London, bike registration, and jaywalking

The July 28, 2006 Times of London had an interesting article title "Cycle numberplate plan to catch lawless riders". The proposal was to affix plates to bicycles so they can be caught by cameras for violations (like riding on sidewalks.) That may actually be a sound policy to help encourage better cycling behavior. The number of people cycling has shot up 50% in the last 5 years, after remaining relatively flat for 10 years. (though the dates mentioned in the article appear somewhat suspect). However, the remainder of the article had some very interesting quotes from London mayor Ken Livingston.

"In America jaywalking is illegal, but in America you have this situation that at virtually every busy junction there is a zebra crossing and as the lights change the pedestrian has priority and only when they've crossed can then the cars turn....
But if you are going to ban jaywalking you're going to have to have a lot more actual formal pedestrian crossings."

I've seen pedestrian priority lights in San Francisco where the peds get a couple second head start before cars go. However, in most of the United States, pedestrians have to fight it out with the cars to cross. Crosswalks are fairly common at busy intersections. However, it is also common to see iomitteded from one side of the road so as not to 'interfere' with turning traffic. And in many cases they are not put in place, and pedestrians only get the 'green man' if they push a button. 'Jaywalking' is a concious choice by pedestrians to directly cross where they feel most safe. Thus it is really not a pedestrian problem, but a problem for other vehicles.

Perhaps the congestion charge has been working too well in London. Now that traffic can actual move, the cars want to keep pedestrians and anything else that slows them down out of the way.