Please help me solve this and show me how you got the answer? Thank you.

Question

A diagonal crosswalk at an intersection of First street and Grand Avenue is the hypotenuse of a triangle in which crosswalks across each street are the legs. First street is 28 feet wide and Grand Avenue is 48 feet wide. How much shorter is the distance traveled by pedestrians using the diagonal crosswalk rather than using both crosswalks that form the legs of a triangle?

Answer 1

Use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of the diagonal.

 

c² = 28² + 48²

c² = 784 + 2304

c² = 3088

c ≈ 55.57

 

The diagonal is 55.57 feet. The route using the streets is 76 feet. The diagonal is 20.43 feet shorter.