CROSSWALK TICKET STIRS WORLD ANGER CALLERS SAY SHAME ON LAPD COPS.

Byline: DANA BARTHOLOMEW Staff Writer

SUNLAND - Callers from around the world flooded City Hall this week with one message for L.A.'s cops: Shame on you.

How could an LAPD officer, as reported Monday in the Daily News, write a $114 ticket to an elderly woman for struggling to cross a busy five-lane boulevard as the don't-walk signal blinked?

"We've gotten calls from all over the country and all over the world," said City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who represents Sunland where the ticket was issued.

"People are outraged about an 82-year-old getting a ticket when crossing the street."

Mayvis Coyle - who already has persuaded the city to lengthen traffic signals for seniors - intends to fight the ticket issued Feb. 15 as she used her cane while crossing Foothill Boulevard on the Woodward Avenue crosswalk.

The motorcycle cop's words, according to Coyle, were: "You're obstructing the flow of traffic."

The Los Angeles Police Department maintains that Coyle entered the busy intersection on a blinking red hand. The LAPD also says it's increased enforcement to protect pedestrians, many of them seniors, who are increasingly killed by cars.

But Coyle, who got caught in the intersection with her groceries as the light changed, says she entered on the green, allowing her legal time to cross.

"I don't want to be portrayed as an idiot," said Coyle, a Cherokee medicine woman who splits her time between Sunland and the mountains of Colorado.

"I stepped off the curb on the green light with the white walk signal. I definitely was in the right."

Coyle's plight drew interest from TV affiliates, national blogs such as the Drudge Report, and from media as far afield as the British Broadcasting Corp., the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and a French magazine.

The "Ellen Degeneres Show" even invited Coyle to appear, the Sunland senior said.

The Daily News was flooded with phone calls and e-mails from residents from the Valley to the other side of the globe, including many who offered to pay Coyle's ticket.

The cop, most callers said, should have escorted the lady across the street.

"Where are the Boy Scouts when you need them?" wrote one reader from Washington state in one of the more polite letters. "This is so beyond ridiculous!"

"Outraged," wrote another. "I thought the (LAPD) motto was `To protect and serve.' ... What the heck is wrong with this police officer. What about compassion, respect, basic civility?"

"Instead of holding up traffic and helping the old lady across the street, this big shot gives her a ticket?! What a punk!" added a reader from Georgia.

Local residents complained either about too-slow pedestrians holding up traffic, or too-short traffic signals.

Sylvia Allen, 80, of Northridge said she will drive - but not walk - across the Valley's wide boulevards.

"Before you get across, the (light) starts to flash - I'm afraid I might get hit by a car," Allen said by phone. "I finally decided it wasn't safe, so I quit crossing the street. I now get in my car and drive."

City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, whose office prosecutes traffic tickets, did not return phone calls. But spokesman Frank Mateljan said Delgadillo's office is reviewing Coyle's ticket.

"We have the option to proceed with the citation, or dismiss it," he said.

So many residents have complained about short intersection signals that Greuel directed transportation officials last week to study how to make signal lights longer near senior housing and community centers.

A day after headlines about Coyle, transportation workers lengthened the walk light at Foothill and Woodward by two seconds and added two more seconds to the red.

"On those locations that we find a higher number of slow-walking pedestrians, we will lengthen signals," said John Fisher, assistant general manager for the Department of Transportation.

The standard speed used for timing pedestrian lights is 4 feet per second, which allows enough time for 85 percent to 90 percent of foot traffic to cross, Fisher said.

Walk lights are also being increased from five seconds to seven seconds at many intersections, he said.

But Los Angeles, a city famous for its love of cars, is geared toward auto, not pedestrian, traffic.

"Los Angeles DOT has viewed streets solely as places where cars should move as fast as possible," said Will Cipes, interim director of Transportation and Land Use Collaborative, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group for better land-use planning.

"We need to take a much broader view of streets in public places, where pedestrians and cyclists can cross safely."

dana.bartholomew(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

(color) Mayvis Coyle, 82, has found a world of support after receiving a $114 ticket for taking too long to cross a busy intersection.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer