[HN Gopher] Why I always hit the crosswalk button (2015)
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Why I always hit the crosswalk button (2015)
Author : costco
Score : 25 points
Date : 2023-11-29 16:46 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.klittlepage.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.klittlepage.com)
| jwozn wrote:
| Can't just hit it once - have to a few times just to make sure.
| ochronus wrote:
| F5 F5 F5 F5 :)
| Arrath wrote:
| Still nothing?
|
| ..... CTRL F5
| JohnFen wrote:
| If you're old enough to remember "sniglets", here's one that's
| elevator-specific but there should be a crosswalk equivalent
| of:
|
| Elacceleration: hitting the elevator call button repeatedly to
| make the elevator arrive faster.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| One of the buttons near us makes a particularly funny sound
| when you hit it. It's a fun little reward, though an
| unintentional one.
| HaZeust wrote:
| In my current area (Denver) and my former place of living
| (Baltimore), they yell "WAIT!" at you :D
| gyf304 wrote:
| The crosswalk button my city uses has an LED that illuminates if
| the button was pressed before. It's a great UX improvement over
| the ones without the LED.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Ah, that's pretty important context that is missing from the
| article! These have been universal in the UK for as long as I
| can remember.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| yes I've noticed them in my city getting much better, they
| light up and say "wait" when you press them... newer ones are
| even becoming contactless so you can wave your hand in front of
| them
| kqr wrote:
| I never remember if the light means "button pressed" or "here
| is the button come press it" like on a taxi.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| You don't just press the button and see what happens?
| daveliepmann wrote:
| Beg buttons are the worst. Traffic engineers who design them into
| any but the most remote intersections should be ashamed of
| themselves. One more piece of obscene car culture and dependence.
| foxyv wrote:
| The only Beg Button I think is worth a flying fig is one that
| interrupts the cycle. Pedestrians and cyclists should be first
| class road users. When they push the button it should
| immediately interrupt the car traffic by cycling to yellow/red
| and allow the pedestrians to cross. I've spent as much as ten
| minutes at some intersections waiting to cross and then had to
| dodge right on red cars and people trying to beat the light.
| It's absolutely absurd.
|
| Our cities have way over optimized for traffic flow of cars.
|
| Edit: Also, I think crosswalks should be signalized away from
| intersections with level crossing and dedicated walking paths
| separate from road noise/pollution. Making people cross at an
| intersection is way too dangerous.
| gs17 wrote:
| The crosswalk buttons around me are a frustrating mess. I
| used to live on a street where the intersection to the main
| road had a sensor that either couldn't detect my car or just
| didn't work at all. The only way to get a green light was to
| have someone get out and hit the crosswalk button, which
| quickly changes the flow of car traffic.
|
| Meanwhile, I have not seen this behavior anywhere else in the
| city where it would make sense. Instead, we have almost all
| crosswalk buttons that do nothing, a few that turn on a light
| so drivers can know you want to cross (they won't stop, but
| they'll know), and a few where you will never have a walk
| signal unless you hit the button, but the light timing does
| not change. I have watched plenty of tourists helplessly
| trapped at an intersection not knowing why it never changes.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I've seen a bus driver get out of the bus, run across the
| road, and press a crosswalk button to get a light to cycle
| quicker.
| dylan604 wrote:
| One late night, I was at a stop light on a side street
| intersecting with a major 8 lane road. No cars were really
| coming from any direction, yet, the light would not change
| for me. Tempted to run the red, I noticed the crosswalk was
| ~10' from me. So instead of running the light, I jumped out
| to hit the crosswalk. Within seconds, the lights cycled. I
| was pleasantly surprised it worked.
| bluGill wrote:
| Intersections should prioritize in order:
|
| 0: trains which cannot stop 1: emergency vehicles working a
| current emergency (when an emergency is not in progress they
| are 5) 2: pedestrians on foot (including manual wheelchairs)
| 3: buses in a bus-only lane 4: bicycles and other human
| powered wheeled transport (ebike count only if most power
| comes from humans). This includes electric wheelchairs. 5:
| everything else. Including buses in mixed traffic (which
| should only be done when traffic is so light that it doesn't
| matter)
|
| This encourages the type of transport you want people to use
| in your city.
