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Sydney CBD is bringing back pedestrian “beg buttons”

91 points by jakecopp 4y ago

jakecopp 4y ago
I wrote a blog post about Transport for NSW removing full automatic operation of the pedestrian buttons (aka "beg buttons") in the Sydney CBD, evaluating each of their stated reasons why. You may recognise Australia's parking button sound from a sample in Billie Eilish's hit Bad Guy, I've linked a video at the end of the blog post!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Someone 4y ago
  In the first sentence (currently “Transport for NSW (TfNSW) has recently installed these around the Sydney CBD – a sticker on top of a pedestrian “beg button” explaining the button is redundant before 6am and after 10pm”) I think you mean it’s redundant between 6am and 10pm
  - nhinck2 4y ago
    There are two betweens.
    - codetrotter 4y ago
      No. "Between 6am and 10pm" means from 6am to 10pm. I.e. what the text on the sticker says. "Between 10pm and 6am" means from 10pm to 6am. I.e. what the blog post mistakingly says. There is no ambiguity in what "between" means when talking about hours of the clock.
    - CoastalCoder 4y ago
      Not in the case of this idiom.
  - jakecopp 4y ago
    Cheers, this was a typo - just updated.
- roxgib 4y ago
  Fellow Sydneysider here. I'm enjoying reading the other posts on your blog, glad to have discovered it!
- wkat4242 4y ago
  > You may recognise Australia's parking button sound from a sample in Billie Eilish's hit Bad Guy, I've linked a video at the end of the blog post! When I was in Sydney it reminded me more of an 80s arcade game :)
jasonhansel 4y ago
This is really dangerous. People used to not using the buttons during the day may not remember to use them at night. They may not even be able to see the labels at night, since (unlike any actual road sign, at least in the US) they aren't even retroreflective. This is likely to cause confusion, leading people to cross without a walk signal. So this will disproportionately endanger people walking at night--which is already the peak time for driver-inflicted fatalities.
- nhinck2 4y ago
  This is pearl clutching of the highest order. If they can't see the labels at night so what? They use their daytime experience of expecting it to be automatic and wait awkwardly for nothing... or they push the button and the light changes eventually.
  - jasonhansel 4y ago
    The issue is that people won't "wait awkwardly for nothing" forever. If someone can't see the label and is used to having it change automatically, they're likely to assume that the signal just "isn't working," causing them to cross without a walk signal. IMHO the biggest problem here is that the label doesn't meet the usual standards for road/pedestrian signage. In particular, "real" road signs are retroreflective so that you can see them easily under streetlights (or in car headlights). This is particularly important for signs that are only relevant at night. (Semipermanent signs should be made of a sufficiently durable material, which this...is not.)
    - roxgib 4y ago
      But if you don't see the label the default assumption will be 'I need to press this button to cross', so they'll just press it for nothing during the day, which is hardly that bad.
      - asdajksah2123 4y ago
        Most of the world doesn't have these ridiculous buttons. A large number of people wouldn't expect to even ever having to press a button to get a pedestrian light. Most of Australia also doesn't have these buttons as far as I'm aware. So that's not most likely to be the default assumption at all.
cybervegan 4y ago
Sorry dude, it says exactly the opposite of what you wrote.
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
Lord of the Fries is so good. Someone needs to bring a store to the US.
lozenge 4y ago
This seems reasonable. The only reasons the buttons were removed was because of paranoia over COVID spread through surfaces. This was done hastily so they made the simplest change possible, adding the walk to every cycle. Now they've had time to program it properly they can let trucks and heavy vehicles through more efficiently at 10pm-6am. How many pedestrians are around at these times?
- roxgib 4y ago
  More than you'd think. We're talking about the CBD and inner suburbs, there are a lot of late night venues and people often use public transport around here which involves a bit of walking. And 10pm isn't that late, particularly on a weekend.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  Trucks and heavy vehicle really don't have any business in the CBD and for the few times they actually have to come in to the CBD for e.g. some construction work, I'd argue it's completely ok for them to wait longer.
roxgib 4y ago
I grew used to not pressing these during the pandemic, so for a while after this change I often stood there for ages before remembering I now have to push the button. Thankfully I've adjusted now. The comment about the crossing times being too short is spot on, often they are too short for me as a healthy young person. Trying to cross when you can't move as quickly must be a total nightmare. Sydney has a few crossings where instead of particular directions being open to pedestrians, the whole crossing goes green for pedestrians and red for cars. This seems more efficient to me, and safer since cars aren't moving at all when you cross - often you have to share the space with cars turning left when you cross. I wish we had more of these.
- hedora 4y ago
  The SF Bay Area has the opposite problem with crossing times. I regularly watch a person with a 3 year old, or with a walker cross the street in half the allotted time. On top of that, in some areas, all left turns are always protected, leading to 4 cycle crossing schedules (assuming no pedestrians). 4-5 minute traffic light cycles (a given light switching from red to green takes 4 minutes) are pretty common now. I think the idea is that they want to intentionally cause traffic jams to encourage people not to commute (public transit is spotty, and not improving). You could claim that the 60 seconds per green maximizes throughput, but if you look at intersection utilization during rush hour backups (what percentage of the time is at least one car moving through the crossing?), you'll see that it's often well under 50%. Really, they should have a "I need extra time to cross the road" button, and just time the automatic walk cycle for a fit 50 year old.
