These days, it's common to find many different styles of crosswalks. I've drawn some of the styles that I know of below.
Some states, like California, chiefly use parallel lines, even in situations where a driver must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians (where greater visibility is important). Other states, like Washington, chiefly use the zebra-style crossings, even at signalized crossings (where pedestrian visibility is only important to those running a red light). Further, places like British Columbia use parallel lines for signalized crossings and the tight zebra for yield situations (AFAIK, all cities in BC follow this pattern).
What style of crosswalk do you prefer, and why? Additonally, would you use stop lines parallel to the crosswalk or perpendicular to the lanes? Personally, I prefer the parallel lines for signalized crossings, and the ladder style for yield situations, where greater visibility is required. I would be fine with the tight zebra, however I prefer the cleanliness of having a visible edge to the crossing area. And for the stop line, I prefer to have them perpendicular to the lane, and with each lane having the stop line at varying points depending on the geometry of the intersection.
NOTE: I came up with my own names for the crosswalks. Many of you probably already noticed this, however.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FgJjXZw0.png&hash=10471a1fa9141e137c2816247eb7faefcf96413a)
Crossing near Seattle of the gapped-and-halved zebra with extreme tire-missing gaps:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FEsY5pOq.jpg&hash=19603b7ba3969a0f3bf7084308cd43bad8a8b747)
I have also seen brick sidewalks.
Quote from: 1 on December 22, 2014, 06:50:02 PM
I have also seen brick sidewalks.
The crosswalk between the library and farmer's market in Royal Oak, MI is an applique that just
looks like bricks.
Quote from: GaryV on December 22, 2014, 06:55:33 PM
Quote from: 1 on December 22, 2014, 06:50:02 PM
I have also seen brick sidewalks.
The crosswalk between the library and farmer's market in Royal Oak, MI is an applique that just looks like bricks.
They look exactly like bricks. In fact, from a Street View perspective, they appear to be actual bricks. Are they not?
Las Vegas Strip style. A bridge over the entire street! :-)
There's one in downtown Milwaukee near Cathedral Square that's striped like piano keys.
I prefer the zebra (also referred to as 'continental') or the gapped-zebra, as they have much better upstream visibility. Also, when placed properly (painted outside and parallel to the wheel paths), they tend to last longer than parallel lines.
Stop lines, I prefer them perpendicular to the travel lane. While it takes a bit more time to lay out, it uses less material. Parallel to the crosswalk just looks lazy, IMO.
The zebra and tight zebra are best at showing pedestrians crossing at night while wearing dark clothes. That is a big problem in my area, so it's important for crosswalks to have as much white paint as possible.
Quote from: jakeroot on December 22, 2014, 07:02:16 PM
Quote from: GaryV on December 22, 2014, 06:55:33 PM
Quote from: 1 on December 22, 2014, 06:50:02 PM
I have also seen brick sidewalks.
The crosswalk between the library and farmer's market in Royal Oak, MI is an applique that just looks like bricks.
They look exactly like bricks. In fact, from a Street View perspective, they appear to be actual bricks. Are they not?
I've seen faux brick sidewalks, with a pattern pressed into the reddish concrete while it was setting. I saw one under construction in front of the office where I used to work. The tipoff that it was faux brick (aside from the fugly reddish shade) was the tire tracks left in the crosswalk from a car driven over it before the concrete had completely set.
That crosswalk (at 6th and Pennsylvania NW in Washington D.C.) was later replaced by a better fake brick crosswalk, as part of a quadrennial rebuild of the avenue ahead of the next presidential inauguration.
Quote from: oscar on December 22, 2014, 09:54:26 PM
The zebra and tight zebra are best at showing pedestrians crossing at night while wearing dark clothes. That is a big problem in my area, so it's important for crosswalks to have as much white paint as possible.
Quote from: jakeroot on December 22, 2014, 07:02:16 PM
Quote from: GaryV on December 22, 2014, 06:55:33 PM
Quote from: 1 on December 22, 2014, 06:50:02 PM
I have also seen brick sidewalks.
The crosswalk between the library and farmer's market in Royal Oak, MI is an applique that just looks like bricks.
They look exactly like bricks. In fact, from a Street View perspective, they appear to be actual bricks. Are they not?
I've seen faux brick sidewalks, with a pattern pressed into the reddish concrete while it was setting. I saw one under construction in front of the office where I used to work. The tipoff that it was faux brick (aside from the fugly reddish shade) was the tire tracks left in the crosswalk from a car driven over it before the concrete had completely set.
That crosswalk (at 6th and Pennsylvania NW in Washington D.C.) was later replaced by a better fake brick crosswalk, as part of a quadrennial rebuild of the avenue ahead of the next presidential inauguration.