| toast0 wrote:
| It really depends on the dynamics of the intersection. In a
| downtown with pedestrians active at all times of the day,
| they're not really needed, pedestrians can be assumed.
|
| Suburban intersections really need them and I wouldn't consider
| them 'the most remote' ... the intersections are large enough
| that most people can't or won't cross on a minimum length
| green, so the button lengthens the green time. Additionally,
| traffic patterns vary, and waiting for a car to trigger the
| occupancy signal might be a longer wait, and anyway to
| encourage pedestrianism (false positives from people jumping
| out of cars isn't that big of a deal in the scheme of things
| either), the beg button often reduces cycle times to minimums
| until the pedestrian can cross. The alternative of including
| pedestrians in all cycles by default is a waste of everyone's
| time, including pedestrians, given the low pedestrian usage.
|
| Maybe if there was a good way to measure pedestrians on
| approach and intersection entrance, you could do the same thing
| you do for cars, and cycle in advance of their arrival and
| confirm they cleared the intersection before cycling further,
| but that's asking for a lot.
|
| In remote intersections, you only really need a button if
| there's significant traffic. Otherwise, crossing whenever
| there's a clearing is probably better, IMHO. But a button for
| slow crossers isn't a bad idea.
| estebank wrote:
| > Otherwise, crossing whenever there's a clearing is probably
| better, IMHO.
|
| That's only safe if there are a reasonable number of lanes,
| namely no more than 2. Beyond that the width is higher, the
| possibility of a car far away blocking the view of another
| car slightly behind increases and the driving speed of the
| cars is increased because it feels safe enough for them. And
| from what I've seen in the West Coast, narrow human-sized
| roads are reserved exclusively for back alleys.
| NeoTar wrote:
| I kinda hate the buttons here in Berlin - a lot of them look like
| this: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2AEHF8N/traffic-light-switch-
| for-p...
|
| I still will hit the yellow bit, but I'm not sure if I need to,
| or if they are totally automated*. There is absolutely zero
| feedback, not even the feedback of pushing a button.
|
| British road-crossings often will illuminate a 'WAIT' message on
| the box when the button has been pressed, which is some great
| feedback.
|
| (* there is a rotating part on the bottom which gives partially
| sighted people an indication that the lights are green).
| gs17 wrote:
| >British road-crossings often will illuminate a 'WAIT'
|
| Some in the US (maybe when I was in DC?) will audibly say
| "WAIT" from when they're pressed until you can cross, sometimes
| also counting the time remaining out loud after you get the
| signal, too.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This is, I believe, an accessibility feature.
|
| I prefer the version of it I encountered in Hong Kong; there
| is a rapid clip of clicks at green, followed by a slower
| click when flashing red, and then a slow click at red. It's
| more universal and language-agnostic.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnWRQ9yVFYg&t=13s
|
| The sounds are highly directed so you can't hear, say, the
| crosswalk perpendicular to you, let alone hear it from
| surrounding buildings.
| bluGill wrote:
| > This is, I believe, an accessibility feature.
|
| Unless you are deaf, then you get no feedback. There are
| buttons near me that don't always trigger when I touch
| them, but I know to listen for the feedback. (these are
| touch, not push buttons) Of course they are not universal,
| there are a lot of buttons around me that give no feedback
| at all.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The notion that an accessibility feature means it is
| automatically accessible for 100% of people is asinine.
|
| In any case the buttons often vibrate specifically so
| that deaf people can feel it.
| bluGill wrote:
| But accessibility features need to cover all disabilities
| which often means you have to have more than one.
| Clamchop wrote:
| They don't need to cover all disabilities, that's
| ridiculous. Kinds, severities, and combinations of
| disabilities are endless. We make a reasonable effort
| that importantly must make sense for the application.
|
| The person you've constructed in this scenario is both
| blind and deaf. Such an unattended person is in extreme
| danger on streets with automobile traffic no matter what
| the crosswalk button does.