  - closeparen 4y ago
    Pedestrian crossing isn’t an exceptional case for which we should make the minimum allowance. Pedestrians are just as deserving as drivers (if not more!) of sometimes getting to go through on a green they didn’t explicitly wait for or request.
    - hedora 4y ago
      OK, does that mean we should shut down the entire intersection for 30 seconds after a 1 percentile pedestrian would be done crossing? Should we do that for every single cycle, even when no pedestrians are present? Many cities in this area do exactly that. I once had a 35 minute "normal route" commute that only took 15 minutes once I figured out how to do it in a third more distance, but by only making right turns at traffic lights.
softgrow 4y ago
Well its a bit better than Adelaide. We were like Sydney and then the stickers disappeared and with it the "auto introduction" of the pedestrian cycle. However the times that buttons need to be pressed is a closely guarded secret. The local Council owns the roads and subcontracts traffic operations to the state "Main Roads" department. If there is a problem you ring "Main Roads" and the response is can't change anything have to refer to Council as we are subcontractors. Won't disclose programming either (Melbourne has it as Open Data) So we get such niceties as: * Lights adjacent a shopping centre needing to be pushed after 6pm (or is it 7pm?) even though the centre doesn't close or die down in activity till 9pm * Having to press buttons at each side of an intersection unlike the cars (e.g. for a North South movement a car arriving from either the North or the South will get a cycle, but for walking people if you arrive at the North East Corner and see someone at the South West Corner you need to press two buttons to get both sides lit, even though it doesn't affect cycle timing * Minor roads crossing major roads that cross major roads stay green all the time for drivers, but not for walkers (but did prior to the pandemic). You need to press the button and wait 20-30 seconds or in some bad cases wait press the button to cross the major road as well to force a new cycle and then get your green after 90 seconds. Frankly Sydney is streets ahead as it least its not a secret. But still as other commentators might point out, I've seen in suburban Tokyo to cross a major road signs saying "Between 11pm and 5am press this button to cross the road. If you are blind between 11pm and 5am press this other button to cross the road with a beeping noise".
- roxgib 4y ago
  The only reason I can think to keep it secret is they want the data from button presses to inform the cycle times, although surely there are better ways.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
The cartoon sort of has a point. We can detect vehicles. Always-walk for pedestrians unless a vehicle is approaching makes a lot of sense.
jupp0r 4y ago
The person who decided it's a good idea to have a button next to a label that says "do not push this button" should get a small electric shock every time the button is hit.
- codeyperson 4y ago
  There’s no button. They put the cover with the label over the top of the existing button.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    There is a button: the label says push it outside of automated hours
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    How do you cross the street outside of the posted hours? Just run across while the light is green and hope for the best?
    - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
      When the buttons were covered, you didn't need to push the button to activate the pedestrian signal. It just came on every cycle.
dallas 4y ago
I have worked with TfNSW SCATS ("Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System") in another city. No need for the sticker: this behavior for ped requests is typical.
discobean 4y ago
They should not have any sign, so everybody just presses the button, even though they are automated. This stuff just adds unnecessary confusion.
asdajksah2123 4y ago
This is probably the worst way to implement this. It's only enabled between certain hours, so it's already creating confusion, but those hours also happen to be the hours people are likely to be drunk, it's likely to be dark so they're more likely to be hit by a car, pedestrians are more likely to not notice the beg button, etc. If you are gonna have the beg buttons, have them all the time, so it doesn't just end up creating more confusion.
- geenew 4y ago
  Not only that, those are (presumably) the hours when traffic is lowest, and the need to get places quickly is lowest.
aaron695 4y ago
caf 4y ago
Would it really be that hard to have something to detect the presence of pedestrians near the crossing and insert pedestrian cross cycles while they're there?
- jen729w 4y ago
  On every crossing? It might not be hard but it surely would be expensive. I'd guess that there are tens of thousands of these buttons around Greater Sydney, possibly even in to the hundreds of. Also Sydney's crossing buttons are notably reliable. They last for decades and have been adopted across many other Australian cities and, IIRC, overseas somewhere.
- daveoc64 4y ago
  We have sensors in the UK that detect when pedestrians have walked away after pushing the button (so it can cancel the pedestrian crossing cycle). They're really unreliable.
frosted-flakes 4y ago
> This is to reduce overnight noise for local residents Presumably this means the beeping of the signal for visually impaired people. Why not just keep the automated walk signals, but only enable the beeping when the button is pressed? This is how it's done in Toronto, and there are highly readable signs at each button stating this.
- ehnto 4y ago
  They beep intermittently so you can find them to press them in the first place.
