NYC Crosswalk Buttons are Inoperative 569
cdneng2 writes "NY Times has an article that New
York crosswalk push buttons are actually ineffective.
Apparently, New York City deactivated most of the pedestrian
buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled
traffic signals. From the article, 'More than 2,500 of the 3,250
walk buttons that still exist function essentially as mechanical
placebos, city figures show.' Well, apparently New York city isn't
the only city like this. I guess the answer lies in the same
reason why people press
the elevator button more than once."
Just like the Tube (Score:5, Informative)
Chicago (Score:1, Informative)
I had my suspicions (Score:4, Informative)
Then again, the "walk" signals did not have much effect on the pedestrians in Manhattan either.
Anchorage, Alaska (Score:3, Informative)
Buttons (Score:5, Informative)
And the same reason people press the reload or submit button more than once... When things don't show any evidence that they're doing what they're supposed to do.
Re:I think (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Buttons (Score:2, Informative)
Beleive me. I'm the kind of person who always figures out exactly what the button at the crosswalk does. Of course 95% of them add a walk to the cycle that wouldn't be there if you didn't press. I've never seen one that made the cycle faster.
Re:pedastrians obey Laws? (Score:5, Informative)
conversley, the easiest way to tell if someone in your city is actually from new york (or has spent a lot of time there) is to watch them jaywalk like nobody's buisiness.
Government is actually trying to save money (Score:5, Informative)
This is not news (Score:3, Informative)
This is not news. This is "guide to New York for tourists from Idaho".
start spreading the news... (Score:5, Informative)
Now on the flip side of things, for those who live in the boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, SI, if you take a good old trip to city hall and the places where the money is flowing what do you find? Operating buttons, clean streets, subways with bathrooms, and spikes to keep those pigeons from pooping all over the place. The boroughs... What are you kidding?
Re:Elevator close door buttons (Score:5, Informative)
If you notice in elevators (at least in the U.S.) there is a keyslot where you can switch the elevator from Normal to Off or Fire mode. In Fire mode, the elevator doors don't open until you press the door-open button and they don't close until you press the door-close button.
So, the door close button doesn't normally work, but it's there for a reason.
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Informative)
Straight dope on pedestrian buttons (Score:4, Informative)
On the subject of the second article, I live in downtown San Mateo myself, and am surprised that so many buttons are non-operative. But some that I use do indeed provide a longer time to cross. They also will give you the walk signal, while if you don't press the button, you don't get it. So many of these buttons in downtown San Mateo do actually do something. My guess is that most of the downtown ones don't do anything, but the ones along El Camino Real (one side of downtown) do actually work.
Re:Most Dangerous Intersections (Score:0, Informative)
Re:Most Dangerous Intersections (Score:5, Informative)
That list is compiled based upon the dollar amount of State Farm insurance claims for those intersections. I imagine the fleet cabs and busses of NYC are largely self-insured by the operating companies and wouldn't show up as claims to State Farm or any other insurer.
State Farm offers monetary and consultative support to cities with intersections in their top 10 (and a lesser amount to those in their top 100 IIRC) to save themselves money.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
A perennial top 10 intersection is Highway 121 & Preston Road in Plano, TX. There are lots of expensive cars in that area; if everyone there drove 5-year old Hyundai's I doubt it would make the list. Either that or the nearby EDS campus is really a cover for an organized insurance fraud ring.
Re:Even more fun (Score:3, Informative)
Generally, it's the law that it is a car. It's not pretending. It's also generally illegal to ride on the sidewalk - that's really dangerous to pedestrians.
See the Chicago Municipal Bicycle Code [chibikefed.org] if you don't believe me.
The bicyclists on the road who are putting themselves in danger are the ones who don't follow all of the traffic signals like a car, or ride at night without a headlight and taillight.
What they really do (Score:5, Informative)
If no pedestrian is present at the cross walk and the button is not hit, that plan will not be used and as a result the timing of the lights during the next cycle will be somewhat different than if a pedestrian were present.
There does seem to be an informal sense among pedestrians that pressing the button should cause the ped signal to activate sooner, since they are there and requesting service, but that is not the case. The only thing pressing the button changes is whether that special ped phase cycle is used or not.
