Today, I bring you to Orange, California, a small college town that hosts Chapman University. Being in Orange County, you may think this area is just a big highway with suburban neighborhood houses. While that is true for much of Southern California, that would be a mistake in the case of Orange.

The story focuses on a redesign of one intersection in this town. The case highlights how we’ve elevated the value of moving cars quickly at the expense of everything else, even in highly walkable areas.

Old Towne Orange is indeed one of the most walkable places in all of Orange County. It has an intact little downtown with shops, restaurants, and other civic institutions. It is a remnant of the old streetcar neighborhoods that are still some of the most desirable places in the US.

Chapman University is a medium-sized liberal arts college with around 10,000 students. I happened to work at Chapman before moving to my current university.

I have fond memories of working and living in Old Towne Orange because the university is tucked directly into the neighborhood. I walked to work, joining the many students and community members who lived around the area. A car-free life is feasible here (I did it for a year and a half).

This is all setting the stage for the re-design I wanted to highlight with this article. One choice that makes the walkable area a little less pleasant and more unsafe for pedestrians just to placate impatient drivers.

The intersection is at Lemon Street and Palm Avenue. It is not a major thoroughfare, but rather a neighborhood street that sits between two parts of the Chapman campus. The popular film school is adjacent, along with a newly constructed dorm a block away. It’s also only a few blocks from Orange’s Metro Station that can take students into downtown LA in an hour.

It is safe to say, the Palm and Lemon intersection sees a lot of walkers.

A few years ago, the Lemon and Palm intersection was a four-way stop sign. It was simple, cars always had to stop, and pedestrians always had the right of way to walk. It makes sense, as it’s in the middle of a neighborhood and college campus.

There was nothing broken about this intersection. It was working fine. Sure, there were a lot of people walking, so cars had to move slowly and wait a bit longer—ideal, considering the dangers cars can pose to pedestrians.

But the city of Orange disagreed.

The university requested a change from the stop signs to a traffic signal in order to “better organize traffic and reduce conflicts between the various road users (motorists and pedestrians).”

The city did an “engineering analysis” to ascertain the request. The study found that “the combined volume of pedestrian and vehicle traffic rises to the level where installation of the signal is justified.” The traffic engineering study concluded, “a signal could also improve the quality of traffic flow at this location.”

In 2020, the city removed the stop signs and installed stop lights, fulfilling the request o