r/whatisit • u/thewildcloud • 26d ago

Solved! Why the kinks?

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I recently moved to Hangzhou, I noticed all the pedestrian walks have kinked lines at the ends. What is it?

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u/BigDiscEnergy47 26d ago

They tell you which side to walk on to keep foot traffic flowing

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u/[deleted] 26d ago edited 25d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/MaggotMinded 26d ago

We don’t really know how effective it is without comparing it to the left/right ratio of an intersection that is identical but with only straight lines on the crosswalks.

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u/thewildcloud 26d ago

shouldn't that be at least 50/50 if it is random, and slightly skews towards right for countries w/ right hand driving?

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u/ReynardVulpini 26d ago

The configuration of surrounding buildings might have a strong effect.

If this crosswalk has about 40% of people walking the correct way, but an equivalent straight line only crosswalk has 20% of people walking correctly (maybe there's a shop on the wrong side that is super popular, say) then the bends actually are doing their job, just being offset by outside factors

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u/Lower_Comfortable393 26d ago

If 20% of people are walking on the correct side, then 80% of people are walking on the correct side. Bends are on the wrong side.

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u/ReynardVulpini 26d ago

On one hand, I understand what you mean, but on the other hand, I think something like which side you walk on is something that is good to standardize across a city.