To get a walk signal to cross Robie Street at the intersection of Robie and Jubilee you MUST press the red button BEFORE the light changes. If you arrive just as the light is changing in your favor the button doesn’t work and the signal indicates that you shouldn’t walk. Most people cross anyway because the cars have stopped for the red light. Trouble is that when the walk signal is not lit you only have a short time to get to the other side. Moreover, if someone on the north side of the intersection presses the walk signal it has no effect on the south side of the intersection even though the cars have stopped and it would be safe to cross there as well. I know this sounds complicated but try it and you’ll see how dumb and pedestrian unfriendly it is. Who did this? Why?
—Howard H
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2009.
Part of walking around this city (and any other city) is understanding stupid things like this. I’m not familiar with the intersection, but I know the problem you’re talking about.
If you know that it’s safe to cross and are not content standing there like an idiot, then cross. Barring some maniac running a red or something (which could happen anyway), you’ll be fine. The walk lights serve as a guide only – understanding the traffic lights is far more useful.
This happens at many intersections. Levels of Government preach to us that we should “walk and be healthy”. Then they treat pedestrians like trash. We should have as much right, and time, in the crossing area of an intersection, as vehicles, not have to hop like a gazelle, while a person in a “mobile living room”, is sitting sheltered from the weather and munching on their meal, and rolling their eyes because they have to wait a few seconds. And they now often have much more “green light” time than a pedestrian. Of course the lights meant nothing if you are a pedestrian, just the next to useless WALK / DON’T WALK signs. Total crap. My tax dollars are as good as the ones from automobile drivers. Yeesh! D’mouth Walker
This happens at most if not all intersections now. Even on busy intersections, they’ve got those bloody buttons. What I don’t get is that you have to wait until the green shows on the opposite flow of traffic until you press them for you to get the walk symbol. I guess it’s really only an issue of raising one’s arm and pressing a button, however, as mrman said, understanding the flow of traffic whilst walking is far more useful.
What I don’t get is why at the intersection of Tower and Robie, you not only have to push the button but it also makes you stop walking (aka the hand flashes and stops) about a whole minute before the light changes! I guess I can see that cars need to make left turns and whatnot I just find it rather odd.
Ditto for Windsor and Young. I have to sprint, with six bags of groceries in my hands, to push the effing button before the lights switch.
eventually you have to look both ways several times and then run like a gazelle…or shuffle along…young at windsor is one of the worst you end up waiting for 3 lights if you obey
you could actually get a ticket for crossing against the hand signal. The same thing has been done at all the intersections on Alderney near the ferry terminal. If you’re in a rush, trying to catch the ferry, it’s very irritating.
The new lights at Chebucto and Mumford are like this, only worse – traffic coming off mumford goes left and straight and then gets a red, so the traffic coming off macdonald can gets a green, and then chebucto gets the green. By the time the walk light comes on so I can cross chebucto, there’s a bus usually turning left on the red because it doesn’t have the opportunity to on the green. It’s messed.
I think the idea of these pedestrian lights is that if noone’s around, it won’t spend as much time being unnecessarily red, which makes for happier drivers and less idling. In practice though, this can be quite annoying for pedestrians. There is one intersection I can think of which actually works well on this priciple though, and that’s the corner of Mic Mac Blvd and Glencarin (a.k.a the lights by the Mic Mac terminal). There, if noone’s waiting to turn out of the mall, or even if the green is fresh, pushing the button on a green will produce the walk symbol to walk across Glencarin. For the most part though, a lot of intersections do piss off pedestrians due to poor design (for them).
The reason you have to wait is because the second you push the button, the processor that controls the lights puts the walk signal in the cue for the next cycle. The next time the traffic signal going your way turns green, it includes the pedestrian light in that cycle and that cycle only. The reason for this is to speed up traffic flow by not making cars wait for pedestrians unless there are pedestrians trying to cross. It’s the same way that left turn signals work. If there are no vehicles in the left turn lane, the processor doesnt give a green arrow to the left turn lane. As a pedestrian, you should do the same thing that motorists do, leave the house a few minutes earlier if you are driving (or walking) when traffic is heavy. Its really no different than the road raging assholes who speed, tailgate, cut people off, etc during the morning rush hour because they are to stupid and/or lazy to leave for work on time.