The real need for the buttons in the first place is that, while most contemporary vehicle detection schemes are based on the electromagnetic properties of automobiles, most normal pedestrians are not constructed of massive chunks of ferrous metals and so have little effect on these devices. A car announces its presence simply by being there, a human being must make a little extra effort to push a button.
What I get from the headline (I'll read the article after I've submitted my uninformed opinion) is that there may really be no need for those buttons in the first place. A place like New York is likely to have such massive pedestrian activity in the first place, that the buttons themselves are redundant, since nearly every signal cycle is likely to require an active pedestrian phase to serve that volume. Ped crossing buttons may be as useful in NYC as they would be on an interstate highway in the middle of Nevada, but for opposite reasons.
Re:Control (Score:3, Informative)
"The spaceships were completely automated. Pressing the 'on' button caused the spaceship to take off, fly to it's prearranged landing point on Earth, and open the door. The 'off' button didn't do anything, but it was there to make people feel better."
It's a great book. *sigh* it's been more than 30 years, because I recall not understanding the part toward the end describing one of the statues made on Titan as having a "shocking erection". I had no idea what that meant...
thad
Some elevator buttons actually DO help. (Score:5, Informative)
And the same reason people press the reload or submit button more than once... When things don't show any evidence that they're doing what they're supposed to do.
Some elevator call buttons actually do help.
On many elevators (especially Otis), especially older ones, holding down a button in the car shortens or ends the delay before closing the door to move on to another floor. This was apparently done so that once people had entered the car and selected a floor the elevator wouldn't hang around uselessly.
Older elevators often saved on hardware by wiring the floor call buttons in parallel with the car buttons. So holding down a call button did speed up the car, by making it spend less time at other floors.
Newer, computer-driven, elevators don't usually do the door algorithm properly, even with respect to the buttons in the car. (Apparently the people who wrote some of the programs didn't research the older designs, but wrote it from scratch based on what they thought an elevator should do. Thus the elevators' algorithms are often less effective and more annoying than the older, relay-driven devices.)
Something like BART's railroad car designs. B-)
Re:Most Dangerous Intersections (Score:4, Informative)
The next week they completely disabled the sensors and put it in 'don't stop traffic make the buggers wait' mode*, where it's stayed. Nice to know where my council tax is being wasted...
* This mode refuses to change to let pedestrians cross *even if there isn't any traffic for miles*, meaning you cross anyway, then 5-6 minutes later hear the beeps in the distance as it decides to turn red whilst there's nobody actually wanting to cross.
Re:Control (Score:3, Informative)
The only controls available to those on board were two push-buttons on the center post of the cabin--one labeled on and one labeled off. The on button simply started a flight from Mars. The off button connected to nothing. It was installed at the insistence of the Martian mental-health experts, who said that human beings were always happier with machinery they thought they could turn off.
From T-Quote [vex.net]
thad
Explanation (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the crosswalks in London have large block capitals on the road which say either:orWhose function is to inform you of the most probable direction of your impending doom.
Seriously, these things are very useful when everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road.
Yes, actually. (Score:3, Informative)
I hate wannabe pedants, I really do. If you're going to play at pedantry, at least get it right.
In English, the word "professional" has at least two meanings.
Firstly, it means someone who engages in a "profession" (viz., a skilled discipline) for their livelihood. An "amateur" likewise can mean someone who engages in a "profession," but as a pastime.
(Indeed, "amateur" also has more than one meaning, at teams to describe someone who is recreationally involved in a skilled discipline and at others to describe someone who performs poorly in that discipline).
Secondly, it is used to describe someone who is adept at some skilled discipline (e.g., "He plays like a professional!"). In all truth, while this second usage is common, it is subordinate to the first. The important distinguishing characteristic of a "professional" is that the profession is one's livelihood.
In common usage, you'll find both nearly as frequently. What matters, really, is what the author or speaker intended when she used it. Thus, the grandparent could very well be correct: the author meant "driving, and getting paid for it" not "driving, and doing it well." At the very least, it's a fully acceptable interpretation.
So, in other words:
You are wrong.
Please play again.
Re:Most Dangerous Intersections (Score:5, Informative)
That may be true for the visiting tourist who might be taken aback by the sensory overload. But most New Yorkers eventually tune out alot of their surroundings.
