Comments on: NYC Gets its First Pedestrian Countdown Timer

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 03:10:21 +0000

It's amazing that it it continues to be so difficult for NYC to try anything remotely innovative when it comes to tackling transportation issues.

London is stealing our thunder in dominance of the financial universe, and we certainly won't replace that as the information and innovation capital with people llike Iris in positions of offical power.

By: P

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:36:15 +0000

Thanks for the info on the waffle, Karla. If the timer signals can't be used by cars to increase their speeds the Mayor can count on the support from at least one anonymous blogger.

However, don't native New Yorkers come with an ingrained understanding of the timing of the blinking hand and it's relation to oncoming traffic?

By: Karla

Karla — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:27:51 +0000

I'm in San Francisco, where these timers are all over downtown. I thought they were odd at first, but now I love them--especially where a pedestrian has to cross long distances, like four lanes and a streetcar right of way, or six lanes and a median. I feel safer knowing how much time I have left to get across. Each signal also has a waffle on the front, so you can't time the intersection unless you're standing right in front of the signal. I see everyone's points as far as the elderly and speeding through yellow lights goes, but I think it's worth at least a trial program.

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:02:34 +0000

Orcutt, I totally agree. I imagine if you asked DOT they would say it's a liability issue. Whereas the USDOT seems to be making an effort to encourage flexibility in road design (including experimentation), these ideas have a harder time taking hold on a local level. Here's an interesting paper on liability in road design.

Regarding the timer, I kind of agree with hatethese - Having an official timer seems to take away from the comfortable integration of people and cars, and feels heavyhanded and oppressive. Just mho. Here are some good examples of crosswalks.

By: Orcutt

Orcutt — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:50:41 +0000

What I find depressing about this is that it takes mayoral pressure to get the city's traffic managers to conduct a tiny test with a new application, and that the DOT sees it as a big deal. They run thousands of intersections and thousands of lane-miles of streets. Why aren't there hundreds of experiments going on? There can't be a "science" of traffic management in the absence of any culture of experimentation.

By: P

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:45:16 +0000

I have to say as a former driver I used these timers in other cities to know how fast I had to drive to make it through the intersection. They are an inducement to bad driving, I believe.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:42:41 +0000

This is a massive improvement in my book, but I have one idea for an improvement. I would put blinders on each side so that motorists on the road don't use that as a countdown to revving up their engines and bursting out into the intersection. The Green light for cars to start is a few seconds after the walking sign goes to zero.

By: hatethese

hatethese — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:22:27 +0000

Countdown signals just say to us peds, "you've only got a few seconds to invade this car land before we run you over."

If this is such a good idea (and it's been shown not to work very well in other cities), why not use them for drivers instead of pedestrians. We shouldn't have to do math to cross the street safely.

This is an expensive cop out for just retiming signals to favor pedestrians.