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NYC Crosswalk Buttons are Inoperative
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."
Surprisingly enough, NY doesn't have any intersections listed in the top 10 most dangerous intersections list, compiled by State Farm.
However, you can find the 24 most dangerous intersections in NY, as compiled by the NYPD here.
Either way, crossing the street isn't the safest thing in the world.
...don't question it!!!
Isn't that a little obvious? I mean, do ANY of those buttons work anymore?
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The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
As if everything else works there.
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
The buttons don't work
Everybody knows the more times you push it, the faster it goes. Geez.
- Sherman
Just like the Open (and Close) Door buttons on most of the London Underground. I see tourists pounding those open buttons on the Central Line all the time. It does nothing but they seem to feel better.
It's like Ctrl-Alt-Delete for the general public! ;)
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
This has to be a lie, the government would never waste our money and mislead us!
They haven't worked in Chicago as long as I can remember. I long forgot about those buttons.
It's my understanding that the "Close Door" buttons on elevators only exist for the same reason, and they don't do anything.
Kinda like the "brightness" button on the TV set. (To paraphrase the old joke).
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I know it, and I still do it sometimes. Perhaps it's because I just like pushing buttons... like this button right he NO CARRIER
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
The ones in Herndon, VA (maybe that should be singular rather than plural) seems to actually work and many in Knoxville, TN will not give you a walk signal unless you pressed the button. But the last time I was in Manhattan, about 2 yrs ago it did not seem to have any effect.
Then again, the "walk" signals did not have much effect on the pedestrians in Manhattan either.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The answer is here finally!! Because the button doesn't work
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
Downtown SLC is the same way. They even have LED displays that count down the time until the light changes. It goes from yellow to red when it starts getting close to 0. It also makes a very audible beeping noise as well. If it's made it safer to walk downtown or not I have no clue.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
when I was in Columbus they didn't even have buttons. It would just automatically show the walk symbol.
I didn't know anyone in NY who waited for a the Walk Signal to turn before start walking. NewYorkers are best at finding the shortest possible route to their destination. And I dont blame them. It is pace of life they experience.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Actually in this town. . .MOST of the buttons work.
I was shocked, even the buttons at the court house work.
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
The Slashdot "Submit Story" button is also just a placebo. "We just post what we want, and we put some user's name on them, " says Malda.
Computer-controlled traffic lights work a lot better than the old-fashioned timed system. (well, unless the detector screws up, but that's rare) So allowing people to interrupt the sequence would do little good. At the same time, you don't want people standing on one of those 700 crosswalks which will never volunteer a "walk" sign for ages.
So, to make sure that the people use the button in the places they need to, it's easier to leave the buttons on all the intersections. Otherwise, people might not think to use the button when it's necessary, at least not without a lot of time and prompting.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
I'm from the UK, and went on holiday to Boston in the summer - It didn't seem like the buttons there worked, and most people crossed the street anyway, even though I saw a few times an accident nearly happened because of this.
:-)
This idea seems like it should cause a lot of accidents, but maybe the traffic is regulated well enough, I don't know.
In the UK, we are so used to pressing the buttons, and most people will not cross without waiting for the lights to change. This seems to be completely different to the way things happen in Boston. By the end of our holiday, I was getting bored of waiting, and took the Bostonian approach to crossing the road - don't bother with the buttons - to the disgust of my mum
Is it only for computerized traffic lights? That would explain why all the buttons work where I live.
"same reason why people press the elevator button more than once.
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.
...Flava Flav's Pedestrian Crosswalk Buttons Are A Joke! clued us in on this fact quite a few years back.
My entire life has been a lie!
i've seen much people even pushing the "down" AND the "up" button on elevators when they want do go up OR down, because: "then it comes faster" ... most of them are to stupid to realise that they just make it stop twice (and taking longer). ...
everytime i see someone whos doing that i want to punch him
Actually, lots of traffic signals here in Germany have touch-sensitive Buttons, which can't really be pressed. You just touch them and they notice the change in temperature.
Since you don't get any feedback, it doesn't really satisfy and I'm always left with the feeling that it didn't register the request at all.
Fleur de Sel
cars 1
Cars win another round. Why is it w/ all of this technology, and intercomunication that we still give more rights to a person wrapped in metal (ie a car), than a mere mortal walking across the street.
The article didn't talk about the fact that by having a button by the crosswalk, people are more likely to walk to the button first before crossing the road. This has the potential advantage of reducing J walking. (crossing the street illegaly)
Funny, then, that I was just reading this article on a placebo switch that inexplicably worked!
http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/magic-story.html
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
The real reason is that almost all NYC traffic lights are on a timer anyway. Unlike most areas of the country that have on-demand lights that are sensitive to traffic and keep green for the major roadway, if you wait a minute the light will change anyway. So why interrupt the rare possible synchronized goodness on a Manhattan avenue for the impatient pedestrian?
The downside to this timer approach is that you often wait for nobody at red lights at 3am. Stooopid lazy NYC planners.
Either that or the trigger antennas that they would need to place under the roadway can't take the winter punishment.
--dv
Insert witty saying or aphorism here.
Which is the point, of course. People do feel better if they think they've "done something" about any problem - even one as trivial as opening the currently-closed door. Passively waiting for something to happen doesn't come easily to many of us...
:-) In fact, it's more likely that the time-of-last-press is one of the inputs to the algorithm, with earlier presses having a priority. So the more you press, the less chance you have of getting a busy lift :-))
What I find odd are those who hit the 'summon elevator' button more than once - A lift algorithm isn't going to take into account the number of times you press, and I doubt the buttons are pressure-sensitive
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Carrie: "Life... I started thinking about Paris, and how love AAHGHHHRGHH!!!"
-- taxi cab grinds Carrie into the asphalt, and the credits begin to roll ---
Yes, my girl friend made me watch that damn show for an entire year. The demise of that vile, high-priced sitcom has filled me with a joy not felt since childhood.
There was something like that in a Kurt Vonnegut novel whose title has slipped my mind. Something about an automated spaceship with only two controls: a START button, and a STOP button (the latter isn't connected to anything.) The point being that humans feel better when they think they have control over their fate.
Actually, it's probably a moot point - I've never met a New Yorker who actually waits for the light.
At some intersections in Toronto, not only does the walk button work, but unless it's pressed, the walk signal never lights up. (Kind of a pain when the button isn't right at the corner and has a lot of snow around it.) It would be nice if they'd mark the "Cars Prefered" crossings to let people know.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I was once in a rather rocky relationship with a girl which ended when I told her not to bother pressing the button.