Then there is the pressure of the New York buisness day. Everyday I see people trying to smoke/eat/use the phone/change CD's/apply makeup all while driving a moving three thousand pound projectile.
If I had a nickel for every accident I witnessed while my ambulance was parked at a major intersection because the offending driver did something incredibly stupid, I would have had several steak dinners by now.
The funniest thing is that sometimes, I notice right before the "accident", this stupid look on the drivers face --something between being in pain and being constipated-- that instinctively lets you know that they are aware that they're about to commit to something that will cause someone injury and property damage, but think they might get away with it anyway.
My 2 pet peeves:
1.Cab drivers that will stop anywhere, abruptly from any speed, and at all sorts of angle to pick up a fare.
2. People who follow me (light/sirens) down side streets, then when I have to block said street (to narrow for them to get by) they honk and yell as if I should go aroung the block to let them by. But hey, it's not their mom I'm going to treat.
It's actually a moving violation (as per the NYC VTL) to go down a side street when you see a parked ambulance with it's lights on, regardless if there is room for you to go by.
Re:I had my suspicions (Score:2, Informative)
If it's rush-hour, then the traffic is at a standstill anyway and it doesn't really matter whether the car-driver waits behind a red light, or drives through it and waits behind the traffic queue the other side.
They're going to take an hour to get through nottingham anyway if it's rush hour -- I'll probably go to the supermarket, do some shopping, and come back to find the same people waiting in the same queue.
Read the whole definition (Score:5, Informative)
Though to be fair, you're partially right... profession has "at least two meanings," though you conveniently omitted the one that contradicts your little rant. I quote from Websters:
1 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of a profession b : engaged in one of the learned professions c (1) : characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
2 a : participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs b : having a particular profession as a permanent career c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return
3 : following a line of conduct as though it were a profession
- professionally adverb
As opposed to "job":
b : a specific duty, role, or function c : a regular remunerative position
I'll let you look up remunerative for yourself... but as you can see, you can get paid for either a profession or a job... but as you'll note in the first definition above, a profession often implies far more (specialized knowledge, ethics, etc) than simply getting paid.
But that's OK, I don't take it personally. If you want, you can keep calling your fast-food job a "profession" if it makes you feel better.
unlike like the Tube Lifts (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Yes, actually. (Score:2, Informative)
2 a : participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs <a professional golfer>
Do you drive as an amateur? Does a cab driver drive for gain or livelihood?
He's a professional. You're a dipshit. Get your rants right.
See this [m-w.com] for the definition
optical (Score:2, Informative)
That way, if a person is standing at such crossing, things will speed up and the lights will change.
To bad it doesn't leave us with a button to play with.
Re:Most Dangerous Intersections (Score:3, Informative)
Downtown, however, there are no buttons, the walk lights flash with the traffic.
Re:premium fuel (Score:2, Informative)
it's not "good" on your motor but it certainly isn't going to cause it to spontaneously explode. just run like a geo metro.
Re:What they really do (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of intersections have traffic sensitive cycles, such that once the control hardware is "aware" that there is no more vehicle traffic in the direction of the green, it will automatically terminate that phase (by bringing up yellow and then red) and bring up green for the traffic on the intersecting street.
Most pedestrian phases are timed presuming that humans travel at about 2.5 feet per second, and the "don't walk" phase is usually determined by dividing the width of the street by that number to permit a person just stepping into the cross-walk to make it all the way across in time. So presuming 10-15 seconds of ped-green to get things started and 20 to 30 seconds of "don't walk" time at a 50 foot crossing, the full ped phase time can be up to 45 seconds.
Without pedestrians, the cycle could be much shorter if there were little or no vehicular traffic present. Usually, a pedestrian phase will run for the longest duration permitted at a given intersection.
If you live in San Francisco check out WalkSF (Score:2, Informative)
It's a pedestrian advocacy group that is working to make San Francisco a better place to walk. Their web site has lots of links and resources concerning modern crosswalk technology among other things. WalkSF [walksf.org]
They work in the Bay Area (Score:3, Informative)
Just run like hell across the street when you can. It's generally a lot safer.