{"id":310,"date":"2004-01-08T17:30:10","date_gmt":"2004-01-08T12:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=310"},"modified":"2004-01-08T17:30:10","modified_gmt":"2004-01-08T12:30:10","slug":"crossing-the-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2004\/01\/08\/crossing-the-street.html","title":{"rendered":"Crossing the Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nI went outside this afternoon and realized I had not seen another live human being for over 48 hours. There are people everywhere in this town. I cross the street at 3:00 in the morning and have to look both ways (on a one way street) because there will very likely be someone coming no matter the time or the weather conditions.<\/p>\n

I’ve thought about writing an essay with instructions on how to cross the street. The above comment, regarding looking both ways when crossing a one way streets, reminded me of that idea. It would be funny, but strange to provide infinitely detailed instructions on how to cross the street. I’d produce the essay to look like one of those $80 Sams.net books that fill corporate expense accounts. I’d call my book ‘LEARN TO CROSS THE STREET IN 21 DAYS.’ There would be sidebars with bits of Power Q&A, gleaned from my decades of crossing the street.<\/p>\n

\nQ: What if the crosswalk says “WALK,” traffic is stopped for the red light, and other people have already started crossing the street?<\/p>\n

A: YOU LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING.<\/p>\n

Q: What if it’s 3:00 in the morning and I’m crossing a one-way street where I heard no vehicles pass for hours?<\/p>\n

A: YOU LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING.<\/p>\n

Q: What if a traffic officer or school crossing guard is directing vehicle and pedestrian traffic, and says that it is my turn to cross the street?<\/p>\n

A: YOU LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING THE STREET.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This Power Q&A would drill home the important points of the book, I think.<\/p>\n

Then I’d explore the nuance of crossing the street. The planning that you can start from a half a block away. When to consider crossing the street even when it would appear to go out of the way of your final destination. I’d divulge my years of accumulated wisdom devoted to spending the least amount of time standing at a crosswalk and more time crossing. I’d make charts and tables illustrating how I walk from Macy’s Herald Square to Bloomingdale’s without *ever* stopping at a crosswalk. I’d even share my deepest pedestrian secrets: When is it quicker to walk than to take a subway, bus, or cab? Then I’d share my algorithm for determining value of time spent walking versus time on a subway. When is it simply better to walk regardless of the time expense?<\/p>\n

I would have to figure out the actual calculations, the written expression for these algorithms which presently exist as little more than streaks of instinct through my noisy brain.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n

 <\/p>\n

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I went outside this afternoon and realized I had not seen another live human being for over 48 hours. There are people everywhere in this town. I cross the street at 3:00 in the morning and have to look both ways (on a one way street) because there will very likely be someone coming no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-181-2","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-50","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}