At a recent seminar on walkability, an engineer spoke in favour of pedestrian bridges for street crossings because they are safe. “Only if people use them,” I responded, to which he replied with a snort. The conversation, though brief, was enlightening. My public health background, which is about helping populations to be healthier, taught me that solutions are only useful if they work. If people won’t take you up on your suggestions then you need to try a different approach. He, as an engineer, had apparently been taught to provide the solution and then force people to accept it. Perhaps both approaches work in certain contexts, but there’s a reason why so many cities have torn down their pedestrian bridges and instead provide signalled and zebra crossings. Safety measures work an awful lot better when they’re accepted by the population, and if there is a means that people will like better that has additional benefits—such as slowing down the vehicles and thus reducing the chance of accidents—then such solutions are obviously preferable. In any case it should be obvious that bridges are a traffic flow measure, not a pedestrian-friendly one; that is, they are intended to prevent pedestrians from blocking the traffic, not to help pedestrians cross safely. It helps to remember that pedestrians are traffic too—and deserve far more priority than the pollution- and congestion-creating automobile.