| bluGill wrote:
| No, the person I constructed is only deaf. They attempt
| to touch a button and do not realize that button did not
| register their attempt.
|
| I agree that not all disabilities can be accounted for.
| However the more we account for the better - where
| accounting is all aspects of getting around. I don't know
| how to make it safe for a blind and deaf person to
| navigate streets safely - but I wish it was possible and
| as soon as I learn of something that works I'll support
| it.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| A guide dog is literally trained for this.
|
| At some point, a disability requires assistance. That is
| less true these days than in the past but still a last
| option.
| Clamchop wrote:
| If they're only deaf, then it's asked and answered
| because these new buttons have LED indicators and the
| sound they make can be felt through the housing. The ones
| near me might as well be knocking.
| avianlyric wrote:
| There is a simple solution for making these buttons
| accessible for all, and we have them in the UK.
|
| It's a simple button that clicks, and under the panel
| there's a small knob that rotates. Click the button, then
| place your fingers on the knob and wait for it to start
| spinning. I can't tell you if the crossing call button is
| completely broken (although you'll figure that out if
| wait long enough), but broken call buttons in the UK are
| pretty rare, I've only encountered a small handful of
| broken buttons over 20 years.
| deadso wrote:
| This is also the case in many parts of the US. I've
| experienced this in WA and MN.
| Clamchop wrote:
| The crosswalks near me (San Diego) both speak English and
| make "whimpers" and clicks. They whimper while waiting or
| when it's time to clear the intersection, and then rapidly
| and loudly click when it's time to walk. At the same time
| and in English, they say "wait" repeatedly until the signal
| changes, then "crosswalk is on across such-and-such
| street".
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Oh god - the fright I had in my first day in LA after I
| pressed the crosswalk button to cross a 6 lane road and it
| shouted _WAIT_ at me. I will never forget that.
| leobg wrote:
| Same. Never understood whether they're buttons or just sound
| generators for blind people.
| uoaei wrote:
| That symbol means it's automated with no intervention from
| pedestrians.
|
| The other one, with the hand symbol, means you only need to
| hover your hand near it and it registers your intent. No touch
| necessary.
|
| For all the hate the bureaucracy and infrastructure in Berlin
| gets, the design of it at least does have some thought put into
| it.
| informalo wrote:
| These are only there to help blind people cross the road. They
| have no influence at all on how fast the pedestrian light will
| turn green [1].
|
| [1] https://www.absv.de/die-blindenampel
| morelisp wrote:
| They are awful.
|
| IIRC if it has three dots, it's for accessibility only - you
| don't need to press it.
|
| If it has the vague hand symbol, it will probably light up when
| you "tap" it, but may not actually do anything you notice - one
| near us it doesn't speed up the light, it just makes it last
| longer. But for others it might also be necessary to tap it to
| make the light change!
| userabchn wrote:
| It irritates me when people press the crosswalk button on quiet
| roads (where most of the time there is nothing coming, so you can
| just cross) before they have even looked to see if anything is
| coming. Most of the time they then cross immediately and the
| traffic light will go red some time after they have already
| crossed, holding up both cars and pedestrians coming behind (who
| might get there shortly before the traffic light goes green
| again, so have to wait for that and then wait for the accumulated
| traffic to clear before they can cross). There is a walking route
| near me that crosses a lot of roads and I not infrequently get
| caught behind someone doing this so I get stuck at every
| crossing.
| drawkward wrote:
| I hit the crosswalk button always, even at crosswalks I have no
| intention of using, to slow traffic and remind drivers that
| pedestrians have right of way. Car culture in the USA is
| abhorrent, dangerous to pedestrians, and bad for health in many
| ways.
| zenbowman wrote:
| Same. Slowing down traffic is an inherent good, whether or
| not you have any intention of crossing.
| dexterdog wrote:
| Yet you wonder why some drivers hate pedestrians.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| How are these two different groups in your mind? Like
| saying people with lungs hate people with eyes. Do drivers
| not ever walk where you live? If truly not then I don't
| need or want their respect.