"It doesn't do anything, these juntions are automated."
"That is exactly the kind of cynical attitude I'm absolutely fed up with. You have no faith in anything."
She stomped off across the road like an enraged frogger, dodging the still flowing traffic.
So after all this time of repeatedly pushing the reload button, I wasn't gaining mod points? It just had to with the content of my post?
Bastards....
Crosswalk buttons are just a signal to drivers that a person is planning to cross the street. In big, pedestrian cities like New York, you don't need the buttons because there's almost always someone waiting to cross the street, and drivers know this. In my life, the only place I've made a point to use the buttons is in the suburban area where I live now, because a person standing on a streetcorner may or may not be waiting to cross the street, and the drivers are really bad at yielding to pedestrians.
I could kill you, sure, but I could only make you cry with these words
A guy I know was in charge of a medium-sized office. He was forever plagued by the women asking him to turn the thermostat up during the winter (the guys saying "turn it down, we're dying in here"). When the office was remodeled, he had a new thermostat installed in a closet, and had the old one unconnected. He put the biggest complainer "in charge" of that thermostat, and never had a problem since. True story.
One of the things I remember that I had to get used to when I went to Australia is that their buttons are the only way to get the signal telling you it is ok to walk.
While you can go at any time, cars have to stop when you have the walk and get impatient if you cross and do not have the blessing of the automated white hand.
-CPM
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
Finally the truth is out there. Now on to the big one... Area 51. Thanks folks.
won't change lights if you don't press it. However, I have noticed some interesting `features'.
If you press the button when there's no traffic nearby the lights go almost immediately. However, if the button is pressed when traffic is anywhere near the lights they wait for ages before changing. If you press it when traffic is near then the traffic moves away from the light it takes longer than when there's no traffic and I think it's shorter than when there's lots of traffic. So basically they don't change when I most need them to. I miss a lot of busses that way.
Can you get traffic light changers to make the pedestrian lights green?
There is an intersection in the outskirts of Helsinki, Finland, where the push button works even worse. This is an intersection between two pretty big roads with major traffic, and there's a standard traffic light cycle going from "green for road A" to "green for road B", etc. If you are a pedestrian walking in the direction of either road, you need to push the button, and will eventually get a green light at the same time as the drivers on the same road. Now, guess what: the only way the button affects the lights is that you get a green light the next time it's possible -- if you don't push the button, the cycle is exactly the same except that the pedestrian light is red all the time. So the button does nothing but you need to push it to cross legally.
I have always loved how crosswalk signs never give enough time to even get halfway across the intersection before turning to "Don't Walk."
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Stupid elevator.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
My wife is an orientation and mobility (O&M) instructor, teaching independent travel skills to the blind and visually impaired. A specific task is to teach them how to navigate through cities and make safe intersection crossings. This is the sort of thing that can make O&M people and their clients crazy: "When you reach this intersection, go to the right and find the pedestrian signal activation button. Not that it matters."
here in nyc, i don't think anybody thought those buttons worked for at least last 20 years. and that's about as far as my memory goes.
There was in town, until just a few years ago a fairly busy intersection that had a crosswalk and a very old button setup, it would when pressed within 5 or so seconds change the light, and would continue to as long as it was pressed, when we were kid we used to hold traffic up just for the fun of it, but at other times, you could time cars, press the button and watch them schreech to a halt.
That either traffic engineers are mismanaging traffic, or city councils can be talked into anything, or reporters are morons.
... "The city should also consider looking in audio crossing signals for the hearing impaired ..." Victor said. ..."
From the San Mateo article linked in the story:
"
What's next? Traffic lights for the blind?
Kind of like the United States voting system. Hell the entire interface between the people and the government. Corporations are the only entities that have access to the real buttons.
It's like Ctrl-Alt-Delete for the general public! ;)
...or voting...?
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
From the San Mateo Article:<br>
<br>
<i>"The city should also consider looking in audio crossing signals for the hearing impaired"</i><br>
<br>
Audio signals for the <u>hearing</u> impaired? Why not just say there is an audio signal? Audio signals for the hearing impaired can be just as useless as the button itself!
In my apt building (I live in NYC), the elevators are about 60 years old, and theres 3 of them. Each has their own 'personality', such as the left one which when opening makes a loud metal-on-metal screetch/bang, or the center elevator which ALWAYS gets off 1 floor below the one you hit and then thinks it has hit your floor so moves onto whatever anyone else has pressed. The right one is usually 'normal' except when it fails; id say on average each car fails 2 - 3 times a year. So yes, I hit the button a couple times, since these old-doddering elevators need to be reminded quite often of where you want them to take you.
On a seperate note, I've never seen anyone hit the traffic buttons, and the walk-signs are merely a formality; its not like people actually pay attention to them when walking across the street. Most NYC'ers use the following logic for crossing the street: Is there a car coming? If so, can I cross without getting hit? If its ok, walk.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
So you wind up having to get off the bike, walk to the pedestrian button, hit it, get back on, and wait. Given this, I wish everything worked like New York in this regard.
In fact, in the building where I work now, there are two banks of elevators: one for the lower half of the building and another for the upper half (plus ground floor). They all look identical, and so one would think they were. Not so. The lower ones are not only much slower, but also have ineffective Close Door buttons. What possible thinking could be behind this, I don't know.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
To press the pedestrian buttons as you walk past...
... I can't help it!
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Actually, according to the article, those buttons aren't taken down in an effort to SAVE money, not waste it. At one point in time they did work, but because of the changes in technology (i.e. changes for emergency vehicles) and traffic patterns, these buttons turned out to be more a hassle then a benefit. But at least they do provide a somewhat "placebo" effect; that is, I am more likely to stay put at that corner on the off-chance that it does work rather than hastily trying to cross against traffic, thereby jeopardizing myself and oncoming traffic.
Linux at home
Doesn't matter anymore. No one cares about the green, yellow or that red light. you see tourists pressing the button and miamians crossing whenever they feel like to.
From the San Mateo Article:
"The city should also consider looking in audio crossing signals for the hearing impaired"
Audio signals for the hearing impaired? Why not just say there is an audio signal? Audio signals for the hearing impaired can be just as useless as the button itself!
Everyone in New York knows this. Everyone in the area knows that they have a good chance of working in most places but they don't do anything in the city.
This is not news. This is "guide to New York for tourists from Idaho".
As long as SOME of them are still working, you need to push the damn thing anyway, unless you know for certain that your particular one is deactivated.
I lived in NYC for four years about six years ago, and I never even bothered to hit the button. All it did was expose me to tourist germs residing on the button. Everyone who lived there knew that they didn't work.
