What are they used for? You just take one and wave it?

I've seen those in the US not too long ago, too.

That whole place is a wasted opportunity for a pedestrian zone. It would be so nice if they'd kept the temporary tram line from the Olympics and banned personal vehicles.

I think you're right and Strong Towns just tested out that theory. Spoiler: it did not work. I really hope they try it again with the brick.

Bring your own brick (BYOB) just in case.

BYOB (Bring Your Own Bricks)

It’s not very nice but it helps keep me alive.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the dominant traffic control structure in the US is the stoplight, which relies heavily on "mutually assured destruction" to work. So that's in everyone's head when driving around: "I stop because I don't want to get hurt." To me, it's pretty clear that escalation to vehicular damage is the only thing that makes sense for pedestrians in such an environment. Yeah, it's not nice, but so is the rest of the game.

i remember seeing a video where a guy stood next to a huge puddle to see if people would splash him when driving by, they all did

then he did the same thing except he was carrying a brick and everybody slowed down so as to not splash him

I'm from a much less pedestrian friendly city, and I completely agree with point #1. There are a lot of other ways to get to Granville and it's so close quarters with cars, you can't even swing a cat

That is the law on Ontario, all lanes of traffic must stop for someone using a pedestrian crossover (zebra crossing). The penalty for failure to comply is $1000 and 4 demerits. Fines are doubled ($2000) in community safety zones.

The law isn't to blame; driver compliance, enforcement, and road design is.

They would have to take budget from the military to afford this, what an outrageous act! Wait they can just defund hospitals and schools even more, but do you honestly think they would allocate even a dollar to safety for their citizens? Nah they would just shove the new money into the military again

This whole thing is satire, I didn't say /s since it looked like it's just focusing on the last sentence instead of the whole comment

Maybe custom blinking shoes like what they used to make for kids back in the day? Just mimic the blinking pattern.

There are many people who still wouldn't notice until the siren comes on though. I can spot an interceptor if the sunlight just happens to hit it right, yet my mom will drive right past a parked white cop car with lights on and be surprised when I told her she didn't slow down to pass it. Then if an emergency siren goes off she panics and tries to pull to the shoulder without locating the emergency vehicle when fully blocked in by other cars and only moving enough to block the ambulance driving along the shoulder.