Crossing the street has cost some pedestrians upwards of $250. (Photo/Creative Commons)

For the past three holiday seasons, the Los Angeles Police Department’s zero-tolerance policy for jaywalkers in downtown Los Angeles has had pedestrians up in arms. Despite community protest during the first quarter of 2014, both pedestrian enforcement and citation prices are here to say, according to Central Division officials. 

When the price of jaywalking tickets rose to $191 during the final months of 2010, LAPD officers claimed it was to increase pedestrian safety and combat potential accidents that arise in a season when more tourists and holiday shoppers are out on the streets.

Three years later, downtown L.A. pedestrians find crosswalks just as hazardous as before and feel the citations discourage residents and workers from walking in a city in dire need of a pedestrian culture.  

“In Los Angeles we have been so car oriented that we forgot how to be a city and we forgot how to walk. It is so great to see people walking in downtown L.A. and for the LAPD to see dollar signs with the pedestrians—I see that as very counter productive,” Brigham Yen said, who writes a blog about development in downtown Los Angeles. 

In 2013, the LAPD Central Bureau, which serves Central, Newton, Hollenbeck, Rampart and Northeast divisions, issued 31,326 jaywalking citations ranging from $190 to $250, according to LAPD statistics. The Central Division saw 153 pedestrian-car accidents in 2013; four of those resulted in fatalities. 

A community forum hosted by the LAPD on Jan. 22 in the Historic District, an area that LAPD spokesperson Jay Cho said has seen a large number of jaywalking citations issued, revealed the root of pedestrian friction and looked at potential resolutions to the issue. 

Although California Vehicle Code 21456 prohibits pedestrians from legally crossing an intersection when the “Don’t Walk” or flashing hand sign is raised, community members feel this law is widely unknown by pedestrians. 

“I always took the countdown and flashing hand sign as a gauge of how many seconds I had to cross the street. Until I was given a $197 ticket for jaywalking,” Deborah Abber said, a University of Southern California student who was ticketed on her way to work in downtown Los Angeles along Seventh St. and Figueroa Street. 

For Abber, a nearly $200 jaywalking citation is almost as much as what she makes in a week, raising concerns over the validity of what the LAPD chooses to enforce.

“There is violence and poverty teeming in the streets of downtown and this is what our police officers are focusing on? I just feel the LAPD has bigger fish to fry,” Abber said.

READ MORE: An Open Letter To An LAPD Officer

Capt. Ann Young of the Central Traffic Division said officers are investigating other options for policing pedestrian infractions, but a potential warning system and lowered fines will not be a reality any time soon.  

“This might be something down the road, but it’s going to take a lot of data gathering and a lot of research,” Young said at the community forum. “Just for example, how many warnings should one person get for the same violation? Do you get a warning for jaywalking? Do you get a warning for running a red light?”

But some downtown Los Angeles workers and residents see a warning system as nothing more than a band-aid to cover up a deeper-rooted issue that must be addressed by urban planners. 

“Pedestrian safety is a design flaw in the city of Los Angeles and if the LAPD says a crackdown on jaywalking is about making our streets safer, you cannot make a dangerously designed street safe. You have to redesign the street,” Yen said. 

Yen isn’t alone in his belief that road diets and streetscape projects are vital for pedestrians to be out of harm’s way. Los Angeles Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group, believes pedestrian needs should be weighed as heavily as the needs of drivers and any preliminary plans to widen sidewalks in downtown should be implemented sooner rather than later. 

The LAPD Central Division remains firm in their belief that issuing citations at the current rate is the best way to tackle pedestrian-car accidents. 

“There are times when the cars are at fault and then there are times when it’s the pedestrian’s fault. Regardless it looks bad on the area where it occurs and the chief says we need to issue more tickets to teach a lesson about pedestrian safety,” Jay Cho said, a spokesperson for the LAPD Central Traffic Division. 

It is this lesson that community activists like Yen feels is detrimental to making downtown Los Angeles an urban city center like New York City or Chicago, which both thrive from heavy foot traffic.  

“I love the east coast and every time I’m there I get a taste of what it’s like to be free as a pedestrian. It’s very liberating to walk anywhere as you please and to see people have been cited for jaywalking at two in the morning reveals a malicious moment by the LAPD and it pains me,” Yen said. 

The idea of downtown Los Angeles as more than just a commuter area has flourished in recent months. The crackdown on jaywalking, some feel, is a practice doing more harm than good in contributing to the complete revival of downtown.

“Pedestrians feel empowered when they are safe on the streets. Most of Los Angeles is not conducive to a heavy pedestrian culture and downtown is a pivotal player in changing the culture of Los Angeles,” Yen said. 

Reach Staff Reporter McKenna Aiello here, and follow her on Twitter @McKennaAiello.