Timestamp: 02 October 2022
Pedestrians take note: A new law decriminalizes safe jaywalking in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday signed the "Freedom to Walk" bill sponsored by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco). The law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, comes years after activists have argued that jaywalking rules disproportionately affect marginalized and low-income residents.
Under the new law, pedestrians would be able to legally cross the street outside of designated intersections without the threat of a hefty citation "unless a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power."
Jaywalking laws were enacted in the 1930s as the auto industry emerged. Though technically prohibited throughout the country, ticketing is less common in many major cities such as Boston or New York. That has not been the case in much of California.
Pedestrians currently face a ticket if they cross the street outside of a marked crosswalk and don't finish their trek before the countdown signal finishes. In some cases, ticketing has escalated.
Data cited by Ting's office from the California Racial and Identity Profiling Act shows that Black Californians are up to 4.5 times more likely to be stopped for jaywalking than those who are white.
"It should not be a criminal offense to safely cross the street," Ting said in a statement. "When expensive tickets and unnecessary confrontations with police impact only certain communities, it's time to reconsider how we use our law enforcement resources and whether our jaywalking laws really do protect pedestrians. Plus, we should be encouraging people to get out of their cars and walk for health and environmental reasons."
The Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol in consultation with the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California must submit a report to the California legislature by Jan. 1, 2028, regarding statewide pedestrian-related traffic crash data to determine how the law affects overall safety.
Keywords: Fortuna Humboldt California homeless camping fire hazard
Comment: All the homeless people encamped on the far side of the freeway will be pleased to know that they no longer have to go all the way to a freeway underpass in order to cross the freeway. Just look both ways, like you always do - and allow for the fact that vehicles are travelling 80 miles per hour. </sarcasm>
More seriously ... has anyone bothered to calculate the cost to the city, the county, the state, the personnel involved, every time they get called out to put out a fire that some homeless people built to stay warm, during the winter?
The dispatcher gets a call - my sense is it is the CHP, driving down the freeway with their window rolled down, specifically looking, or, rather, sniffing, for homeless encampments with burning fires. I infer that it is the CHP, because who else could it be, at 3 AM?
The dispatcher pushes the button and summons some local firemen. All of Fortuna is woken up by the siren - which was intended for emergencies, which this is not. It's not clear if these guys, and, rarely, gals, are compensated for their time and lost sleep. But let's put a price on it: at least $100 per fire personnel.
The firemen congregate - either they are already on site, sleeping, on standby, or one of them has a vehicle and picks up the other, or the two of them converge using separate vehicles - and respond, with firefighting equipment. The homeless people are alerted by the siren and have scattered. The firemen declare the fire a brush fire because it is not controlled, but if it were controlled, they would cite the people controlling it, then put it out, so this is a zero-sum game with no point except making work and generating revenue, or prisoners, because, of course, the CHP is on scene, as well.
Once the campfire is out the equipment is loaded back onto the truck and the personnel disperse. They must restore the truck to ready-for-use condition before they go back to sleep. Sometimes they are called out multiple times per night. It all turns into a lot of paperwork that makes Fortuna Police Department and the California Highway Patrol look fearsomely efficient, makes the night pass faster, and as often as not generates opportunities for overtime.
If we assume that the Fortuna dispatcher receives on an average one call per night, seven days a week, regarding illegal camp fires, presumably tended by freezing homeless people, for the entire months of November, December, and January, that would be maybe a hundred days. If we assume that each of these "arson" incidents translates into a cost of between $500 and $1000 to the City of Fortuna, the County of Humboldt, and the State of California, in terms of personnel time and wear and tear on equipment and vehicles, then that would be, we estimate, at least 100 x $500 = $50,000 that the City of Fortuna and County of Humboldt are paying for this luxury, every winter - perhaps two or three times as much.
It is our modest proposal that the dog park be converted into a set of camp sites for homeless people - with fire pits, grills, areas for setting up tents, perhaps bathrooms and running water, perhaps wireless access, too.
Alternatively, an area closer to the city facilities on the far side of the freeway can also be found. Regardless of the location, by providing resources for people who are nomads, we invite them to stay in a facility that is designed for the needs of the campers, and where the police can drive by and insure that everything is peaceful.
The $50,000 to $150,000 that the city and the county save, every year, would pay for the building and operation of tis facility and would also result in considerable savings to the city and the county.
It would also provide a location for churches and social workers to do outreach - serving breakfasts or making sure that people in desperate straits are at least receiving the minimum of kindness from our friendly, haha, city. and the county's Department of Health and Human Services would no longer have trouble locating homeless people, in Fortuna.
Then jaywalking would not be necessary at all.
Food for thought.