However, there is a big psychological component, and I've even found myself jamming on the button in frustration, mostly to have something to do (it's more socially acceptable than punching the guy standing next to you). Very similar to hitting the door close button on most elevators, or pulling onto the sensor pads at intersections during rush hour. Whether you like it or not, you are being ignored all the time...
Shouldn't that be preceding?
In Nanaimo, BC, Canada, the crosswalk buttons work... kinda.
Except for crosswalks (where there is no cross street), all the buttons do is turn on the walk signal when the light turns green. They don't change the timing any. Thanks a lot, public works, I could've figured it out myself.
To make matters more interesting, one of the crosswalks takes so long to change that whoever pressed the button has usually jaywalked by the time it changes.
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?
MoFscker
Some just give "walk" with every cycle (usually these have no buttons), others will never give you a "walk" unless you press the button.
However, it's no mystery why the buttons that do nothing never get discovered. To find out, you'd have watch without pressing (and keeping anyone else from pressing as well) for a complete cycle to see if it gives "walk" anyway. Meanwhile, you're clearly trying to get somewhere (why else wait at a crosswalk?) -- who has the time? Who wants to take the chance? Just press the button already! You're waiting for the signal, you got sup'm better to do?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
So let me get this straight, there is a collection of buttons around New York city that are not connected to anything, and are waiting for some enterprising geek to hack into something useful... What are we waiting for??
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Depending on your cpu you most probably won't be able to run at one or the other.
The speed of the ram though isn't an exact - it's just what it's guaranteed to do. Your pc100 (if it's reasonable quality) may well run at 133. On the other hand, your pc133 will almost certainly be fine on a 100mhz bus.
If it DOES come down to a choice, I'd go with the 256@133fsb.
What did I get? Years of mockery and ridicule. Well HA! SEE? I'M NOT PARANOID!!! ALL OF YOU, YOU ALWAYS THOUGHT I WAS PARANOID BUT I'M NOT!!! YOU THINK I'M CRAZY DON'T YOU? ANSWER ME DAMM...
...but jokes aside, I just want to say, "I told you so"
There's actually a sniglet for the act of pressing an elevator button more than once: electrodigitation.
The buttons on the deer xing signs in Wisconsin are like that too.
Where I live (college town), we have audio crossing signals for the blind. They are actually kinda nice, as you don't have to stare stupidly at the signal waiting for it to change. You can just chill and wait for the shrill beeping instead...
As far as their intended use, I've never seen a blind person crossing the street alone..
MilesTeg
What follows is the chirping meant to allow the blind to find their way across.
Every day, I hear that damned thing chirping away, with not a blind person for 100km. Some asshat has pushed the button anyway, hoping it will work. Apparently they can't read.
What I want to know, is how is a blind person supposed to read the sign, let alone find the button.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
In England, we have these gutless pedestrian crossings which are too scared to stop traffic if they detect cars approaching, so they wait until there's no traffic around and only then activate the pedestrian sequence.
:p
Cowardly brits!
In Paris, many pedestrians seems to think it's shameful to cross if there are not cars coming from both directions, the faster the better!
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
This is BTW, why so many lemmings get hit by motorbikes in London. "Hmm, yes the cars are stopped so all the traffic must be stopped". You can almost see the realisation of just how wrong they are dawning as quarter of a tonne of pointy steel barrels towards them up on it's front wheel.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
It's official, there is no more news in the world. Traffic button status...come on! There has got to be something more interesting then that...
Then again (clicks links to story)
The real litigious bastards...
Where does this story fit into either of the requisite categorys "new for nerds" and, indeed, "stuff that matter"?
Martin Brooks / Slayer99 #linux / UIN 2178117
Anyone who lives in the NY/NJ area already knows that the buttons don't do anything. An interesting side effect is that people from other parts of the country (especially the midwest), whether through disbelief or habit, use them anyway. Needless to say it drives people like me bonkers.
Don't even get my started on "Walk/Don't Walk" signs. It took me a year to convince my Idaho friend that yes they don't work correctly and no it's never going to get fixed, so for the love of God just cross the street and stop standing on the corner like an idiot.
*Almost*all* the crosswalks in NYC sport buttons. Almost none of them work (I haven't actually tested most of them though), because you can tell that the time that it takes for a WALK to show doesn't change when you press the button or don't. (As I stated in a previous reply to this story,) almost all traffic lights in NYC are timed and don't vary based on traffic conditions, like other areas of the country. They may vary based on time of day and even day of week, but I do an awful lot of stopping for nobody at red lights when I drive at 2 AM.
--dv
Insert witty saying or aphorism here.
Cecil Adams has the Straight Dope on what these things do when they work.
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.
The countdown helps you drive as well -- you can see if there's any chance at all you'll make it before the red, or if you can just relax. This alleviates the normal situation: extra acceleration while saying "stay green, stay green" only to be cut off with an extra-hard braking maneuver while saying "awww!".
Also, I believe the beeps are to assist the blind.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Southern Lunar Colony?
I'm not sure you're hear the beeping.
Many of these buttons around the country still work, and it has little to do with computer control. The difference is whether the signal is actuated by traffic, or is nonactuated. Signal coordinated with their neighbors to move bands of traffic along a corridor without stopping are running in a (mostly) nonactuated mode along the main street. Some schemes for central control of the timing depend on causing the pedestrian signals to operate every time. Isolated signals, however, probably will not give you a WALK indication unless you push the button. Signals using more modern coordination schemes do not require the pedestrian signals to cycle continuously. It is configurable. The remark about computer-controlled traffic signals means little, as coordinated signal systems predated the use of computers in traffic control, and these systems depended on the pedestrian cycle for timing. Computers just make the whole system more efficient by allowing for more or less real-time feedback.
"Philistine."
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
...and this is news? Thank you Capt. Obvious.
Intelligence is like four wheel drive, having it just means you'll get stuck in more remote places.
and obiviously it doesn't matter!
I've actually found a similar trick that does work. Sometimes a connection will stall and hold up the whole works. Refesh will unlock that and redraw the screen, sometimes is seconds (after waiting minutes). The problem is, that if it stalled because the server is slow, reload drops the cache and can make things worse. I just click on the URL window and hit enter. That closes all the connections and restarts with whatever didn't complete. It works.
