First Of New Countdown Crosswalks Installed
Posted November 20, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The city officially began putting in its first countdown clocks at crosswalks around Toronto. The idea: to tell pedestrians exactly how long they have before the light turns against them and traffic starts to flow again.
Cars hit at least 200 pedestrians every month in T.O. and officials are hoping this system reduces that number to zero.
“What happens is there are fewer pedestrians sort of stuck in the intersection when the light goes to red,” explains the city’s Daniel Egan.
“And fewer will start later in the cycle because they’ll know how much time they have to cross, so we’re giving them more information to make an intelligent decision.”
As things currently stand, the traffic lights are timed to give pedestrians one second for every metre they have to traverse, which is more time than the North American average. But some – including the disabled and the elderly – find it’s still not enough.
“That’s a good idea,” agrees Gayle Birkenheier, as she crosses the road. “It also gives you an idea if you even have a chance to even get started going across the street at all.”
Maureen Belanger is the mother of a disabled son. She’s well aware of the perils of crossing as time runs out.
“Probably if I was walking myself it would be okay, but when you’ve got a stroller or a wheelchair, I need more time when I’m crossing,” she sighs.
The installations began Monday and will slowly spread out over some 250 additional crosswalks throughout the city. All of the 1,500 intersections will have the new signals over the next five years.
And because it’s all being done at the same time as the city switches from incandescent to the more energy efficient L.E.D. lamps, the additional swap won’t cost very much.
Which begs the question: why didn’t someone think of it before? “It’s a win/win,” concedes Egan. “It’s a benefit to pedestrians and it’s costing the city almost nothing to do it.”
Now that you know how much time you have, you may find out you’ve got even more. The city is studying whether to lengthen the time it lets pedestrians cross, in the hopes they’ll be able to get to the other side a lot sooner than they do now.
