A longtime pedestrian safety advocate in Charlottesville, Virginia, could be going to jail for creating a makeshift crosswalk. Kevin Cox was charged with vandalism last month after he used spray chalk to draw a crosswalk a block away from where a pedestrian was killed by a car last fall, the Guardian reports. "There is a marked crosswalk now at Second Street and Elliot Avenue in spite of you," he wrote to City Manager Sam Sanders, telling him it was chalk, not paint, and asking him to replace it with a real one. Cox says the city "basically ignored" a petition with more than 900 signatures that asked for a crosswalk to be painted at the intersection.
"The speed of the cars is the biggest problem," Cox says. "They drive too fast, and they ignore pedestrians." The city covered Cox's markings with black paint and Cox was charged with intentional destruction of property with a value of less than $1,000—a misdemeanor punishable by up to 12 months in jail and a fine of up to $2,500. A July 14 trial date was set at a court appearance last week, WVIR reports.
"Elliott Avenue has been poisoned by the deeply held design principle that Charlottesville is a collection of through roads for the city engineer and other county drivers to use as they tear through our town," Cox told a city council meeting last month. He tells the Daily Progress that he believes the charge is retribution for that and other statements. Cox, who has a receipt for the water soluble marking chalk he used, notes that Virginia law allows pedestrians to cross at most intersections. "This is a legal crossing," he says. "The drivers don't know that, and so the crosswalks help alert the drivers."
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