. According to supporters of this law, access to urban space should be equal for all, regardless of race or ethnicity.

The Legal Aid Society, a nonprofit that provides free legal aid to New Yorkers who can’t afford a lawyer, said for decades police have used the offense as a pretext to stop, question and search residents — especially people of color.

“We hope the City Council will continue to roll back outdated laws that serve no public safety purpose and only entangle people in the criminal justice system,” the organization said in a statement. And Narcisse adds that instead of fining and harassing pedestrians, the police will be able to focus on issues that really matter. New York thus joins the ranks of cities that value their residents more than cars.

The obligation to use crossings has its effects in the Czech Republic as well

Jaywalking is also prohibited in the Czech Republic. There is an obligation to use a pedestrian crossing or crossing point if it is less than 50 meters away and crossing is allowed only perpendicular to the road. The consequence is not only low respect for a number of traffic lights, where it is common to switch to red if the car is not moving, or frequent formal violations of these rules by crossing outside the crossing.

The impacts are also indirect on street design itself. In practice, for example, we have encountered a refusal to establish a pedestrian crossing on the way to a kindergarten in zone 30, arguing that it would make it impossible to legally cross near it. As much as it is necessary to protect weaker road users by ensuring the ability to cross the street safely, the Czech “jaywalking ban” restricts the freedom to use public space when you don’t really need protection in the form of a crossing or a traffic light.

And as much as the idea that it might be allowed to cross over at crosswalks or red lights (while giving way to vehicles) sounds admittedly heretical to our transportation community, it’s certainly worth considering.

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