Taming Streets for Two Feet

                Pedestrian deaths have led some California cities and towns to
                  implement crackdowns on crosswalk violations. (AP)

      By Rene Sanchez
    Washington Post Staff Writer
      Wednesday, April 5, 2000; Page A01

      SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- The revolt began after a common roadside tragedy. A
      motorist driving past a new high school here one afternoon 18 months ago
      struck and killed a teenager who was walking alongside traffic. The victim
      had no choice but to take that route home. And there was no sidewalk.
      "That did it," said Eugene Benton, a deputy director of the public works
      department in this suburban-styled city about 50 miles north of San
      Francisco. "We realized that we quietly had to start making a social change."

      First, local officials responded to community uproar over the teenager's
      death by imposing a firm rule: Every school had to build safe walking
      routes along its perimeter, and new ones could not open without them. Soon
      the city reset its traffic lights to give people--not vehicles--more time
      to cross busy intersections.

      Then it installed flashing signs visible for blocks over the middle of
      some crosswalks, and embedded rows of small lights in the asphalt of
      others. On some hazardous corners, undercover officers are now dispatched
      to be decoys crossing streets just to catch reckless drivers.

      All the steps have put Santa Rosa at the forefront of a movement taking
      hold around the country, particularly along the West Coast but also in the
      Washington area. In cities and suburbs alike, traffic engineers, soccer
      moms, senior citizens and environmentalists are teaming up in a new
      crusade for the safety of a forgotten, vulnerable tribe on the frantic
      byways of American life: pedestrians.

      It is a small but growing uprising against the excesses of the nation's
      car culture. It is a campaign to alter the priorities of suburban
      planning. And it is one more sign of how in these prosperous times many
      middle-class communities are turning their attention to subtle yet
      significant quality-of-life issues.

      "Vehicles are getting bigger and faster, people are talking more on their
      cell phones and eating and working while they drive, they're more tense
      and distracted on the road and hardly even thinking about pedestrians
      anymore," Benton said. "We're trying to do everything we can to break that trance."

      Similar cries are resounding throughout California, which as much as any
      state has cultivated the nation's devotion to and dependence on driving.
      In San Francisco, which has suffered a rash of pedestrian deaths and
      injuries in recent months, public pressure has spurred an aggressive
      police crackdown at many crosswalks. Hundreds of motorists and pedestrians
      have received stiff fines this year for flouting even the most minor,