  - bogantech 4y ago
    The locator beeps are fine but the sound it makes when it is OK to cross would drive you mental if it was going off all night for no reason. As the previous comment states it might be a good idea to simply leave the locator pings but only make the walk sound if the button has been pressed Video of the sound for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0cz1XW9QvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0cz1XW9QvE
    - scaredginger 4y ago
      Yeah, nobody's suggesting having the rapid ticking occur continuously. I have no idea where you got that from
      - bogantech 4y ago
        Not continuously but if the crossings were on a schedule during the night then you would hear it every couple of minutes. Following the rest of the above comments might clear it up but I'll outline the thought process 1: People think it is dumb that they turn off the schedule during the night. 2: It's because the walk signal is going to annoy people if it's going off regularly, especially at an intersection. 3: Of course the locator pings will continue because vision impaired people have to be able to find them, nobody is going to complain about this. They ping whether on schedule or during times you need to press the button. 4: the grandparent comment of mine suggested that the crossing should only make a sound if the button has been pushed. 5: the reply below that says "They beep intermittently so you can find them to press them in the first place." thinking the comment was saying that the comment was talking about the pings and not the walk sound 6: I clarified what they must have been saying including a video for them and anyone who hasn't been to Sydney and might not know what the sounds are 7: you made a snarky comment presumably without understanding any of the context. I hope that clears it up.
deleted 4y ago
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eucryphia 4y ago
For non-Australian readers already familiar with 'Aussies' I can confirm; Yes, if there isn't any traffic, we just cross anyway. I'm a late boomer, you're more likely to be run over by a bus than booked for J-walking here. Merry Christmas.
- climb_stealth 4y ago
  I got booked for jay walking in Sydney. It was a $75 or $85 fine. And yes, I'm still feeling salty about it because it seems completely out of proportion for the severity of the offence. But then that's pretty much in line with how all the other offences are handled.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Surprised the instructions are so simple! Sydney, home of the ridiculous parking signs: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-21/quiz-sydney-confusing-parking-signs/10683014 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-21/quiz-sydney-confusing... Best strategy there is just read the no stopping/clearway first, then if you can stop, stop and read the rest!
- inasmuch 4y ago
  I'm inordinately irritated that this quiz is impossible to ace. I got every question right but for #6, which has an answer format that makes it impossible to answer correctly. "Sorry, trick question," it says when you put in "0 hours" as the best approximation of the correct "you can't park here at all" answer. Like, I knew that … you just … made it impossible to answer correctly? What? This is a silly thing to be upset about, but just … why would they have done that? It's so stupid.
  - ouchjars 4y ago
    It even says "The correct answer was zero"!
cycomanic 4y ago
Sydney CBD is a nightmare for both pedestrians and cars. A really forward looking government/traffic agency would simply block all cars between Macquarie St and Darling Harbour with the exception of the feeders to the harbour bridge. That would dramatically increase the attractiveness of the CBD.
Jiro 4y ago
I've always been confused about these. If you push the button, and it's an intersection with walk signs going both north/south and east/west, which one of those lights does the button apply to? (I don't live in Australia, but you do occasionally see them in America.)
- stephen_g 4y ago
  In the Australian design there’s generally an arrow indicating which direction it goes. It’s embossed to for vision impaired people to be able to feel it too (it also is designed to resonate so if you touch it, you can feel the audio signals so if there are two directions, a vision impaired person knows which direction the sound is saying is safe to cross without needing to see the light signals).
- ouchjars 4y ago
  As well as the arrows, the buttons are just positioned intuitively most of the time. We usually get two perpendicular kerb ramps rather than a diagonal one pointing at the centre of the intersection. The button for the crossing you want is the one closest to you or facing you when you're waiting at the intended ramp. The button gets mounted on its own post if there's not a traffic light pole in the right place to piggyback off.
10g1k 4y ago
Explaining the stupidity of the last few years to my kid is going to be challenging.
rbut 4y ago
From my observation, this is how they always worked in Australia (or used to work pre-pandemic). Automatic during the day, and manual at night. This allows less stops for cars at night. At night on high traffic roads the lights stay green until someone presses the walk button, or a car arrives at an intersection. Your best bet is to get into the habbit of always hitting the button. If you're worried about virus transmission, then use your elbow.
- jhugo 4y ago
  > This allows less stops for cars at night. Which is better for the environment, and for the sleep of residents adjacent to the road. From that perspective, it seems like madness to suggest that cars should be forced to stop and idle repeatedly during the night on the offchance that a pedestrian might be waiting to cross. A pedestrian idling for a few minutes (assuming they require the guidance of the "green man" and are unable to assess the safety of crossing themselves) has much lower impact.
deserted 4y ago
A solution that solves the noise problem without returning to beg buttons, is to make the intersection a flashing red at night. It becomes a 4 way stop where pedestrians have the right of way. Everyone wins.
