Pedestrians face race against time to cross the road .......

[J--M--B]

Daily Mail

Pedestrians face race against time to cross the road at new countdown crossings

Last updated at 6:10 PM on 11th March 2009

Pedestrians will be forced to walk faster on crossings to increase traffic flows and reduce artificially-created log-jams on the road.

Digital signs that count down the seconds until cars get a green light are to be introduced at 6,000 sets of lights. Those on foot will lose up to six seconds of crossing time during each phase.

The signals are part of plans by London Mayor Boris Johnson to give more green time to traffic, by reducing the time pedestrrians have to cross.

Mr Johnson has asked the Department for Transport (DfT) for permission to install the country’s first pedestrian countdown signs............

[scynthius726]

Capacity could be much improved at signalised junctions if we had walk-with-traffic pedestrian phases like nearly every other country in the world. Of course you only have to observe drivers' behaviour at priority junctions to understand why we don't.

I am very wary of Boris's plans. I always am when politicians express an interest in traffic engineering measures.

[gaz909]

I love traffic light countdowns, as seen across Asia, but it takes a certain type of culture for them to work... and I'm not sure if the British culture would take to them!

[scynthius726]

They will never work in Britain where so many lights work dynamically and not on fixed time anyway.

[J--M--B]

I am very wary of Boris's plans. I always am when politicians express an interest in traffic engineering measures.

I would not recommend saying that to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad :=(

[Halstead]

I'm against the concept of a countdown at crossings. Ped crossings are there as a safe means of traversing roads on busy junctions/streets and AFAIK some of the puffins in my area hardly allow seniors to make it halfway through the road.

It's nice to hear Boris isn't anti-car like Red Ken but I don't think he has the right idea at the moment.

[jcpren]

I'm against the concept of a countdown at crossings. Ped crossings are there as a safe means of traversing roads on busy junctions/streets and AFAIK some of the puffins in my area hardly allow seniors to make it halfway through the road.

I don't normally defend Puffins, but I understand that part of the rationale behind near-side pedestrian signals is that they can return to the red man very quickly without panicking people still on the crossing (in theory, anyway). This prevents other pedestrians starting to cross, but the vehicle lights should still hold back traffic until the sensors detect that pedestrians have made it to the opposite side. If you're saying that the ped lights are returning to red man while people are still crossing, it could well be by design; however, if you mean the vehicle lights are turning green, I'd suggest the lights are faulty.

[FosseWay]

Capacity could be much improved at signalised junctions if we had walk-with-traffic pedestrian phases like nearly every other country in the world.

Absolutely.

We seem to have the worst of both worlds. As a motorist and cyclist, I get frustrated when pedestrian phases either occur automatically or as a result of a ped pushing the button and then crossing before he gets the green man -- the result is that no-one can go anywhere. As a pedestrian, or a cyclist using a shared pavement, it's annoying to have to take up to three complete traffic light phases at a complex junction or signalised roundabout to perform a manoeuvre that in a car or on a bike on the road would require just one.

On ped crossings in general, especially puffins with the usual traffic light sequence rather than the flashing amber, it strikes me that too much of the total time is spent with both the red man and the red light showing. Intergreens are necessary, of course, but do they have to be so long?

[Mark Hewitt]

There is a junction near me which is bacailly an ordinary cross roads junction, but just to the left is a pelican crossing. The lights from the pelican are linked to the lights in the junction.

This results in whenever you get a green to turn left you always have to stop at the pelican crossing for 30-ish seconds, before you can move off again, no matter if there are peds crossing or not.

[boing_uk]

There is a junction near me which is bacailly an ordinary cross roads junction, but just to the left is a pelican crossing. The lights from the pelican are linked to the lights in the junction.

This results in whenever you get a green to turn left you always have to stop at the pelican crossing for 30-ish seconds, before you can move off again, no matter if there are peds crossing or not.

That seems odd. The linking should be to hold the pelican off when a certain stage is running; it would be unusual circumstances to DEMAND it. Could very well be a fault? Try reporting it to the local authority and ask them for an explanation why it is.

[Mark Hewitt]

Bird's Eye View

If you look at the map you'll see it's a staggered cross roads. The pedestrian crossing is at the bottom of the picture, actually inside the junction itself.

But when cars enter on a green from the road at the top right, they are greeted with a red light when trying to proceed south on the A167. They have to wait until the northbound flow also gets a green and can set off.

