Pedestrian

A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was not the case historically.

History

The main way humans get around is by walking. The first humans walked out of Africa about 60,000 years ago. We walked across India to reach Australia. We walked across Asia to reach the Americas. We walked from the fertile crescent area to reach Europe.

The pedestrian Bauman Street in Kazan

Nowadays, roads often have a designated footpath attached especially for pedestrian traffic, called the sidewalk in American English and the pavement in British English. There are also footpaths not associated with a road which are used only by pedestrians, especially ramblers, hikers or hill-walkers and there are roads not associated with a footpath. These footpaths, in mountains or forests, are called trails.

Colorful pedestrian Light Tunnel at Detroit's DTW airport

Efforts are underway by pedestrian advocacy groups to make it easy to be a pedestrian in new developments, especially to counteract newer developments where 20 to 30 percent do not include sidewalks. Some activists advocate large auto-free zones where pedestrians only or pedestrians and some non-motorised vehicles are allowed.

Pedestrian Media

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  Pedestrians on the Ximending in Taipei, Taiwan

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  Pedestrians on a crosswalk in Buenos Aires

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  A sign in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, directing pedestrians to an overpass for safe crossing.

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  Pedestrian signal in Santa Ana, California.

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  In many jurisdictions in the United States, one must yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.

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  A crossing for school children in Jakarta

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  Pedestrians ready across the street next to the Forum shopping center in Helsinki, Finland

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  Traffic lights for pedestrians are also a factor in increasing safety. Animated pedestrian traffic light showing the pan-European sign.

Related pages

• Walking

Other websites

• Early Pedestrians in North America
• US Pedestrian Advocacy Groups Archived 2008-02-11 at the Wayback Machine
• UK Pedestrian Advocacy Group
• Transportation Alternatives: Pedestrian Advocacy
• America Walks
• Street quality promotion by street parties
• Pedestrian InRoads – US Pedestrian advocacy group Archived 2009-12-21 at the Wayback Machine
• Perils For Pedestrians on YouTube
• Walkable Communities
• Donald Appleyard's Livable Streets study Archived 2007-02-20 at the Wayback Machine
• Ultramarathons Archived 2003-12-27 at the Wayback Machine