exclipy 4y ago
I would love if self-driving car pedestrian-, and intent- detection algorithms were deployed at traffic lights to understand when there's a person wanting to cross and automatically change the lights for them. I don't know how we can align economic incentives to make this happen though. Maybe we just need to wait for a self-driving car startup to go bust and release all their code to the public domain.
Aaron2222 4y ago
I'm not sure of the point of those stickers. We have a very similar setup on many of our CBD intersections where I live (including the exact same buttons): push to request crossing on all intersections, with Barnes Dance/Pedestrian Scramble [0] crossings having automatic crossing during the day, and we don't have any such labels. If a crossing has been requested or is automated, the crossing indicator lights (and beeper) is active, otherwise it isn't lit, so you know to press the button. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble
eru 4y ago
Oh, Sydney! I lived there for a few years. Their common four-way intersections that only had three pedestrian crossings drove me mad. Drivers there are also turn into homicidal maniacs as soon as they spot a push bike.
- thatfrenchguy 4y ago
  There's like, one of those "3 only" in my entire neighborhood in San Francisco, and I want to have a talk with whoever at the department of public works who decided this was a good idea. I'm sure they're likely dead by now and no-one has changed this from the 1960s though.
  - eru 4y ago
    I don't mind having these very occasionally, if there's a good reason. I mean, they are still annoying, but it's understandable. In Sydney, however, those aren't the exception.
daniel_sim 4y ago
I have a 30-minute walking commute to work, and changing back to non-automated buttons has added about 5 minutes to that if I'm not super lucky with timing. The worst is seeing the lights turn and knowing it would have lit up green for pedestrians only to have to wait a full cycle for the next opportunity.
- kmlx 4y ago
  > I have a 30-minute walking commute to work isn't that like 10 mins cycling?
  - pharmakom 4y ago
    Not everyone feels safe doing that. Plus you need a plastic hat in Australia.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > Plus you need a plastic hat in Australia. You always do. The damage you can get from a simple balance loss, or worse, when falling on a car or a curb is scary. Wear your plastic hats to protect your head people!
      - kmlx 4y ago
        agree with some caveats. helmets are a must when cycling on roads. but parks are a bit different. also, i remember a study that said drivers are more cautious when they see a cyclist without a helmet. not sure how relevant the study was, but as a driver i can confirm this. all this being said, summer time + helmet = lots of sweat.
      - machinawhite 4y ago
        How often do you lose you balance and what direction if I may ask? Not sure how I'm supposed to hit my head on a bike unless a car hits me. If you lose balance that often leave it at home. Helmet is good especially for the latter reason but a bicycle goes 20kmh and if you fall you don't die, just get your knees hurt or something.
IIAOPSW 4y ago
Sometimes when waiting, I tap out morse code on the beg button. I hope there's a log of button presses so that a traffic engineer will one day be impressed with the length of messages I've been able to .- .-. - .. -.-. ..- .-.. .- - .
bowsamic 4y ago
In Hamburg we have these, but even worse they are touch activated with a light if you successfully activated it and some of them don’t work. No one understands the gesture needed to make it function and every time I see people randomly rubbing and smacking it to try and activate it. Worst part is that there are some major junctions that won’t go green for the pedestrian unless you press it. Easily the worst UX I’ve ever seen for a public infrastructure. You can’t even activate it unless you are at the right part of the cycle. If you try and do it when the lights have just changed back to red for the pedestrians it won’t work. Absolutely maddening. They should never use whatever company they contracted to design those again
meindnoch 4y ago
We have these in London too. They are mostly used by tourists.
alpaca128 4y ago
My hometown - as usual - combines the worst of both worlds and installs placebo buttons. They don't do anything, but if you think it makes you feel better while waiting for the green light you can press them.
schipplock 4y ago
In my city some of these buttons have no function other than blinking after you have pushed them. But it depends on the time. Early in the morning you have to push it, otherwise it will stay red forever. So for me the sticker reads: "we are too incompetent at programming" :). My other thought: "these don't look official, someone private has made them for a joke".
themitigating 4y ago
I thought this title meant that homeless people were given buttons to help them beg
ihatepython 4y ago
I thought they changed this during the pandemic to save lives by preventing the spread of Covid (because everybody touches the same button, thus causing Covid to spread). Isn't forcing people to press this button a huge risk to catching Covid? I wonder how many people will die because of this change
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
I'm always... astonished? Surprised? Amazed? At how incredibly stupid certain decision taken by governments or local authorities can be. "what were they thinking?" is what pops in my head. Am I alone in this?
usr1106 4y ago
I don't remember Sydney as particularly pedestrian-hostile, i.e. having to wait for extended time unt turns green. I do remember Edinburgh as very pedestrian hostile: At nearly every interesection pedestrians had to wait for a felt eternity. (Both observations pre pandemic.) Instead of anecdotal data cities should be obliged to publish statistical waiting times according to a standadized model.
readonthegoapp 4y ago
The beg button is great terminology Finally

