r/Vilnius

Two diagonal pedestrian crossings installed in Vilnius

Imagine reaching a normal four-way intersection and, instead of crossing in an L-shape, you just walk straight across the middle diagonally.

That's what Vilnius tested in 2022.

What's interesting is that at one of the intersections, people were already doing it. The pedestrian signal was giving everyone a green light at the same time, so pedestrians naturally started taking the shortest route across the junction.

The city basically said: people are already doing this, so let's actually mark it and see what happens.

They tested diagonal crossings at two intersections for six months while monitoring pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

I really like the question this raises:

Should road design always try to force people to behave differently, or should we sometimes look at what people naturally do and design around it?

Would you want to see something like this at a busy intersection in your city?

I got curious about this and went looking through some research:

>A 2022 study examining pedestrian signal phases in Vilnius discusses the use of diagonal crossings and found that exclusive pedestrian phases can reduce pedestrian-vehicle conflicts, while also noting that diagonal crossings can increase vehicle delay.

>Vilnius wasn't inventing the idea from scratch either. The city noted that diagonal crossings had already been used for years in places including Japan, Sweden, the US and Canada