Guerilla traffic enforcement

During the World Cup, when the streets of Sao Paulo were as deserted as it gets, a bunch of Brazilian guerilla activists took it upon themselves to change traffic rules...

They went out with buckets of paint and brushes and created pedestrian crosswalks where they felt these were needed, and painted on signs warning cars to watch for pedestrians.

The kicker is: it worked! When cars approached the makeshift crosswalks, they dutifully stopped to let pedestrians pass.

There are some great photos of it here: http://bit.ly/SaoPauloCrossWalks

It isa very interesting signal of what we may be seeing when it comes to urban governance in the future. There are some cities out there - Sao Paulo perhaps being an emblematic example - where traffic has become unbearable. And the authorities are simply not able to manage the problem. In situations like this, it is plausible that civil society organizations will seek to take things into their own hands, which could result in extreme devolution of governance. We write about something akin to this in one of our Mobility Scenarios - a world full of decentralized, 'garage' innovations and locally appropriate solutions.