91 points by jakecopp 4y ago

I wrote a blog post about Transport for NSW removing full automatic operation of the pedestrian buttons (aka "beg buttons") in the Sydney CBD, evaluating each of their stated reasons why. You may recognise Australia's parking button sound from a sample in Billie Eilish's hit Bad Guy, I've linked a video at the end of the blog post!

deleted 4y ago
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Someone 4y ago
In the first sentence (currently “Transport for NSW (TfNSW) has recently installed these around the Sydney CBD – a sticker on top of a pedestrian “beg button” explaining the button is redundant before 6am and after 10pm”) I think you mean it’s redundant between 6am and 10pm
- nhinck2 4y ago
  There are two betweens.
  - codetrotter 4y ago
    No. "Between 6am and 10pm" means from 6am to 10pm. I.e. what the text on the sticker says. "Between 10pm and 6am" means from 10pm to 6am. I.e. what the blog post mistakingly says. There is no ambiguity in what "between" means when talking about hours of the clock.
  - CoastalCoder 4y ago
    Not in the case of this idiom.
- jakecopp 4y ago
  Cheers, this was a typo - just updated.
roxgib 4y ago
Fellow Sydneysider here. I'm enjoying reading the other posts on your blog, glad to have discovered it!
wkat4242 4y ago
> You may recognise Australia's parking button sound from a sample in Billie Eilish's hit Bad Guy, I've linked a video at the end of the blog post! When I was in Sydney it reminded me more of an 80s arcade game :)

jasonhansel 4y ago

This is really dangerous. People used to not using the buttons during the day may not remember to use them at night. They may not even be able to see the labels at night, since (unlike any actual road sign, at least in the US) they aren't even retroreflective. This is likely to cause confusion, leading people to cross without a walk signal. So this will disproportionately endanger people walking at night--which is already the peak time for driver-inflicted fatalities.

nhinck2 4y ago
This is pearl clutching of the highest order. If they can't see the labels at night so what? They use their daytime experience of expecting it to be automatic and wait awkwardly for nothing... or they push the button and the light changes eventually.
- jasonhansel 4y ago
  The issue is that people won't "wait awkwardly for nothing" forever. If someone can't see the label and is used to having it change automatically, they're likely to assume that the signal just "isn't working," causing them to cross without a walk signal. IMHO the biggest problem here is that the label doesn't meet the usual standards for road/pedestrian signage. In particular, "real" road signs are retroreflective so that you can see them easily under streetlights (or in car headlights). This is particularly important for signs that are only relevant at night. (Semipermanent signs should be made of a sufficiently durable material, which this...is not.)
  - roxgib 4y ago
    But if you don't see the label the default assumption will be 'I need to press this button to cross', so they'll just press it for nothing during the day, which is hardly that bad.
    - asdajksah2123 4y ago
      Most of the world doesn't have these ridiculous buttons. A large number of people wouldn't expect to even ever having to press a button to get a pedestrian light. Most of Australia also doesn't have these buttons as far as I'm aware. So that's not most likely to be the default assumption at all.

cybervegan 4y ago

Sorry dude, it says exactly the opposite of what you wrote.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

Lord of the Fries is so good. Someone needs to bring a store to the US.

lozenge 4y ago

This seems reasonable. The only reasons the buttons were removed was because of paranoia over COVID spread through surfaces. This was done hastily so they made the simplest change possible, adding the walk to every cycle. Now they've had time to program it properly they can let trucks and heavy vehicles through more efficiently at 10pm-6am. How many pedestrians are around at these times?

roxgib 4y ago
More than you'd think. We're talking about the CBD and inner suburbs, there are a lot of late night venues and people often use public transport around here which involves a bit of walking. And 10pm isn't that late, particularly on a weekend.
cycomanic 4y ago
Trucks and heavy vehicle really don't have any business in the CBD and for the few times they actually have to come in to the CBD for e.g. some construction work, I'd argue it's completely ok for them to wait longer.

roxgib 4y ago

I grew used to not pressing these during the pandemic, so for a while after this change I often stood there for ages before remembering I now have to push the button. Thankfully I've adjusted now. The comment about the crossing times being too short is spot on, often they are too short for me as a healthy young person. Trying to cross when you can't move as quickly must be a total nightmare. Sydney has a few crossings where instead of particular directions being open to pedestrians, the whole crossing goes green for pedestrians and red for cars. This seems more efficient to me, and safer since cars aren't moving at all when you cross - often you have to share the space with cars turning left when you cross. I wish we had more of these.

