There's something deeply alienating about being the sole pedestrian on a busy street. The cars whiz by, fast-moving reminders that you are a tiny and breakable human. The sun beats down on the sidewalk, reflecting onto you like a spotlight for the AC-blasted people in their vehicles. You're hopping over debris or into gutters to avoid puddles. And you're thinking, "Ugh, why can't I just drive there?"
Those feelings of fear, annoyance, and even embarrassment while navigating city streets aren't irrational or isolated. In fact, according to a group of transportation activists, it's a terrifying reality for most pedestrians and mobility device users, and they're pushing for something called "pedestrian dignity" in order to address it.
Jonathon Stalls is the founder of the art and transportation coalition Intrinsic Paths, which started the associated pedestrian dignity campaign. The 39-year-old also runs the pedestrian dignity TikTok account, which grew in popularity over the last two years and has since thrust these issues into the spotlight for its more than 100,000 followers. His videos get thousands of views, comments from viewers new to urban planning, and engagement from urban designers and accessibility advocates sharing and discussing their different perspectives. The account has a "How Can I Help" playlist, including tips on how to support pedestrians even if you're car-dependent, and makes use of TikTok's duet feature by re-sharing the lived realities of pedestrians.
"I love it. Because it really is like we're co-creating together," Stalls said. "It's a community in a sense."
Stalls is a Denver, Colorado-based artist — a "walking artist" as he describes himself — who in 2010 took on the monumental task of walking across the country. It took him eight and a half months, and through the process he became startlingly aware of how poorly pedestrians are treated. This led him to found a community group called Walk2Connect, which hosted walking events, trained walking and rolling community activists, and created social connections among residents and leaders in public, civic spaces. Part of that involved policy advocacy, which later evolved into Pedestrian Dignity.
According to Stalls, pedestrian dignity is a movement asking for human-centered, inclusive urban design that supports and encourages pedestrian transportation (including mobility devices) through online education, policy advocacy, and on-the-ground campaigning. "This is not 100% car bashing," he made clear. It's about how quickly car-only transportation became the norm, especially in growing suburban areas. "You have an entire neighborhood designed with the assumption that everybody should only see transportation as car-centric behavior."
Operating in-person and online for two years, the movement includes a network of people of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds — something that Stalls said is essential to advocating for inclusive physical spaces.
The movement combines work by disability rights activists, who have pushed for public street accessibility for decades, with current criticisms of our country's car-centric culture and resulting urban design. There are numerous examples of the ways cities aren't accessible to residents with disabilities: sidewalks and busy street crossings lack ramps or clear signs, crosswalk timers are too short for the length of time needed for many to cross, steep streets and stairwells exist without accessible route alternatives nearby. Beyond physical accessibility issues, most public spaces are unfriendly for any pedestrian who has to face busy highway corridors on foot, walk to far-away bus stops, or navigate poorly-designed, out-of-the-way sidewalk routes, Stalls explained. It's a case study in the benefits of universal design, which guides people to create environments usable by as many as possible without the need for accommodation.
In a similar way, pedestrian dignity prioritizes public policies that allow for universal human movement — whether walking or using mobility devices — over transportation technology. This includes urban planning decisions like extended curbs that shorten crosswalk time or detached sidewalks (walking paths separated from the street by plants or other elements). It often means civic leaders have to incorporate the ways in which pedestrians actually walk, rather than abstract simulations, into road design, as well. An oft-cited example of this are the paths made by residents and drivers in snow covered areas, also known as sneckdowns. The physical manifestation of walking and driving paths show exactly how much street space is wasted for car lanes and parking, as well as the paths pedestrians take through city streets when sidewalks aren't visible. Information like this then informs routes that mimic how pedestrians naturally choose to get around when uninhibited by the fear of cars or lack of access.
"Walkable, safe, accessible, human-scale spaces are commodities now. They're tied to gentrification and they're tied to wealth…"
"In any new development, in any project, visionary thinking, budget, committee, or planning process, how are we helping to decenter the automobile? Can we take a lane away and improve safety and accessibility to incentivize and encourage more mixed-use multimodal transportation?" Stalls asked of leaders and communities. Can these spaces be radically reimagined so they prioritize people over cars? For Stalls, that should be the primary goal of designers, city planners, and government leaders.
"Walkable, safe, accessible, human-scale spaces are commodities now. They're tied to gentrification and they're tied to wealth, which is just complete bullshit, because they are the most dignified of the broad story of human habitats," Stalls said.
Equity is at the heart of the pedestrian dignity movement's operating and advocacy goals. After all, comfortable pedestrian environments shouldn't be relegated as luxuries. It looks at the most in-need communities and their experiences, traveling in inaccessible, poorly-maintained neighborhoods or across cities during long commutes, in order to inform policy choices and educate politicians. In doing so, its proposed solutions account for history, race, class, and accessibility, and prioritize those who depend on systems outside of cars. These identities impact resources and access, from racial and geographic wealth gaps that affect your ability to purchase or lease a car, to legal and physical limitations to getting a license and owning a vehicle — all of which make people dependent on transit beyond personal vehicles.
Recognizing these constraints, the movement encourages investing in and revitalizing lower-income communities, rather than maintenance for rich or gentrifying areas. It recognizes that for many people with disabilities, ADA compliance is the bare minimum for street design, which should go beyond simple access changes and create civic spaces specifically for residents with disabilities, like inclusive recreation areas and open green spaces that are both navigable for mobility device users and can provide quiet sensory spaces for residents who are neurodivergent and frequently thrust into noisy streets. It also tries to place those communities in direct contact with leadership or in decision-making roles during planning, design, and use.