They did this on DE 72 in Newark a few years back, but it's gotten to the point where the reddish paint has all faded off. Eventually they just painted regular markings over top of everything, leaving behind this awkward strip of stenciled, faded red pavement with newer markings on top that themselves began to fade and crack.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FgPG47M3.jpg&hash=98c010c2c3520d2b23ad7652dba72122358e5141)
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7515/16089127935_10d6105cdd.jpg)
Georgia often does the gapped-and-halved zebra but with lines on the outside.
I've seen a good bit of brick crosswalks in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Parallel, Zebra, Wide Zebra, and Ladder are used commonly in Illinois with no rhyme or reason as to why the specific style of crosswalk was chosen. In fact, some intersections sport at least two different ones.
I recently saw one town use a thermoplastic faux-brick set of crosswalks. I guess if the thermos last 5-10x longer than paint, then perhaps it becomes a long-term wash, cost-wise.
Here in W. Colo, they prefer to use stamped concrete for crosswalks, usually in an earth tone color, as well as zebra striping. A few towns still use parallel lines.
In Nevada, Zebra markings are now pretty much the standard. Parallel lines are used in places like downtown Reno, where there is a different pavement treatment within the crosswalk area.
Curiously, NDOT had a different design standard for district 1 (Las Vegas/Southern Nevada) that uses irregular spacing (matches the zebra lines to the lane lines), whereas districts 2 & 3 use even spacing (24" wide line, 24" gap). I'm not sure if this is still widely used, as most crossings in district 1 seem to be more uniform now.
A previous standard among entities in the Las Vegas area (or at least the City of Las Vegas itself) was to use parallel lines at all marked crosswalks, except those that were a designated school zone crossing would always be zebra markings. This would sometimes lead to a signalized intersection having two different styles of markings, since the "safe route to school" route only ran through one or two of the intersection crossings.
EDIT: "zebra" in this post should be construed as the alternating bar type, at right angles with no transverse or parallel lines.
Quote from: Brandon on December 23, 2014, 04:33:36 PM
Parallel, Zebra, Wide Zebra, and Ladder are used commonly in Illinois with no rhyme or reason as to why the specific style of crosswalk was chosen. In fact, some intersections sport at least two different ones.
Pretty often in Washington, depending on the jurisdiction that owns the road, you can see the same thing. For example, here's an image of WA-161 (N-S) as it intersects a private drive (from west) and a city street (from east):
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FIbYiBq0.png&hash=8452b036de5963098eed7fda8ea3ff2fdf9e1f5e)
The Parallel Lines are technically known as "Continental". Most of my home town was Continental lines until the Late 90s, and they were replaced with Zebra (although traditional zebra crossings are angled). We did just redo one of our main streets, and replaced traditional crosswalk with stamped concrete, with Continental Lines on either side (for some damn reason). I'm hoping that as time goes on, we make the stamped concrete a standard, as it helps to break up the visual of the street.
Fred Meyer seems to have a thing with the California Zebra, despite not being a California company, and being owned by Kroger.
Quote from: TEG24601 on December 25, 2014, 04:50:00 PM
The Parallel Lines are technically known as "Continental".
According to whom?
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/pedbike/10067/ (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/pedbike/10067/)
or
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/sidewalk2/sidewalks208.cfm (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/sidewalk2/sidewalks208.cfm)
Quote from: TEG24601 on December 25, 2014, 04:50:00 PM
We did just redo one of our main streets, and replaced traditional crosswalk with stamped concrete, with Continental Lines on either side (for some damn reason).
May be due to legal reasons. Even with colored and/or stamped concrete crosswalks, the parallel lines are also required by law in Wisconsin.
Quote from: DaBigE on December 25, 2014, 10:20:52 PM
Quote from: TEG24601 on December 25, 2014, 04:50:00 PM
The Parallel Lines are technically known as "Continental".
According to whom?
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/pedbike/10067/ (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/pedbike/10067/)
or
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/sidewalk2/sidewalks208.cfm (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/bicycle_pedestrian/publications/sidewalk2/sidewalks208.cfm)
Quote from: TEG24601 on December 25, 2014, 04:50:00 PM
We did just redo one of our main streets, and replaced traditional crosswalk with stamped concrete, with Continental Lines on either side (for some damn reason).
May be due to legal reasons. Even with colored and/or stamped concrete crosswalks, the parallel lines are also required by law in Wisconsin.
Sorry, that was just my exasperation with the former city planner, who was refusing to paint control markers of any sort for parallel parking, but added lines for the crosswalks.
