alt Hacker NewsStudents at my university in Berlin need to cross a busy road to travel between campus areas, which meant jaywalking or a long trip to a crossing with traffic lights down the road. A steady stream of students late to their next class sprinting across a six lane road is not great.
At some point students started painting their own crosswalk, which would be removed again and again by authorities, until the city eventually got the hint and installed a permanent crosswalk with a traffic light and a pedestrian island.
Sometimes the way to get something is fixed is by demonstrating the fix.
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Similarly, tweaking a cycle path with duct tape: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ziqlGgc8_k.
A few days later, the city council made this change permanent.
That may be because this is a clearer win for everybody involved.
Dangerous game. In Romania at least, even fixing a pothole would get you a fine, possible jail time and requirement to unfix it.
[0] https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/comuna-unde-fostul...
[1] https://stirileprotv.ro/stiri/actualitate/situatie-absurda-i...
[2] https://www.antena3.ro/actualitate/locale/satul-sa-astepte-d...
The origin story for the Union Jack-inspired sidewalks on my university’s quad was the president looking out his window on a snowy day and seeing all of the footprints in the snow and asking the facilities to put diagonals in.
Guess some schools have wiser faculty than others.
In Germany! That's a dangerous place to be breaking the law. I hope they knew what they were doing.
Did they ever actually try and do things the proper way (e.g. file a request, show up to a town hall)? Because that may have actually been easier.
This wouldn't be Ernst-Reuter-Platz would it?
One such report (in German): https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2025/10/zebrastreifen-e... in Eberswalde; apparently firefighters were called in to remove the paint but were unsuccessful in their attempts to wash away the white stripes, and police launched an investigation into suspected interference with road traffic.
And another in Dresden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQUpQZAeA3w https://www.diesachsen.de/en/politics/a-zebra-crossing-in-dr... "In the summer of 2025, unknown individuals painted a crosswalk on the roadway along the busy street in Neustadt to provide safe access to the Heinrich Schütz Conservatory. The city promptly blocked off the crossing with warning cones [...] stating that unauthorized crosswalks constitute not only property damage but also a dangerous interference with traffic. Furthermore, traffic signs installed without authorization constitute an administrative offense under the Road Traffic Code."
In Los Angeles https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-10-16/risking-... "Risking arrest, he paints illicit crosswalks across L.A. ‘We can’t wait any longer’" (initially repainting faded crosswalks, rather than creating new ones)
And an example in Saskatoon, visible only in the 2015 street view image https://maps.app.goo.gl/3zWAkjtSEATswcWm8