But this results in cars having to sit and wait at lights when there are no pedestrians crossing and no opposing traffic flow.

[boing_uk]

Ahh I can see the issue. Its a straight-across crossing.

I can see why they have done what they have done, but I would've done it slightly differently, with the ped stage as a demand dependent rather than fixed. That will be a whopping intergreen though - 13s probably.

[A3049]

Capacity could be much improved at signalised junctions if we had walk-with-traffic pedestrian phases like nearly every other country in the world. Of course you only have to observe drivers' behaviour at priority junctions to understand why we don't.

I am very wary of Boris's plans. I always am when politicians express an interest in traffic engineering measures.

Poole Borough Council are going to upgrade several junctions along the A35 for pedestrians to walk with traffic. They have already started work at one junction along the route.

[RoadKill]

I could imagine someone producing a parody video, where everyone is at the busy crossroads and just when the green man comes on you hear Countdown music.

Anyway on the serious note...

Not everyone can walk fast within the crossing period over long road widths. I daresay if there is a large outcry from pedestrians, then they might just reduce the carriageway width instead of removing the scheme (if it was implemented)!

Some observations I have seen regarding pedestrian crossings:

1. People will cross on the green man.
2. People will cross on the red man.
3. People will rush just as the man changes from green to red.
4. Even when there's a crossing, people will cross the road a few feet away from it.
5. If it's a setup like the one that Mark Hewitt has mentioned, drivers may be tempted to run the red-light. Luckily I didn't cross the road at that time in Manchester!

[flyingscot]

Capacity could be much improved at signalised junctions if we had walk-with-traffic pedestrian phases like nearly every other country in the world. Of course you only have to observe drivers' behaviour at priority junctions to understand why we don't.

I am very wary of Boris's plans. I always am when politicians express an interest in traffic engineering measures.

Would it? I'm not entirely convinced that in high pedestrian flow areas (city centres, shopping areas) that the left turn lane would struggle to turn, and this would simply lead to people driving through pedestrians. I think ultimately the junctions it would have most benifit would be the ones hardest to implement!

[t1(M)]

Interesting item here from the BBC. The gist seems to be that, at least in Europe and North Africa, the further south you go the less reliance is placed on traffic signals and more on road users actually trusting each other. My two most recent foreign experiences, in Stockholm and Marrakech, would seem to bear this out! To me, crossing the road in Marrakech seemed impossible at first - there are no pedestrian phases at most junctions. But after a while, you realise there don't need to be - the road users are all looking out for each other, much more than I'm used to as a Brit, where we rely more on the signs and signals to tell us what to do.

Yes I did take some pictures in Morrocco, and no I haven't posted them on SABRE because my camera has been nicked (after I got back to London)

[traffic-light-man]

Should this not be moved to SF now?

[Stevie D]

I've seen a similar setup in Auckland, and it seemed to work pretty well. I can't comment on how long the phases were in comparison (I think 20 seconds was the norm for the countdown, but they do have wider roads than most of London!), but it did make it clear to pedestrians whether it was sensible to start crossing and/or whether they should hurry.

[True Yorkie]

I think it'd be a good idea on paper... but in practice maybe not. And I say thise because a lot of pedestrians can't be arsed to use a crossing properly anyway - they'll either press the button and cross anyway and then the lights change for no reason, or the person will decide to cross about 5m in front of the crossing and rendering the crossing pointless again.

Countdown crossings will work best in city centers, especially like York where peds think they can wander where the hell they like at any time even if a double deck bus is bearing down on them! I'd also go so far as to install a big horn speaker above the crossings on intersections, so that when the red man goes and traffic starts to move, if a ped decides to run across the road as traffic has started to move (like I saw in manchester about 20 times today) a big booming voice will shout down "GET OFF THE ROAD, FOOL!!"

[sotonsteve]

Countdown signals would work in Southampton. They say the traffic lights adjust their timings, but as far as I can tell, they run fixed timings and ignore inputs from induction loops, even in the early hours of the morning when junctions supposedly revert to individual rather than central control.

couldn't the green man be linked with a countdown signal? Think of neaside pedestrian signals which go straight from green to red. The number of pedestrians who start crossing just as green changes to red is silly, and sometimes crossing at the last minute means that the traffic lights for cars change to green when somebody is still on the crossing. Mind you, I doubt it would have much of an effect, pedestrians often pick and choose what aspects of a pedestrian crossing they wish to abide by.