hedora 4y ago
The SF Bay Area has the opposite problem with crossing times. I regularly watch a person with a 3 year old, or with a walker cross the street in half the allotted time. On top of that, in some areas, all left turns are always protected, leading to 4 cycle crossing schedules (assuming no pedestrians). 4-5 minute traffic light cycles (a given light switching from red to green takes 4 minutes) are pretty common now. I think the idea is that they want to intentionally cause traffic jams to encourage people not to commute (public transit is spotty, and not improving). You could claim that the 60 seconds per green maximizes throughput, but if you look at intersection utilization during rush hour backups (what percentage of the time is at least one car moving through the crossing?), you'll see that it's often well under 50%. Really, they should have a "I need extra time to cross the road" button, and just time the automatic walk cycle for a fit 50 year old.
- closeparen 4y ago
  Pedestrian crossing isn’t an exceptional case for which we should make the minimum allowance. Pedestrians are just as deserving as drivers (if not more!) of sometimes getting to go through on a green they didn’t explicitly wait for or request.
  - hedora 4y ago
    OK, does that mean we should shut down the entire intersection for 30 seconds after a 1 percentile pedestrian would be done crossing? Should we do that for every single cycle, even when no pedestrians are present? Many cities in this area do exactly that. I once had a 35 minute "normal route" commute that only took 15 minutes once I figured out how to do it in a third more distance, but by only making right turns at traffic lights.

softgrow 4y ago

Well its a bit better than Adelaide. We were like Sydney and then the stickers disappeared and with it the "auto introduction" of the pedestrian cycle. However the times that buttons need to be pressed is a closely guarded secret. The local Council owns the roads and subcontracts traffic operations to the state "Main Roads" department. If there is a problem you ring "Main Roads" and the response is can't change anything have to refer to Council as we are subcontractors. Won't disclose programming either (Melbourne has it as Open Data) So we get such niceties as: * Lights adjacent a shopping centre needing to be pushed after 6pm (or is it 7pm?) even though the centre doesn't close or die down in activity till 9pm * Having to press buttons at each side of an intersection unlike the cars (e.g. for a North South movement a car arriving from either the North or the South will get a cycle, but for walking people if you arrive at the North East Corner and see someone at the South West Corner you need to press two buttons to get both sides lit, even though it doesn't affect cycle timing * Minor roads crossing major roads that cross major roads stay green all the time for drivers, but not for walkers (but did prior to the pandemic). You need to press the button and wait 20-30 seconds or in some bad cases wait press the button to cross the major road as well to force a new cycle and then get your green after 90 seconds. Frankly Sydney is streets ahead as it least its not a secret. But still as other commentators might point out, I've seen in suburban Tokyo to cross a major road signs saying "Between 11pm and 5am press this button to cross the road. If you are blind between 11pm and 5am press this other button to cross the road with a beeping noise".

roxgib 4y ago
The only reason I can think to keep it secret is they want the data from button presses to inform the cycle times, although surely there are better ways.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

The cartoon sort of has a point. We can detect vehicles. Always-walk for pedestrians unless a vehicle is approaching makes a lot of sense.

jupp0r 4y ago

The person who decided it's a good idea to have a button next to a label that says "do not push this button" should get a small electric shock every time the button is hit.

codeyperson 4y ago
There’s no button. They put the cover with the label over the top of the existing button.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  There is a button: the label says push it outside of automated hours
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  How do you cross the street outside of the posted hours? Just run across while the light is green and hope for the best?
  - TheCoelacanth 4y ago
    When the buttons were covered, you didn't need to push the button to activate the pedestrian signal. It just came on every cycle.

dallas 4y ago

I have worked with TfNSW SCATS ("Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System") in another city. No need for the sticker: this behavior for ped requests is typical.

discobean 4y ago

They should not have any sign, so everybody just presses the button, even though they are automated. This stuff just adds unnecessary confusion.

asdajksah2123 4y ago

This is probably the worst way to implement this. It's only enabled between certain hours, so it's already creating confusion, but those hours also happen to be the hours people are likely to be drunk, it's likely to be dark so they're more likely to be hit by a car, pedestrians are more likely to not notice the beg button, etc. If you are gonna have the beg buttons, have them all the time, so it doesn't just end up creating more confusion.

geenew 4y ago
Not only that, those are (presumably) the hours when traffic is lowest, and the need to get places quickly is lowest.

aaron695 4y ago

caf 4y ago

Would it really be that hard to have something to detect the presence of pedestrians near the crossing and insert pedestrian cross cycles while they're there?

jen729w 4y ago
On every crossing? It might not be hard but it surely would be expensive. I'd guess that there are tens of thousands of these buttons around Greater Sydney, possibly even in to the hundreds of. Also Sydney's crossing buttons are notably reliable. They last for decades and have been adopted across many other Australian cities and, IIRC, overseas somewhere.
daveoc64 4y ago
We have sensors in the UK that detect when pedestrians have walked away after pushing the button (so it can cancel the pedestrian crossing cycle). They're really unreliable.

frosted-flakes 4y ago

> This is to reduce overnight noise for local residents Presumably this means the beeping of the signal for visually impaired people. Why not just keep the automated walk signals, but only enable the beeping when the button is pressed? This is how it's done in Toronto, and there are highly readable signs at each button stating this.

