[dashing doofus]

Good I left then. ;-).

The pedestrians wouldn't even fit on the sidewalks outside of Penn Station during rush hour. You had to walk on the streets. But there were plenty of crazy pedestrians, for sure. I just see the image of barricaded sidewalks and strict fines for j-walking as emblematic of Julie Annie's authoritarian overreach.

Maybe I should post the gum-spitting penalties he proposed?

[Alberta's Child]

There might be a couple of different issues here. The anti-jaywalking initiative I remembered was specifically aimed at eliminating traffic congestion at some key locations in midtown Manhattan -- by prohibiting people from crossing at the intersections (this is what the barriers were for) and forcing them to use new signalized mid-block crossings instead. This eliminated the vehicle/pedestrian conflicts at those busy intersections and helped reduce congestion by allowing cars to turn freely at the intersections without having to stop for pedestrians.

This is an effective way to improve the flow of traffic at busy intersections, and the "pedestrian group representatives" who complained about it were basically just professional malcontents.