It will also select a server randomly on a load-balancing system. If you were on one that had gotten hung or slowed by large downloads, you're likely to hit a different one the next time.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In Cleveland, a large number of crossing signals are synchronized with the stoplights, which are timed, and there's no walk button at all. I know of at least one walk button, however, whose behavior is rather strange: If someone pushes the button, then a period of time goes by, the light changes, and the walk sign illuminates. If nobody pushes the button, then eventually the light will change, but the don't walk sign stays lit. Evidently, you're jaywalking unless you push the button, even if the light changes to be in your favor!
On a related note, ever notice how the "door close" button in most elevators does absolutely nothing? The button in the elevator where I work actually does function properly, letting you send yourself on your way about 6 seconds more quickly than without. If you're standing right by the panel, but you don't push the button - which everyone in the building knows will get you there sooner - everyone else starts shifting around uncomfortably, waiting for you to hurry up and push it. (I've actually seen one professor push the door open in an effort to squeeze another 15ms or so out of it!) But in the next building over, you can pound on the button, hold it in, kick it, or whatever, and the door doesn't close any faster than usual.
A friend from Vermont came to visit last week. When he heard the signal chirping, he asked me what it was for. I expained that the signal chirps so that blind people will know when the signal changes. He said, "Wow, that's awfully odd. In Vermont, we don't let blind people drive!"
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
I have been a New York City resident for 36 years, and I have NEVER seen any of them work. We call them 'placebo buttons', and I'm actually surprised when I travel to someplace where they do work.
I had for years misunderstood just what cross walk buttons do until I actually worked in traffic engineering. Pedestrian buttons essentially do the same thing for pedestrian cross-walks that the in-road detectors do for automobiles: they tell the local traffic light controller that there is a pedestrian waiting to use the cross walk and that the pedestrian phase in the traffic signals timing plan should be used during the next cycle.
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.
Quote from the San Mateo article: "The city should also consider looking in audio crossing signals for the hearing impaired" Gonna be a lot of deaf people waiting around on street corners to hear that magical chime....
This isn't really news. When I was in highschool (over 10 years ago) we refered to the crosswalk buttons as "Idiot buttons", because they didn't actually do anything, and you look like an idiot pushing a button instead of just waiting for the light to change.
"same reason why people press the elevator button more than once.
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-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I think that in most places it's been this way for a good long while, heck in th erinky dink town that I lived in the buttons haven't worked since the early 1990s (don't really know what they were like in the 80s). I've never really noticed that pushing that button causes anything to happen in regards to traffic.
In Glasgow people seem to be used to the fact that you don't need to press the button. So much so that when it comes to a crossing where you do have to push the button, people just ignore it and will watch the stream of traffic go past them for 5 minutes. Great fun to watch.
That's funny, the same thing happens to me when I try to CTRL-ALT-DEL with Windows... There must be a connection!
I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.
There are a hell of a lot more people then cars on those streets and if there is to be traffic balance... one must be forced into conformity for the greater good of traffic. Vehicle traffic would be at a horrible standstill if you have pedestrians controlling traffic like that... think of the commerce that would be slowed in a city like that.. eesh.. thank god my TOWN consists of no more then 5-6 traffic lights total..
- Jimbob
The truth can finally be told: those buttons aren't for speeding up a light change, they're for slowing down tourists. Otherwise, we'd need zambonies cruising the avenues, scraping midwestern roadkill out of the way of productive citizens. Everyone knows that in NYC you don't change things with a pushbutton - you argue at the top of your lungs, or throw money around to confuse the opposition. Now you know why your wallet is missing after a midtown sightseeing walk: the pickpockets get their cut while you gawk upwards at the skyscrapers, as you lean on the buttons waiting for the light to change. Think of it as a toll.
If you can't jaywalk like an Olympian, stay out of the street. Take a nice cab, and remember to tip at least 20% for the man who's saving your life with every lane change. Now go home where it's safe.
--
make install -not war
where I live, I have a lot of time (in fact, each time I'm pedestrian) the urge to make sticker to replace "Pedestrian, press to cross" with the much more true "Pedestrian, press if you have time to lose, it will give you an occupation"
Everybody knew this implicitly. I lived in NYC for many years I have never seen anyone other then maybe kids playing around with one of those things. Anyone who pushes one will see nothing happens.
in India and (?!) Quebec: countdown timers. It's not as psycho as it first sounds. People don't race to beat the timer. It just chills. everyone. out.
In India they're for the cars. No more edging through reds because you don't know when the frig it's gonna change and you wonder if you're hitting the sensor. No, right there in front of you, 15, 14, 13, 12. So also, you can get that thing out of your glove compartment, there's time. Or take a sip of that drink, bite of that sandwich. No surprises. Numbers in red for stops and in white or green for time till the next stop. You still get the yellow, so people don't race -- they have more time to gradually increase speed if they want to make it through.
In Quebec, it's for the pedestrians. Not nearly as useful IMHO. Cars can look crosswise to see how much time the pedestrians have left, but it's aimed at the pedestrians, to tell them how much time they've got. Doesn't stop people from wandering across with no time left, I've noticed.
The Indian version is the best thing I've seen. Cuts out all of the guesswork and most of the tension and cause for accidents at intersections. Genius. Of course, they're only at super busy intersections.
They also have the #2 best thing I've seen. Across the red lense of traffic lights at the busiest intersections is printed the capitals R E L A X. No foolin.
"Where I live (college town), we have audio crossing signals for the blind. They are actually kinda nice, as you don't have to stare stupidly at the signal waiting for it to change. You can just chill and wait for the shrill beeping instead... "
Of course you do. We have them too (city of 220K; damn near every one is audio aided; you have to go out to the 'burbs to find some that aren't). But it's audio for the blind and lights for the deaf. The reporter quotes a traffic engineer who wants to spend money on audio for the deaf.
The State Farm Danger Index is determined by the number of crashes at various intersections, how many of those crashes involved injury and the severity of those crashes. It is adjusted to account for the percentage of vehicles insured by State Farm in areas where the intersections are located.
I would surmise there are hundreds if not thousands of intersections in the US that could qualify as the "most dangerous in the country". The intersections in this Top Ten List simply indicate which geographic areas State Farm is dominating.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
that's referred to as a "job."
You can be an amateur and still get paid.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The Close Door buttons actually work.
So do pedestrian crossing buttons which after they take effect you are serenaded with some old Japanese tune (Animatrix) or the sounds of tweeting.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Stray voltage
What, no-one has blamed it on Microsoft yet? =P
...
Anti-"M$" sure aren't as passionate as they used to be
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
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.
So that means George Bush is a Professional President?
After observing the crosswalk for several days and analyzing the pedestrian count, the traffic count, the timing of the lights, and the number of times cars "ran the light", the students determined that your odds of getting hit by a car were less if you crossed at random than if you waited for a "walk" sign.
