{"id":849,"date":"2009-03-12T09:26:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T09:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/wordpress\/?p=849"},"modified":"2010-01-11T23:42:58","modified_gmt":"2010-01-11T23:42:58","slug":"so-close-yet-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/2009\/03\/so-close-yet-so-far.html","title":{"rendered":"So Close, Yet So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">I swore off making fun of newspaper columnists a long time ago, but this one&#8217;s too good to let pass by.  Sue Sharp, head of Guide Dogs Public Policy and Campaigns, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/commentisfree\/2009\/mar\/11\/boris-london\">an opinion piece in <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The Guardian<\/span><\/a> decrying proposed changes to London&#8217;s pedestrian crossings (I&#8217;ve added my own emphasis):<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8230; plans to introduce &#8220;speedy street crossings&#8221; in London to free up traffic will seriously undermine the mobility of blind and partially sighted pedestrians in London.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Under these proposals, the amount of crossing time for pedestrians will be cut by up to six seconds, and there will be a reduced number of green man phases. As pedestrians walk at an average speed of 1.2m per second, such a reduction in crossing time <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">could potentially leave them 7.2m short of the kerb<\/span> when the light goes green to traffic, and more if they have a slower walking pace than the average.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">If the metrics confuse you, here are some people under two metres tall walking at an average pace on a typical London street crossing:<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bikingtoronto.com\/2007\/08\/around-world-safety-features-removed-in.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/blogpix\/Ken_High_a.jpg\" title=\"ONE KIDDY ON CAKE THOUGHT HE HAD A MONTH TO CROSS THE STREET!\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I swore off making fun of newspaper columnists a long time ago, but this one&#8217;s too good to let pass by. Sue Sharp, head of Guide Dogs Public Policy and Campaigns, has an opinion piece in The Guardian decrying proposed changes to London&#8217;s pedestrian crossings (I&#8217;ve added my own emphasis): &#8230; plans to introduce &#8220;speedy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3963,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849\/revisions\/3963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}