DESIGN THAT CROSSES THE LINE (2) – KOREA / JAE MIN LIM’S ERGO CROSSWALK: LEGALISING JAYWALKING

To celebrate the fact that we make the crossing into 2019, this week’s posts of Mapping The Design World are mainly devoted to urban interventionists who have been crossing the line in their redesign of the pedestrian crossing. Today’s post highlights the Ergo Crosswalk that was the brainchild of Korean designer Jae Min Lim, and was shortlisted for the Design For All competition which Designboom organized in collaboration with the Seoul Design Fair in 2010. Ergo Crosswalk set itself the aim to provide an ‘ergonomical’ solution for the problem of Jaywalking, or the tendency which many pedestrians have to walk in or cross a roadway that has traffic, without staying on the crosswalk. “People tend to take the fastest shortcut, “ says Jar Min Lin, “They sometimes do it intentionally, but mostly it is an unconscious act, violating the traffic regulations and sometimes a threat to safety.”By curving the typical Zebra crossing to take up a wider swath of road, Ergo Crosswalk carves out a safer path for pedestrians - following the actual routes that many people walk. “It encourages pedestrians to follow the lines of the cross walk and offers them a better protection from potential danger, “ says Jae Min Lim, who for added safety also envisioned LED Zebra stripes that would tell pedestrians when to cross by glowing red or green. Whatever the usefulness of his proposal, the principle behind it certainly is worth considering: “If people insist on not adapting to  regulations, it might be more reasonable to adapt these regulations.” (mb)