As with most urban legends, I doubt the validity of the story but it did make for entertaining conversation while waiting for the light.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Well, yes, actually.
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.
There are non-standard citizens like the Japanese immigrants during the WWII and the muslims today.
I feel bad for you, because not only were you not fp, but you're buried under about 80 other posts and just look really retarded. Aww. Sucks to be you.
I live in Orleans, France. A few months ago, I was wandering around downtown, waiting for a light. I looked for a button to hit, because even if it's a placebo, not all of them are, and you never know. Certain intersections can be really annoying to cross if you don't hit the button. I found this odd black box attached to the pole, and found a button on the bottom. Strange, I thought, that it would be on the bottom. Oh well. I pushed it. "You are on the corner of X St. and Y. St.," the voice said. "Ahead is the...." The thing was giving me directions! It wasn't a crosswalk button, but a button for assistance for the blind. "It is now safe to cross." Gah. And I wasn't even alone on the sidewalk at this point, with this thing blaring away at me and everybody wondering why I needed it.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I've never understood these things. When I was a kid, in the pre-button 1960's, the Walk signs just turned on when the traffic light turned green, regardless of whether anybody was standing there. With the buttons, the Walk sign turns on when someone is there and doesn't turn on when no one is there, but other than that I don't see the difference. Why the extra hardware?
They may not do anything now, but it seems a great opportunity for emotive computing. Emotive computing tries to tailor the behavior of the system to the emotions of the user. If a computer detects many, random, frustrated key presses or an automatic phone system detects angry yells, it will respond accordingly by asking if the user wants to abort the current program or dropping the angry caller into discussion with a real person(tm). As pedestrians press the button more feverishly, they become more likely to jaywalk, causing risk to themselves and others. It would be in the best interest of safety to increase the priority of the pedestrian walk signal at that point.
I was born in '65 in NYC and lived there for 30 years, and I can't remember one of those pedestrian buttons ever working.
Anyway, as an Eastern European in a Western country, I was waiting for the light to change to red for a couple of minutes. It didn't. As there was no car and nobody around, I crossed the street and noticed the button on the other side.
D'oh! <slaping hand on forehead>
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
I always assumed that vehicular traffic was more important than pedestrian, so why allow one walker stop the flow of traffic.
5. Tulsa, Okla. 51st Street and Memorial Drive 2000
6. Tulsa, Okla. 71st Street and Memorial Drive 1995
WOOHOO in your face NYC! Um, wait. I dont think this is something to brag about.
You mean I don't need to double-click the elevator button???
I hate inconsistent user interfaces between different devices!
Nice try, coward.
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.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
There is a simple reason that I press the elevator button when I enter the elevator, even if it's pressed or not. This comes from the simple fact that the elevator closes it's doors faster when I press it.
Unfortunately there's no consistency on the underground's buttons - in the lifts you actually have to press the button inside the car to make it move (the doors will merrily close though - leaving you with an unexpected non-accelleration.)
This is just picking nits, I suppose...
In Minneapolis, most newer signals don't have push buttons (which can be aggravating when there's little traffic), but they will always light up the "walk" sign. However, most older ones which have the push buttons will not light the "walk" sign unless the button was pushed. Usually, this isn't an issue, since people will just walk when the light is green, but certain problems come up.
Pedestrians wishing to cross at "T" intersections that are coming from the top of the T to one of the other corners can get stuck at a "don't walk" sign without being able to see if the traffic light is green or not. Also, there can be problems at intersections with left-turn arrows, since pedestrians get into the habit of going against "don't walk" signs when they see green. In this case they can end up walking right into the path of turning cars. Obviously, people paying attention will either wait or at least make sure no cars have their turn signals on, but I think even people accustomed to such intersections let their minds drift from time to time.
Of course, I think most road and building designers just make awful decisions regarding pedestrians most of the time anyway. I'm sure many college students have cursed their campus's architects since buildings often tend to lie right in the path you want to go. I suppose it's not a big deal in many cases, but some of these buildings are very large and can require quite an excursion to go around. Often, I suppose security is considered to be a big overriding issue, but sometimes things just get to be silly. At least one dorm at the University of Minnesota requires some students to walk about two city blocks inside to get from their rooms to the front doorall other doors are alarmed fire exits. I'm all for promoting exercise, but that's kind of ridiculous, in my opinion.
Bah, I'm wandering off-topic now...
Interesting.... I've always looked fairly carefully at the gas pumps because I drive a turbocharged car that pretty much requires premium (92 or 93 octane) gas. Otherwise, not only will it perform poorly, but it runs a risk of spark knock destroying the engine. (Turbos in cars act like artificially increased compression ratios in engines, at least during the time they're actually spooled up and producing "boost". Therefore, you have to run high enough octane fuel to deal with the engine when the turbo is spooled up - not just what it requires when not under much acceleration.)
I haven't yet seen a pump marked "premium unleaded" that wasn't labeled with a higher octane rating than the pump just marked "unleaded" next to it. I have, however, seen a few stations that don't offer 93 or even 92 octane gas anymore. They simply offer 87 and 89 (the later of which used to be "mid grade").
They HAVE Crosswalk buttons in NYC? Surely there are just for the tourists. I've never used on here, no point, just look for your chance and go.
I KNEW IT! -eom
I noticed a big difference between Winnipeg and Vancouver when I was out on the Wet Coast last month. Those flashing greens are just plain confusing - I'm glad I wasn't driving! Have to agree on the pedestrian corridors in the 'Peg, though, they're great. My Driver Ed. teacher made a point of teaching us to scan both sidewalks when we approached on, just to check whether someone was getting ready to push the button.
I was in the UK about three months ago, and the most disconcerting thing for me was the fact that vehicles apparently don't have to cede right-of-way to pedestrians at stop signs or uncontrolled intersections. I almost got run down in Liverpool. I was walking along the sidewalk on street A, Buddy stopped his van at the stop sign where side street B ran into street A, I stepped out to cross street B. Buddy didn't like it much and chewed me out proper. Sign me up as another ignorant Canuck abroad, I guess.
Dandelion Wine, hmmm? Like the band? I must know you...
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
In Belgium, I've noticed some pedestrian crossings to be equiped with optical sensors.
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.
42 + 1 = 42
Where disease transmission vectors are concerned, a walk button is rather dangerous. Everyone who comes to the intersection pushes... some just in case the others forgot, others because there's a belief that the computer monitors and responds to the number of pedestrians.