| organsnyder wrote:
| Many drivers in the United States rarely--if ever--use
| walking as anything other than for getting from their
| vehicle to their destination.
| tom_ wrote:
| If drivers spent one single solitary moment of their day
| _not_ being absolute shitheels, it 's possible they might
| be due some sympathy. But, as it is: they have brought this
| upon themselves, and they should be extremely grateful that
| people are generous enough that this sort of inconvenience
| even so much as registers on the scale of bad things that
| can happen to them.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not take HN threads further into flamewar?
| We're trying for the opposite here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| drawkward wrote:
| I don't care whether they _hate_ pedestrians; I merely want
| them _to not kill_ pedestrians.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| this is why:
| https://theoatmeal.com/pl/minor_differences/cutting_off
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not take HN threads further into flamewar?
| We're trying for the opposite here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| This is a perfect case of thinking you are doing a net good,
| but in actuality just doing more harm by pissing a lot of
| drivers off and potentially causing a road rage incident. Do
| this in a large northern city and you may even get more than
| what you bargained for.
| estebank wrote:
| Being driven to rage by traffic lights should be
| disqualifying to have a driver's license.
| emgeee wrote:
| Not a big fan on the reliance of cars either but doing this
| wastes energy and contributes more to pollution.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: also, please don't take HN threads further into
| flamewar! as you did below:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38477500. It's not what
| this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| nick_ wrote:
| Imagine how irritating it is for _every_ pedestrian to have to
| wait for _every_ light to change, for their momentary privilege
| to walk across a 5ft-wide space that often has cars poking
| their hoods into it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Yes, everyone wishes they could move unimpeded by anybody
| else. But, we live in a society with many different kinds of
| users so we accept a bit of inconvenience in the pursuit of
| safety.
| hateful wrote:
| Not sure if it's everywhere - but where I am it is actually
| illegal to cross when it says don't cross and you can get a
| ticket for it. (not saying it's actually enforced).
| dexterdog wrote:
| That is true in most places I have ever been.
| nick_ wrote:
| Oh those are widespread. In my experience, even where those
| laws don't exist, they are believed to exist by the
| brainwashed, car-obsessed population.
| Clamchop wrote:
| Jay walking laws are slowly being walked back in some places.
|
| The history of such laws are interesting, by the way.
|
| That said, most of the time and in most places I've been, the
| de facto reality is that it's essentially lawless. Neither
| pedestrians nor drivers are being policed effectively and
| they all kind of do whatever.
| bscphil wrote:
| > It irritates me when people press the crosswalk button on
| quiet roads (where most of the time there is nothing coming, so
| you can just cross) before they have even looked to see if
| anything is coming.
|
| Since you're comfortable asking pedestrians to jaywalk across
| the street if it looks clear, maybe you should also get
| comfortable with simply running the red lights on these quiet
| roads, since nothing is coming. At least in your case, you have
| a giant machine with airbags to protect you if you make a
| mistake.
| tzs wrote:
| > Since you're comfortable asking pedestrians to jaywalk
| across the street if it looks clear,
|
| According to the rest of his comment, most of them _are_
| jaywalking:
|
| > Most of the time they then cross immediately and the
| traffic light will go red some time after they have already
| crossed
|
| I.e., they come to the intersection, hit the crosswalk
| button, and then jaywalk across instead of waiting for the
| signal to change. The signal then actually changes after they
| are across.
| hateful wrote:
| There's a light in a village by me that won't give the walk
| signal unless someone hits the button, but instead will let cars
| turn. Last weekend when I went up to this light (as a
| pedestrian), there were two other pedestrians waiting. I had
| (wrongly) assumed that they had hit the button. But we waited two
| light rotations and I heard them complain about it not letting
| them cross. Then I hit the button myself and the next rotation it
| let us cross.
