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Jaywalking tickets are a weird quirk of life in Los Angeles, a city that has worked hard to become more walkable but hasn't completely escaped its notorious car culture.
Los Angeles Times Steve Lopez examined the human cost of jaywalking tickets that can run up to $250. He profiled Eduardo Lopez, 22, who was ticketed when a cop caught him running across the street to catch a bus after the countdown clock started.
The all-star soccer player wants to finish college, he wants to be a firefighter, and he wants to help get his family out of the hole it's been in from the day he was born. That means he's always on the go, and on a recent morning, Lopez was really in a hurry. He had worked a minimum-wage graveyard shift loading pallets for an export company near LAX, then jumped a Green Line train and transferred to the Blue Line.
At the Metro station downtown, he hustled up to street level and saw his bus approaching 7th and Hope streets. If he caught it, he'd make it to his first class at Glendale Community College on time. He hadn't slept in 24 hours, but he had to get to school.
This story has a happy ending: some readers who read Lopez's story reached out to help him pay the fine. But Steve Lopez points out that it shouldn't have to be this way. $197 is way too much money —especially considering crossing during the crosswalk countdown is a victimless crime—and it's a serious hardship for many Angelenos, particularly those who can't afford a car in the first place. It's bad for Angelenos and it's bad for a city that's trying to shrug off the last vestiges of a car-centric culture.