So as many as forty people hit the same tiny area within a short period of time, then stand about waiting for the light to change. While waiting, they probably relax by rubbing their faces, as people do.
Bad, bad news. It begs for an epidemiological grad thesis... how many fewer colds might there be for the minor price tag of $1 million to remove the buttons?
Maybe they could save on that price tag by, instead of removing the buttons and filling in the hole in the post, instead changing the signs to read "Do not press button."
There ought to be more do not press buttons in life... and eventually people would be tired of pushing it just to see what happens.
OK, I've understood the rules of pedestrian crossings for a while. (I just got the Highway Code from the bookshelf to refresh.) I have allways been puzzled by the names of the crossings (Pelican, Puffin, Toucan, Zebra) :-D
And reading that site has just DECREASED MY IQ by at least 10 points.
Pedestrian User Friendly INtelligent Crossings? Time for valium
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Recently in Hong Kong, the government installed strange black and yellow machines at the crosswalks.
They look like bathroom soap dispensers, but they're made by either Siemens or Philips. As far as I can tell there's no button on it, but on the front plate, there's a three pronged symbol (reminds me of the biohazard symbol, except the circles are further apart).
These strange machines are replacing the traditional buttons, but I can't figure out how they work. Perhaps some sort of motion detection?
Tinfoil raving: With the recent introduction of smartcard versions of the mandatory ID cards, and the recent public dissatisfaction towards the government, perhaps the government is looking for a way to keep tabs on its citizens. All the more plausible because almost all citizens carry three important things: their ID card, a cell phone, and an RFID stored-value card (used for public transport, convenience store purchases, etc.). Add to that the fact that Chinese people don't mind being drones under the man, as long as they have the right to make money, and I can totally see this happening in 10 years.
You're a dipshit
Stop it before I burst into tears.
Ironically, if you weren't in such a hurry to post that snarky reply, you might have noticed the entire definition that I posted... It's the identical link you are referencing.
Go home kid... come back when you can argue without sounding like a preschooler.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
On 1st St. in Union City, NJ is a horrible horrible 4 way intersection that's absolute madness for anyone trying to navigate it. The crosswalk buttons will either make a 4-way red light for 15 seconds or cycle who gets a green light. It does this immediately, so it's always gratifying to know that my dinky home town kicks more ass than NYC.
[o]_O
I grew up in Brooklyn and discovered at an early age that pressing the buttons didn't actually accomplish anything (beside the excitement of pressing it). So this 'news' is a bit discerning.
:)
I also remember being in California for the first time standing next to someone pressing the crosswalk button, thinking to myself "what a schmuck"! But low and behold, the button worked! I didn't walk across at that point. Feeling the need to test it myself, I patiently waited for the light to turn red.
The URL in the story is the placebo since no one actually RTFAs anyway...
I spend about 5-10 days a month in NYC, and I didnt even know they had any pushbuttons at all.
NYC is a heavy foottraffic city, so you never have to wait very long at all for a walk signal, I wouldnt even bother pushing one were it there.
Just because the pushbuttons dont work doesnt mean the walk signals dont - they work great IMHO - its my favorite city to walk in (Paris close second)...
I think the real reason many people double-press elevator buttons is that many are poorly lighted and don't give a good indication that that have been pressed.
However, I wish that double pressing an elevtor button *would* have a function -- "disabling" the stop at that floor.
In our building and I'm sure others, a couple of elevators go to "mystery" floors and hence have more buttons than others, which means that the "user interface" is non-standard across all elevators. Which means that people tend to automatically push the button at grid position x,y where their floor normally is -- leading to frequent empty stops and slow elevator rides.
A way to unselect a floor would be great and would lead to faster elevator rides and no more empty stops.
Email adresses on websites must be placebo's too. In any case, i don't get an answer when i send mail to them.
On Queens Boulevard there are some better signs.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
I have this completely unsubstantiated theory about elevator controllers:
The programmer put a back-door into the software. Tap the button with the right rhythm, no doubt his favorite applicable song, and the elevator comes immediately to that floor.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
...Is that once you're inside, Holding the button down of the floor you want to go to, will take you there WITHOUT STOPPING!!!!
I learned about this in a hospital, of all places, but have learned since, that all elevator controller electronics are set this way by default!!!
This explains all the times you see the elevator go by your floor without stopping; Someone knows how to hack the system better than you.
I've never tried holding the call button forever; people look at you so weird when you do that... But it could work in theory.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Huh, that's funny. Yeah, Dandelion Wine is a folk/filk band in Winnipeg, and I know all the members (being a folkie musician myself). I was trying to figure which one you might be... Goes to show how wrong you can be. Cheers!
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Strange that it's also 15 seconds here in Santa Monica.
Not that I think human beings are any different in another city, but I'd expect social engineers to finagle some extra consulting work for this --
Oh well, time to aerate the web server. Then, rotate the SSL certificates. Then, fill out and mail invoices.
So I am at the Chicago Auto Show with my impatient nephews and they push the call button on the parking garage elevator a couple of times. This maintenance dude says, "Hey don't do that. It confuses the elevator. I've had to fix the elevator three times today from people pushing the button more than once."
Got a good chuckle out of that one.
This seems like a good idea, but NYC is not the whole world -- and if traffic lights in *some* cities are button operated and *some* automatic, it just creates a difficult situation for everyone.
May we never see th
I'm sorry, what doesn't work? I was too busy pressing this button.
*click click click click click*
At the corner near my apartment, the light has one on these... If you press it, it eventually turns the lights red in all 4 directions for about 20 seconds. But the Walk light doesn't come on! They recently replaced the aging pushbutton with a touch sensor. But they didn't fix the walk light!
Trees everywhere, and not a forest in sight.
The lift in my apartment building often goes straight past my floor and cancels the request. The first couple of times, I thought I was daydreaming and had forgotten to call it. It does it when I'm inside the lift too, it can be quite confusing to get into a lift on ground, feel it move, then find yourself on ground again when it stops. I usually take the stairs now.
Why should there be no way to register a walker is waiting when the traffic isn't always busy enough? I like the suggestion of the second story that they are reconnecting the buttons for people like me that walk at night. I don't think buttons should override the traffic control system but they should be taken into account. It's hard enough walking with so many drivers not even bothering to look for crossing pedestrians. I'm hit by cars all the time. No serious injuries yet but I frequently hear of walkers or bikers killed by careless drivers.
