Transportation
A Brief History of the Barnes Dance
Cities have largely given up on pedestrian scrambles — but some are bringing them back.
Earlier this month, in a great piece for New York magazine about traffic and pedestrian safety, Robert Kolker mentioned that the city has only one remaining "Barnes Dance" (where Broadway meets Battery Place and State Street). The Barnes Dance, sometimes called a scramble, is an intersection where car traffic halts for a bit so pedestrians can cross in all directions — including diagonally. You've probably seen pictures of the famous one in the Shibuya part of Tokyo (via Flickr user lu_lu):