| mehlmao wrote:
| > When a stranger murdered Kitty Genovese outside of her Brooklyn
| apartment while thirty seven bystanders watched without so much
| as calling the police, the Volunteer's Dilemma went mainstream
|
| This article cites the murder of Kitty Genovese as an example of
| the bystander effect / volunteer's dilemma. More recent research,
| including a documentary by Kitty's brother who interviews
| witnesses (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3568002/), has shown that
| the police report and subsequent newspaper reporting of 37
| witnesses doing nothing is completely wrong. See
| https://www.npr.org/2014/03/03/284002294/what-really-happene...
| and https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/10/a-call-for-
| hel... .
|
| The New York Times has updated their original article
| acknowledging it's incorrect
| (https://web.archive.org/web/20181108183955/https://www.nytim...)
| bluGill wrote:
| These buttons should be supplemented with a camera that detects
| humans coming and changes the lights as they get close to the
| intersection.
|
| Note that I said lights - plural. People should cross diagonally
| across the intersection if that is where their direction takes
| them.
| yakubin wrote:
| Another instance of pedestrian congestion that's really jarring
| to me are serial pedestrian crossings on roads with opposing
| traffic lanes separated by pavement, often on intersections. It
| may look like this: <https://maps.app.goo.gl/ErBFC2oXV21oQ9U7A>.
| For some reason, the traffic lights are programmed in such a way
| that most of the time you need to be almost running (I'd say
| something like 8-10 km/h) to ever have a chance of crossing both
| crossings in one go, even when you start walking at the beginning
| of the green light. Instead you're almost always (the durations
| change throughout the day) guaranteed to stop before the second
| light and have fun breathing in the fumes from a high-traffic
| road. I can't think of it as anything but hostile to pedestrians.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > https://maps.app.goo.gl/ErBFC2oXV21oQ9U7A
|
| That seems fair, though? That's a pretty long crossing if you
| include the sidewalk in the grassy area as part of one
| continuous crossing. If it were a median, I'd agree with you,
| but that's almost a small park. Just plain grass, it could use
| some shrubs & trees, but still.
| w-m wrote:
| Seems a good place to ask a question I've been asking myself for
| a long time, and couldn't figure out the answer to: why do lonely
| crosswalks not immediately turn the lights red for the cars when
| you push the button? Or at least, after a very short delay (< 3
| seconds).
|
| For street crossings with multiple directions and multiple
| lights, that behavior makes sense. You're waiting for the next
| pre-programmed phase that syncs you up with other parts of the
| crossing. For large roads it might make sense, you don't want to
| interrupt the flow of the traffic that is expected to hit a green
| light down the road at current speed.
|
| But for the lonely crossing light in front of the school building
| in a small street, why do I have to wait 20 seconds after pushing
| it, every single time?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I've experienced this behaviour. During the middle of the day
| at an intersection of a side street with a busy street it can
| take a long time to turn. At night when the busy street isn't
| so busy, it seems to often turn relatively quickly.
|
| Are you waiting 20 seconds for the cross light to turn amber or
| 20 seconds for your walk light to come on? Because the latter
| is always going to take at least ~10 seconds -- the stale green
| time + the amber time + all-red time.
| w-m wrote:
| Waiting for amber takes 20 seconds. Also it's not a timeout
| of some case from repeated use. Have to wait even if it
| wasn't used for several minutes beforehand.
| TheFreim wrote:
| In my hometown there is a light that is nearly instant during
| low-traffic hours. When I would walk to work in the morning I
| would press it and it would immediately go yellow->red but when
| I came home in the afternoon, with higher levels of traffic,
| I'd have to wait for the cycle.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's a regional/local choice. In my area, we have a number of
| signaled crosswalks which never activate unless someone pushes
| the button. They are absolutely instant.
|
| They're not traffic signals, though, they are a dozen or so
| strobing yellow lights. It's effectively a red light based on
| local law, but it's way more noticeable for approaching
| traffic.
| tuukkah wrote:
| A lonely crossing light may still be synchronized with the
| intersections ahead and behind.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| TFA explains the cost of phoning the cops on Kitty as being
| paperwork hassle.
|
| The crosswalk button scenario is therefore not comparable;
| there's no cost (to the button-pusher) in pressing the button,
| even if they aren't planning to cross at all.
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(page generated 2023-11-30 23:01 UTC)