Of course if it was up to me I'd outlaw driving inside the city for non-emergency and non-delivery vehicles. Let people walk, bike, or take public transit. It'd make the city cleaner, people healthier, and increase business for small shops and street venders (not to mention for taxi services, limo services, buses, trains, etc). Probably what I'd actually do is charge tolls frequently (at every intersection with lights?) along the streets for people who didn't have a business pass. So people could still own cars for use of driving outside the city or for their own emergency use.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
t's so much more exciting than just a 'walk' sign...
If ya ask me, I say it's for the boids!
Now that explains an awful lot of linux desktops...
sig under development
You know that ticking sound the cross-walks make all the time? In Stockholm (and probably in other major cities also) the volume of the sound is controlled by the sound of the surroundings. So if there is a alot of noise (like heavy traffic), the ticking is quite loud. This has created a sort of challange. You stand beside the pole and scream as loud as you possibly can right. The one who can raise the volume of the tickings win..
On the day I moved into university residence, the only to get a spot on the elevator while heading up from the first floor was to board the car on its way down. If you let it get to the basement, it filled up completely and you couldn't get in when it came back up to 1 on its way up.
If you live in San Franciso and are interested in Pedestrian issues (such as stopping sidewalk parking, better crosswalks, getting pedestrian accidents treated more seriously) check out "Walk San Francisco" at walksf.org
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
This whole discussion has developed a life of its own... it's interesting that so many people freely apply and so ardently defend the use of "professional" and "profession." The historical and sociological context behind the term makes for a thought-provoking read.
This has truly been an interesting discussion, particularly if you look at this issue from a (somewhat outdated) historical sense... meaning the late renaissance definition of profession, referring particularly to the ancient professions of divinity, law, and medicine (and sometimes soldiery). The evolution of that term progressed in the 19th century, to the point that it now includes engineers, architects, teachers (the "teaching profession") etc (and cab drivers, apparently)... but the classical professions were the original prototype.
Sociologist Geoffrey Millerson wrote a classic book on the topic in the mid-sixties, where he layed out the requirements in his formal definition of "profession": (keep in mind that for some professions, these things go back to antiquity)
Skill based on theoretical knowledge
Required training and education
Competence demonstrated by testing
Ethical code of conduct
Altruistic goals
Professional organization
Some of this formal sociological definition has survived, and can be noted in Webster's definition of profession... but note how much it has broadened... it's tremendous... we're now to the point that many consider anyone who does something for pay as a "professional" in that field.
As a member of one of the previously mentioned "classical professions," it's fascinating to me to watch the evolution of the term.
Thanks to everyone who posted for the interesting thread.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
At work, they moved my group into a new building a couple months ago. We're a lot more crowded than we used to be (better communication, dontcha know), but at least there's one improvement. The "Close Door" buttons in the elevators actually work!
I wrote much of the centralized traffic control and communications code for NYC's traffic control system back in the early nineties (a VME-based system using SVR4 UNIX and VxWorks running on 68030 processors which replaced the previous IBM system from the late '60-early'70s.) I recall a story that I heard when I was helping install the system. There was a community in NY complaining about needing to have a crosswalk signalized because people were having difficuly crossing the street. The traffic flow technically didn't require that a signal be installed, but it seemed that it would be politically expendient to do so, so a crosswalk signal was installed. There was evidently quite a bit of outrage when the citizens in the area dicovered it was a push-button activated crosswalk. You see, it turns out this was an Orthodox Jewish community - they couldn't push the button on the Sabbath (religous taboo, for those who don't understand) and thus had even more difficulty crossing to get to the synagogue. (I can't say for sure if the story was true, but it wouldn't be suprising if it was.)
But it's best to not use them, because 4-6 people are always determined to blow through the red light anyway.
Just run like hell across the street when you can. It's generally a lot safer.
This reminds me of splash screens in applications. Their only purpose is to distract the user while lengthy operations are in progress behind the scene. The work has to get done, whether or not the user has pretty pictures to look at, so why not?
Chip H.
I'm the original AC, for the record.
of course you are.
You should relax... it's good for you. Incidently, I have no problem with people who work fast food, but if you insist on taking that as an insult, then by all means, be insulted... it really doesn't matter to me. My statement was more intended as a commentary on the loosening use of the term "professional."
The original poster wrote: Of course not as many accidents are going to happen, they're pros.
Which to me implies a measure of skill... not whether they fit the legal definition of a profession. A subsequent poster (iabervon) made the point that getting paid is what defines a profession... and he's partially right... but that's also the definition of a job, and doesn't begin to tell the whole story behind profession, professionalism, etc. Websters dictionary is just the beginning...
Also, it's OK that you thread-jacked this discussion into a dictionary fest, because this is slashdot, and we can do that... but the original poster clearly implied professional as a measure of skill, not as a result of a paycheck. Of course job and profession are not mutually exclusive... but getting a paycheck qualifies you for either definition... and you're quite right that professional must not necessarily relate to skillfulness, but like it or not, that is the definition that started this thread.
As a professional myself, the term implies much more to me than simply getting paid... but that's a thread for another day.
Thanks for the interesting discussion.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
From the "other" article about San Bruno mentioned in the posting:
Ah, so in addition to buttons that don't work, we'll give the deaf audio signals they can't hear. Brilliant.
Planet Boulder has probably the most pedestrian friendly setups in all of the West till you hit Seattle.
The reflective signs throughout the downtown core that say "State law Yield to pedestrians." finally sink into the transplants after the 3rd time someone walks out in front of their car.
The I like to walk up and hit the flashing signals on Pearl just to make cars stop during rushhour.
I sure wish Denver had such good setup. Walking downtown is risky especially with the buses and taxis blocking most of the view of crosswalks. The bus may stop but the delivery trucks won't.
I've seen traffic lights where pushing the walk button caused the walk light to come on when the light turned green (in the direction you want to cross), and caused the light to stay green a little longer. but the button did nothing to cause the light to change to green, that was controlled by a sensor in the road detecting a car.
Put it another way, pressing the button has no effect on when the walk sign will light, it only assures that eventually it will light.
Solution: ride in the middle of the lane like you are legally allowed to, and the sensors will see you. And you get the added advantage that cars are no longer able to pass you with just inches to spare between you and their mirror, so they are forced to wait for an opening and pass in the other lane like legally they are supposed to.
Note that it is always best to ride on less busy side roads when ever possible.
Kinda like the "brightness" button on the TV set. (To paraphrase the old joke).
