> Although I am not sure why you think it is OK for that 1 dude to hold up about 40 other people
This is a perfect illustration of the US's driving-first culture. Let's do some math here. 40 people / 1.7 people per car average [1] = ~23.529 or 24 cars (which may be the case if it's rush hour, but probably not if it's not). If this is a 3 way intersection, and each of the cars is evenly distributed between directions (which I realize is incorrect, of course), then there are ~7.843 or 8 cars per side. Assuming an (informally weighted) average car size of 174 in. per car [2], with 2 ft of distance between each car, then the block length is a minimum of 1406 ft. Given that the average person walks at 4.6 ft/s [3], this distance would take 5.09 min. to traverse, just to get to your well lit next block. The average US commute is 26.1 min [4], which means just getting to the next block to cross at the well lit intersection would be 1/5 of the average commute, let alone the time most people are willing to tolerate to go to the grocery or pharmacy.
Obviously there are a lot of assumptions in this calculation, but it really goes a long way to showing how little American car-first culture thinks of pedestrian infrastructure, attractiveness, and travel times. "Just" walking over to the next, well-lit block, immediately makes a pedestrian trip for chores non-viable for anyone that values their time. To me, there also seems an in-built disdain for the time and safety of the pedestrian, and those attitudes do nothing but make it more difficult for Americans to do anything without their cars.
> Although I am not sure why you think it is OK for that 1 dude to hold up about 40 other people
This is a perfect illustration of the US's driving-first culture. Let's do some math here. 40 people / 1.7 people per car average [1] = ~23.529 or 24 cars (which may be the case if it's rush hour, but probably not if it's not). If this is a 3 way intersection, and each of the cars is evenly distributed between directions (which I realize is incorrect, of course), then there are ~7.843 or 8 cars per side. Assuming an (informally weighted) average car size of 174 in. per car [2], with 2 ft of distance between each car, then the block length is a minimum of 1406 ft. Given that the average person walks at 4.6 ft/s [3], this distance would take 5.09 min. to traverse, just to get to your well lit next block. The average US commute is 26.1 min [4], which means just getting to the next block to cross at the well lit intersection would be 1/5 of the average commute, let alone the time most people are willing to tolerate to go to the grocery or pharmacy.
Obviously there are a lot of assumptions in this calculation, but it really goes a long way to showing how little American car-first culture thinks of pedestrian infrastructure, attractiveness, and travel times. "Just" walking over to the next, well-lit block, immediately makes a pedestrian trip for chores non-viable for anyone that values their time. To me, there also seems an in-built disdain for the time and safety of the pedestrian, and those attitudes do nothing but make it more difficult for Americans to do anything without their cars.
[1]: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/tpm/guidance/avo_factors.pdf
[2]: https://www.reference.com/world-view/average-length-car-2e85...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_walking_speed
[4]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longes...