ehnto 4y ago
They beep intermittently so you can find them to press them in the first place.
- bogantech 4y ago
  The locator beeps are fine but the sound it makes when it is OK to cross would drive you mental if it was going off all night for no reason. As the previous comment states it might be a good idea to simply leave the locator pings but only make the walk sound if the button has been pressed Video of the sound for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0cz1XW9QvE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0cz1XW9QvE
  - scaredginger 4y ago
    Yeah, nobody's suggesting having the rapid ticking occur continuously. I have no idea where you got that from
    - bogantech 4y ago
      Not continuously but if the crossings were on a schedule during the night then you would hear it every couple of minutes. Following the rest of the above comments might clear it up but I'll outline the thought process 1: People think it is dumb that they turn off the schedule during the night. 2: It's because the walk signal is going to annoy people if it's going off regularly, especially at an intersection. 3: Of course the locator pings will continue because vision impaired people have to be able to find them, nobody is going to complain about this. They ping whether on schedule or during times you need to press the button. 4: the grandparent comment of mine suggested that the crossing should only make a sound if the button has been pushed. 5: the reply below that says "They beep intermittently so you can find them to press them in the first place." thinking the comment was saying that the comment was talking about the pings and not the walk sound 6: I clarified what they must have been saying including a video for them and anyone who hasn't been to Sydney and might not know what the sounds are 7: you made a snarky comment presumably without understanding any of the context. I hope that clears it up.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

eucryphia 4y ago

For non-Australian readers already familiar with 'Aussies' I can confirm; Yes, if there isn't any traffic, we just cross anyway. I'm a late boomer, you're more likely to be run over by a bus than booked for J-walking here. Merry Christmas.

climb_stealth 4y ago
I got booked for jay walking in Sydney. It was a $75 or $85 fine. And yes, I'm still feeling salty about it because it seems completely out of proportion for the severity of the offence. But then that's pretty much in line with how all the other offences are handled.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Surprised the instructions are so simple! Sydney, home of the ridiculous parking signs: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-21/quiz-sydney-confusing-parking-signs/10683014 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-21/quiz-sydney-confusing... Best strategy there is just read the no stopping/clearway first, then if you can stop, stop and read the rest!

inasmuch 4y ago
I'm inordinately irritated that this quiz is impossible to ace. I got every question right but for #6, which has an answer format that makes it impossible to answer correctly. "Sorry, trick question," it says when you put in "0 hours" as the best approximation of the correct "you can't park here at all" answer. Like, I knew that … you just … made it impossible to answer correctly? What? This is a silly thing to be upset about, but just … why would they have done that? It's so stupid.
- ouchjars 4y ago
  It even says "The correct answer was zero"!

cycomanic 4y ago

Sydney CBD is a nightmare for both pedestrians and cars. A really forward looking government/traffic agency would simply block all cars between Macquarie St and Darling Harbour with the exception of the feeders to the harbour bridge. That would dramatically increase the attractiveness of the CBD.

Jiro 4y ago

I've always been confused about these. If you push the button, and it's an intersection with walk signs going both north/south and east/west, which one of those lights does the button apply to? (I don't live in Australia, but you do occasionally see them in America.)

stephen_g 4y ago
In the Australian design there’s generally an arrow indicating which direction it goes. It’s embossed to for vision impaired people to be able to feel it too (it also is designed to resonate so if you touch it, you can feel the audio signals so if there are two directions, a vision impaired person knows which direction the sound is saying is safe to cross without needing to see the light signals).
ouchjars 4y ago
As well as the arrows, the buttons are just positioned intuitively most of the time. We usually get two perpendicular kerb ramps rather than a diagonal one pointing at the centre of the intersection. The button for the crossing you want is the one closest to you or facing you when you're waiting at the intended ramp. The button gets mounted on its own post if there's not a traffic light pole in the right place to piggyback off.

10g1k 4y ago

Explaining the stupidity of the last few years to my kid is going to be challenging.

rbut 4y ago

From my observation, this is how they always worked in Australia (or used to work pre-pandemic). Automatic during the day, and manual at night. This allows less stops for cars at night. At night on high traffic roads the lights stay green until someone presses the walk button, or a car arrives at an intersection. Your best bet is to get into the habbit of always hitting the button. If you're worried about virus transmission, then use your elbow.

jhugo 4y ago
> This allows less stops for cars at night. Which is better for the environment, and for the sleep of residents adjacent to the road. From that perspective, it seems like madness to suggest that cars should be forced to stop and idle repeatedly during the night on the offchance that a pedestrian might be waiting to cross. A pedestrian idling for a few minutes (assuming they require the guidance of the "green man" and are unable to assess the safety of crossing themselves) has much lower impact.

deserted 4y ago

A solution that solves the noise problem without returning to beg buttons, is to make the intersection a flashing red at night. It becomes a 4 way stop where pedestrians have the right of way. Everyone wins.

exclipy 4y ago

I would love if self-driving car pedestrian-, and intent- detection algorithms were deployed at traffic lights to understand when there's a person wanting to cross and automatically change the lights for them. I don't know how we can align economic incentives to make this happen though. Maybe we just need to wait for a self-driving car startup to go bust and release all their code to the public domain.

