3 ms·

Sure you need some timing features, but that doesn't mean you need a cycle; for example, grandma could press a button to get the crossing light green during tim

Sure you need some timing features, but that doesn't mean you need a cycle; for example, grandma could press a button to get the crossing light green during times of low pedestrian movement, rather than force cars to burn gas waiting on useless cycles.

bobthepanda 8y ago
In practice, I have never seen a beg button that works well for pedestrians. Even in the cities that I've lived in with high pedestrian mode share (New York, Seattle) beg buttons are almost always heavily tilted in favor of drivers; and as a result pedestrians can easily add a minute or two (dependent on where they're walking, how many legs of an intersection they need to cross, etc.) At one intersection, this is not a big deal, but at a lot of intersections this can very quickly pile up; and because pedestrians don't really accelerate quickly or have a high speed, the already small feasible pedestrian walking distance is reduced significantly. Conversely, most major roads these days are designed to give green waves if you're traveling at the intended speed; you generally only catch the wrong light once. (If that's not the case, removing a pedestrian cycle would not really give your road any more significant priority than it already has, since your road is already being deprioritized for the crossroad.)
- toast0 8y ago
  In the suburbs in southern california, I'm used to one of three things happening: a) I walk up, the light is red in my direction; I push the button, and the other direction turns yellow within 10 seconds (often immediately), and shortly I get a walk sign b) I walk up, the light is green in my direction, I push the button, and get a walk sign immediately c) I walk up, the light is green in my direction, I push the button, and don't get a walk sign -- but soon the light turns yellow, and the other direction gets to go, then i get a walk sign. It's not too far off in the south bay (SF bay area). It's different in the middle of a city like Seattle, where there's always a lot of traffic, so the lights are changing frequently anyway, a lot of the lights just have the pedestrian cycle enabled almost always; and they often won't add the walk sign in the middle of a cycle, when it's already decided to change the cycle in less time than is needed for a pedestrian to cross.

bobthepanda 8y ago

In practice, I have never seen a beg button that works well for pedestrians. Even in the cities that I've lived in with high pedestrian mode share (New York, Seattle) beg buttons are almost always heavily tilted in favor of drivers; and as a result pedestrians can easily add a minute or two (dependent on where they're walking, how many legs of an intersection they need to cross, etc.) At one intersection, this is not a big deal, but at a lot of intersections this can very quickly pile up; and because pedestrians don't really accelerate quickly or have a high speed, the already small feasible pedestrian walking distance is reduced significantly. Conversely, most major roads these days are designed to give green waves if you're traveling at the intended speed; you generally only catch the wrong light once. (If that's not the case, removing a pedestrian cycle would not really give your road any more significant priority than it already has, since your road is already being deprioritized for the crossroad.)

toast0 8y ago
In the suburbs in southern california, I'm used to one of three things happening: a) I walk up, the light is red in my direction; I push the button, and the other direction turns yellow within 10 seconds (often immediately), and shortly I get a walk sign b) I walk up, the light is green in my direction, I push the button, and get a walk sign immediately c) I walk up, the light is green in my direction, I push the button, and don't get a walk sign -- but soon the light turns yellow, and the other direction gets to go, then i get a walk sign. It's not too far off in the south bay (SF bay area). It's different in the middle of a city like Seattle, where there's always a lot of traffic, so the lights are changing frequently anyway, a lot of the lights just have the pedestrian cycle enabled almost always; and they often won't add the walk sign in the middle of a cycle, when it's already decided to change the cycle in less time than is needed for a pedestrian to cross.