San Francisco Subtleties
Having been around here for a little while, a few of the more subtle things going on here have now been taken in by my consciousness.
In San Fran, People are Dominant to cars. You WALK OUT in front of traffic, and the drivers stop. They encurage the driver to be cautious at all times, as people will always be walking out. The risks for not being cautious is the very real chance of killing someone. It’s also had another effect. People no longer rush when driving around here. They’re stopping so often on single lane roads, trying to rush is a visible impossibility. Also, all the 4 way intersections are without predetermined rules. There’s no roundabouts, it’s done by the drivers themselves. It’s pretty chaotic to watch, but I’m sure it’d keep you more on your toes. Haven’t seen any accidents either…hear a few horns from time to time. I think that’s just city life.
The pedestrian movement management system is amazing to watch. It seems to have moved from a synchronous model to something asynchronous, which is of far greater advantage. There’s almost no Jay-Walking in SF. In Sydney, it’s very easy to learn the timings and sequence of street lights, whole sections can be planned, and as a result, people don’t need to think to drive, and people don’t need to think about when to cross. Everyone follows the rthymn of the lights, and no one thinks or interacts. People just walk, just drive, ‘expecting’ certain conditions or results. When people Jay-Walk, they look in the one expected direction of traffic, and assume the rest of the road to co-operate with his law, thus Jay-Walking occurs and all the other potentials that open with it, as minor, but serious as they are.
SF have light sequences that are highly dynamic and asynchronous. They also seem to have time of day sequencing measures. A result of this is pedestrians never run out, as they’re never sure as where to be looking for cars at a certain time. Drivers are again, always more alert, as a requirement, they never know what light will change when, or if it’ll do the same thing next time.
Another thing I’ve noticed, more an annoyance is with the currency. It’s all the same colour and almost the same size. It’s impossible to differentiate between the bill types without flashing them all about; a highly undesirable thing to do. Australia’s System is amazingly simple to learn for bills, it’s size, colour, and numerically coordinated.
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