Aaron2222 4y ago

I'm not sure of the point of those stickers. We have a very similar setup on many of our CBD intersections where I live (including the exact same buttons): push to request crossing on all intersections, with Barnes Dance/Pedestrian Scramble [0] crossings having automatic crossing during the day, and we don't have any such labels. If a crossing has been requested or is automated, the crossing indicator lights (and beeper) is active, otherwise it isn't lit, so you know to press the button. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble

eru 4y ago

Oh, Sydney! I lived there for a few years. Their common four-way intersections that only had three pedestrian crossings drove me mad. Drivers there are also turn into homicidal maniacs as soon as they spot a push bike.

thatfrenchguy 4y ago
There's like, one of those "3 only" in my entire neighborhood in San Francisco, and I want to have a talk with whoever at the department of public works who decided this was a good idea. I'm sure they're likely dead by now and no-one has changed this from the 1960s though.
- eru 4y ago
  I don't mind having these very occasionally, if there's a good reason. I mean, they are still annoying, but it's understandable. In Sydney, however, those aren't the exception.

daniel_sim 4y ago

I have a 30-minute walking commute to work, and changing back to non-automated buttons has added about 5 minutes to that if I'm not super lucky with timing. The worst is seeing the lights turn and knowing it would have lit up green for pedestrians only to have to wait a full cycle for the next opportunity.

kmlx 4y ago
> I have a 30-minute walking commute to work isn't that like 10 mins cycling?
- pharmakom 4y ago
  Not everyone feels safe doing that. Plus you need a plastic hat in Australia.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > Plus you need a plastic hat in Australia. You always do. The damage you can get from a simple balance loss, or worse, when falling on a car or a curb is scary. Wear your plastic hats to protect your head people!
    - kmlx 4y ago
      agree with some caveats. helmets are a must when cycling on roads. but parks are a bit different. also, i remember a study that said drivers are more cautious when they see a cyclist without a helmet. not sure how relevant the study was, but as a driver i can confirm this. all this being said, summer time + helmet = lots of sweat.
    - machinawhite 4y ago
      How often do you lose you balance and what direction if I may ask? Not sure how I'm supposed to hit my head on a bike unless a car hits me. If you lose balance that often leave it at home. Helmet is good especially for the latter reason but a bicycle goes 20kmh and if you fall you don't die, just get your knees hurt or something.

IIAOPSW 4y ago

Sometimes when waiting, I tap out morse code on the beg button. I hope there's a log of button presses so that a traffic engineer will one day be impressed with the length of messages I've been able to .- .-. - .. -.-. ..- .-.. .- - .

bowsamic 4y ago

In Hamburg we have these, but even worse they are touch activated with a light if you successfully activated it and some of them don’t work. No one understands the gesture needed to make it function and every time I see people randomly rubbing and smacking it to try and activate it. Worst part is that there are some major junctions that won’t go green for the pedestrian unless you press it. Easily the worst UX I’ve ever seen for a public infrastructure. You can’t even activate it unless you are at the right part of the cycle. If you try and do it when the lights have just changed back to red for the pedestrians it won’t work. Absolutely maddening. They should never use whatever company they contracted to design those again

meindnoch 4y ago

We have these in London too. They are mostly used by tourists.

alpaca128 4y ago

My hometown - as usual - combines the worst of both worlds and installs placebo buttons. They don't do anything, but if you think it makes you feel better while waiting for the green light you can press them.

schipplock 4y ago

In my city some of these buttons have no function other than blinking after you have pushed them. But it depends on the time. Early in the morning you have to push it, otherwise it will stay red forever. So for me the sticker reads: "we are too incompetent at programming" :). My other thought: "these don't look official, someone private has made them for a joke".

themitigating 4y ago

I thought this title meant that homeless people were given buttons to help them beg

ihatepython 4y ago

I thought they changed this during the pandemic to save lives by preventing the spread of Covid (because everybody touches the same button, thus causing Covid to spread). Isn't forcing people to press this button a huge risk to catching Covid? I wonder how many people will die because of this change

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

I'm always... astonished? Surprised? Amazed? At how incredibly stupid certain decision taken by governments or local authorities can be. "what were they thinking?" is what pops in my head. Am I alone in this?

usr1106 4y ago

I don't remember Sydney as particularly pedestrian-hostile, i.e. having to wait for extended time unt turns green. I do remember Edinburgh as very pedestrian hostile: At nearly every interesection pedestrians had to wait for a felt eternity. (Both observations pre pandemic.) Instead of anecdotal data cities should be obliged to publish statistical waiting times according to a standadized model.

readonthegoapp 4y ago

The beg button is great terminology Finally