These goals are central to the movement's online presence, too. Stalls and fellow advocates use the account's videos to show concrete examples of problems and how their group envisions solutions, talking through issues while physically moving through the spaces. The videos are a first-person POV showing the difficulties of navigating poorly-maintained streets, inaccessible intersections, and isolated roads — a peek into how it feels to exist in spaces not designed for either you or your main mode of transportation. Rather than just hearing about the issues with sidewalk repair or unsafe bus stops, we as viewers live through the feelings with the pedestrians themselves.
"How are those spaces being radically reimagined to be made for and centering people and not cars?"
The videos make it clear why streets, sidewalks, and public spaces need to be redesigned. They amplify people's experiences to TikTok users around the country, as well as those in power, using what Stalls calls "felt knowledge" to influence design changes — it's fact-gathering, but also empathy-building. Stalls hosts "walking and rolling tours" alongside a network of fellow pedestrian dignity activists — he frequently posts clips from the walks on TikTok. These tours are requested by fellow activists, disability advocates, civic leaders, and even groups from universities and college engineering programs, who join Stalls as he walks them through inaccessible, undignified pedestrian areas. He explained that getting these leaders on the ground is crucial to them understanding why we need better design, as they experience the feelings of fear and embarrassment firsthand.
There are numerous solutions to the problem of inaccessible urban design, from local advocacy to national policy-making, and multiple perspectives to consider when designing for accessible, people-centered environments. Use pedestrian dignity as a guide to evaluate your own city, as a way to reframe how and where you drive versus walk, or as a starting to point to think about issues with street accessibility.
How to become a pedestrian advocate
There are numerous methods of improvement for public spaces, and good examples do exist. But work has to be done to make these examples the norm. The felt knowledge of pedestrians can be used to do just that, and that's where most of us can join the pedestrian dignity campaign.
Start where you are
Stalls encourages potential pedestrian advocates to, first and foremost, get out on the ground in their own area. If you primarily use a vehicle, try cutting out some nonessential driving trips for walking or rolling ones instead, if physically possible. In addition to local, residential streets, pedestrian dignity makes an effort to look at practical or collector roads, which connect neighborhoods streets to main thoroughfares, and arterial roads, high-traffic routes near public transit and highways. These are commonly used areas for pedestrian commuters and the routes people have to traverse for day-to-day tasks like grocery shopping and work.
Take notice of the areas where you feel uncomfortable, accounting for all your senses, Stalls said, and what design choices are causing those reactions. "If you already experienced the world this way, and you're grinding through it, I just encourage those people to experiment with making their personal experience a little more public," Stalls said. He encourages people to share their stories in multi-format ways. "Start taking some videos. Or write poetry. Just fucking scream about it!" he said "Leaning into your dignity is valid, and you're worthy of a more safe and accessible experience... You have wisdom in your lived experience."
Know your officials
Find out who is responsible for the areas that felt the most unsafe. "Who manages my everyday streets and intersections? Who manages the bus stops and the bus routes? Who is my city council member? Who is my state representative? And how can I get connected to voicing, speaking, and sharing the things I'm learning and experiencing?" Stalls asked. Find this information on your city's transportation department and transit authority websites, or reach out to a local accessibility group. There are also national advocacy networks working to improve accessibility in urban and recreational spaces for people with and without disabilities, like the National Center for Accessibility and AmericaWalks.
Once you know who's in charge, reach out and share your stories. Look for community planning boards or forums for public input during city planning initiatives, and demand they consider a diversity of voices. Drop comments in the inboxes of your leaders or invite them on a walk through your town themselves — pedestrian dignity can even help with that, offering guided tours in the Denver area (or wherever Stalls is walking to next), mentoring, and virtual consulting. Important to Stalls, leaders should know that being a pedestrian isn't always a choice, and it shouldn't be treated as such.
Connect with other advocates
In addition to collaborations with other organizations and leaders, Stalls and the pedestrian dignity initiative are actively involving more diverse youth voices. In fact, it was a young participant in one of his tours that inspired him to make the now viral TikTok account. Now he assists multiple youth advocates getting involved in pedestrian advocacy around the country, primarily through the community app Discord.
Having young people, the current users and future designers of these spaces, co-hosting and co-creating with him in sustainable ways was deeply important to him. "That's the arc that I have hoped for with pedestrian dignity — to be this space of invitation and outreach and connection and co-sharing. And then me being a weaver to help them connect to tangible systems change," Stalls said.
Alongside the work of people like Stalls and future pedestrian rights leaders, the movement for accessible human design might be getting a boost from the urban accommodations made during the pandemic. Open, pedestrian-only streets and outdoor seating spaces grew under the constraints of quarantine isolation and social distancing — and many of those public changes remain as things open back up. In some way that's proof that centering human interaction and movement in public spaces is not as difficult as it might appear – it might just take us being a little more vocal about our feelings and reclaiming our own right to outdoor dignity.
"I am worthy of health and connection and safety and love — all these basic needs," Stalls said. "These principles of pedestrian dignity, the anchors, are fundamental human rights. This is basic access for millions of people."
Topics Activism Social Good Accessibility