Also, http://www.sfbetterstreets.org/find-project-types/pedestrian-safety-and-traffic-calming/crosswalks/ (http://www.sfbetterstreets.org/find-project-types/pedestrian-safety-and-traffic-calming/crosswalks/) contains an image that has been going around for years, and explains what the more common names for pedestrian crossings are according to them, and most other city planners and public works directors I've dealt with.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfbetterstreets.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F12%2Fcrosswalk_treatments.png&hash=194d469cf642ca8ba179d2267d639c96611461ac)
I was also wrong, the parallel lines are "standard", it is the blocks that are "Continental", I always get that confused.
Quote from: DaBigE on December 25, 2014, 10:20:52 PM
May be due to legal reasons. Even with colored and/or stamped concrete crosswalks, the parallel lines are also required by law in Wisconsin.
Must be a new requirement, because there are many, many crosswalks without parallel lines, in Wisconsin.
Quote from: on_wisconsin on December 30, 2014, 06:19:39 PM
Quote from: DaBigE on December 25, 2014, 10:20:52 PM
May be due to legal reasons. Even with colored and/or stamped concrete crosswalks, the parallel lines are also required by law in Wisconsin.
Must be a new requirement, because there are many, many crosswalks without parallel lines, in Wisconsin.
Unmarked crosswalks altogether or crosswalks created by colored pavement only? I was referring to the latter. Completely unmarked crosswalks are still allowed. I'll have to double check on the by-law statement; it may only be WisDOT policy.
The state of Georgia uses a variant of the "ladder" for its crosswalks. A pair of lines perpendicular to the road 8' apart, with double lines parallel to the road spaced every 6' (to correspond with the lane lines and the halfway point between the lanes.)
https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.771265,-84.387421&spn=0.000002,0.001032&t=h&z=21&layer=c&cbll=33.771265,-84.387421&panoid=KWHcck6T5lVwU7g3egU9FQ&cbp=12,224.71,,0,16.67 (https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=33.771265,-84.387421&spn=0.000002,0.001032&t=h&z=21&layer=c&cbll=33.771265,-84.387421&panoid=KWHcck6T5lVwU7g3egU9FQ&cbp=12,224.71,,0,16.67)
Some of the stamped concrete crosswalks in Tacoma, Washington have zebra crossing overlays:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FPntzDi1.png&hash=cc0c3579c8c8582d40450f737f44d14ea9107b5c)
Others, just a few blocks away, have continental/parallel line edges:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FtO9ZugE.png&hash=9aa9f0881682827c618affad7d6aa4a58b4a68fb)
And some have nothing at all:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FppQLx3M.png&hash=618393124100cf99c36dd68ca79850ea5fada144)
Quote from: jakeroot on January 04, 2015, 02:48:09 AM
And some have nothing at all:
[...image removed, see bottom image in above post for reference...]
Fort Collins has a certain affinity for this style of crosswalk at "enhanced" redesigned intersections. The lack of light reflection found in paint and/or themoplastic makes this style of crosswalk nearly impossible to see at night. This is especially problematic given that many intersections have the crosswalk moved back by ten feet or so to make crossing distances shorter (ie: it isn't right
at the intersection), in addition, the "enhanced" intersections also tend to have the highest volumes and thus conflict potentials (if the city can only make X intersections "nicer", it does logically make sense to enhance the busiest). At a minimum, parallel lines should be striped on the edge of the colored concrete; in a world where pedestrian safety actually trumped some landscape architect's idea of a pretty intersection, continental markings should be applied directly over the crosswalk.
Most other crosswalks in Fort Collins use continental markings. I'm leaning slightly in favor of Seattle's "gapped-and-halved" style of striping - twice as many markings without tire paths prematurely wearing them out.
Quote from: Zmapper on January 04, 2015, 03:57:26 AM
The lack of light reflection found in paint and/or themoplastic makes this style of crosswalk nearly impossible to see at night.
I've experienced the same issue with the pictured crossing above. I think what makes lane lines so effective is their ability to reflect...no paint = no reflection = poor visibility.
Quote from: Zmapper on January 04, 2015, 03:57:26 AM
I'm leaning slightly in favor of Seattle's "gapped-and-halved" style of striping - twice as many markings without tire paths prematurely wearing them out.
It seems like a good idea but it doesn't always work. Often times, this style is applied as though motorists drive exactly in the center of a lane, but in the case of like a slip lane or really any curved piece of road, drivers tend to take wider lines, or will drift between road edges unevenly. This can result in quickly disappearing crosswalks when the "gapped-and-halved" style is applied. This is why, personally, I prefer the zebra or narrow zebra (though only for unsignalized crossings; otherwise, I prefer the parallel lines).
In NJ it's usually "standard" and "zebra" (as defined on the picture), though I think I've seen a few "continental" ones as well.