If there is in fact a joke here, I don't get it. On a TV set, "contrast" or "picture" adjusts the gain for the video signal, and "brightness" adjusts the black level. And the "loudness" button on a stereo does dynamic compression on the low and high frequency bands, boosting them during soft passages.
the hearing impaired couldn't do much with audio signals. "The city should also consider looking in audio crossing signals for the hearing impaired and signs that count down the number of seconds left to cross, Victor said."
by James Gleick, described here. A most excellent book. It has a chapter or two on this exact phenomenon, and some interesting facts about elevator design and placement in various kinds of office buildings and skyscrapers.
Also a chapter on the NTP network and the master clocks at the US Naval Observatory.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
This same behaviour can be seen in adults, who think making a throwing motion when pushing buttons on a tv remote control will make the signal go further.
Actually, I've observed this behavior in some remote control/TV pairs that are rather picky about straight alignment between the transmitter and receiver, where waving the remote a bit might make the alignment momentarily straight enough to make a keypress go through.
Wish our town would catch up to the 18th century! The light control system in out town is slightly ahead of what the flintstones had in Bedrock...but just barely! I actually met the guy who programmed the light system, he programmed it back in the eighties and it is still the same. I don't remember how many lines of code it was but it was a lot.
So we can be sitting at red lights set for heavy traffic when the other direction has no cars for miles and they have a green light. When that car from miles away gets close to the intersection, the light turns red. However the traffic light system is not bad when compared to how they design the intersections and the approaches to the intersections. Our road engineer must have gotten his degree off the back of a matchbook cover and hates playing simcity because he always loses.
I pushed the button and injured my finder for nothing?
When I was at uni in Plymouth there was (and still is) a very complex cross junction right outside the university. It appeared that it was entirely controlled by the push buttons for pedestrians presumably due to the high volume of pedestrians crossing the junction to get to uni. This was dispite the main route through the junction being what we brits quaintly call a dual carrageway (two lanes in each direction for the rest of you) and one of the main routes into the city center.
The really fun came if you were around the junction when traffic was really quiet. You would regulary see people jump out of their cars when they had been stuck on the main route at a red light, rush across the road, press one of the buttons to allow pedestrians to cross one of the side routes and rush back to their car knowing that by the time they got back the lights would have changed to let them drive off!
another Roadkill on the Information Superhighway
In Portland, Oregon, I'd say about half of the lights won't have the cross-street turn red at all unless you push. Others, the cross-street will turn red, but the crosswalk will stay 'Don't Walk', while only the vehicle traffic gets a green.
Then there are those corners where you know the cross-street will turn red sooner or later, and when it does, the walk will light up. Out of boredom one day, I went to one of those, timed how long the lights lasted if left alone, then tried pushing the button.
My result was that the main street would get a 5-minute green if undisturbed. If a car came on the cross-street, or someone pushed the walk button, it would change in about 30 seconds, although with a 90-second 'minimum-green' time. (So if I pushed the crosswalk button as soon as the main street turned green, it would wait 90 seconds to turn red. If I waited a minute or more, it would only wait 30 seconds.)
Yes, I was bored. (I was waiting for a ride home, and I knew the wait would be about an hour.) This was in high school.
A couple years later, again bored, I decided to perform my experiment at two more intersections. Both were the kind that had a main street one way, and a less-used cross street. Both would change red/green even with no traffic. One would give me a green faster if I pushed, the other didn't.
So, now, I push by default, unless I know for a fact that it doesn't help at that particular intersection. (Like downtown Portland, where there are very few buttons left, because the whole grid is computerized/timed like NYC.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I see you have never driven in Boston, or even Mass.
Actually, I've been in an elevator where pushing the button twice had an effect. I accidently pushed both the 6 and 7 buttons one time, then double clicked the 6 button, and it turned off. I thought that was a rather nice feature. It was a small enough elevator (max 5 people) that it's unlikely that someone would cancel out a floor another person wanted.
Having some real buttons and some dummies will cause annoyance and wasted time, people used to dummies will go somewhere else, where the buttons work, and waste precious minutes, even tens of minutes, waiting, until they finally figure it out.
However we have some very bad configurations here also. Not too far from home, a set of lights controlling the exit from a very minor road always defaults to red for the main road, and needs several cars arriving to actuate it, so in the middle of the night, in a residential area, vehicles are held for several minutes, emitting noise and pollution, wasting time. On the other hand, in the Netherlands, I have noticed that when there is no traffic the lights do not cycle at all, but remain in their default state, so on a major road at night, with no crossing traffic, you get greens for many miles, as you should.
Consistency nationally, if not internationally, would be a very good thing.
This is BTW, why so many lemmings get hit by motorbikes in London. "Hmm, yes the cars are stopped so all the traffic must be stopped". You can almost see the realisation of just how wrong they are dawning as quarter of a tonne of pointy steel barrels towards them up on it's front wheel.
Can't you just put Blockers at the intersection to keep them off the street?
Like what I said? You might like my music
Press those buttons? In New York City?
Have you any idea what kind of diseases you'll catch if you touch those surfaces (not to mention subway car straps and handrails) in this town?
... is whot bwings os tugevza tsuzay.
Do they just pick on the tourists, then? .
Well, I'm generalizing here but . .
Actually, yes.
The cabbies know full well that tourists are usually less rational and have less of a clue about what constitutes effective behavior then New Yorkers. Tourists *expect* frantic, rushed driving so some cabbies, in search of a better tip for their exceedingly dangerous jobs (higher mortaility then either cops or firefighters, IIRC) will give the customers what they want.
In fact, I've found that cabbies *slow down* and start making comments about the fare not being worth a ticket, let alone losing a shift, when they realize that I know what I'm talking about.
Btw, just for the record, I took an average of over ten cabs a week for several years, mostly in NYC, sometimes in nearby Jersey, and occasionally in DC, Boston, or Westchester and my experience is that NY cabbies (on average) get there faster, know more about what they're doing, and are more honest. But, then again, I've long made it a policy to know the general route, know the key pronunciations of major streets, and treat the cabbies as human beings no matter where I've been and it has been my sad experience that far too many tourists not only do none of the above but are quite openly racist and insulting ("do you speak English?") in their behavior as I have gotten to witness when sharing cabs from conventions or otherwise having to experience letting out-of-towners give the directions.
In short, having taken lots of cabs in, hmm, let me count 'em up, seven American cities and three or four suburban areas, I find New York cabbies to be the most professional and (barring Portland, OR) the most civilized in their behavior.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
...This isn't too hard or expensive of a job to move the stat. The wiring is simple and low voltage, just make sure the heater is switched off at the breaker.
There are several approaches:
Perhaps you can get into the attic above the hallway ?
Or, run the wire out the baseboard under the carpet, into the other baseboard and up to the new hole in the other wall.
A crawl space appraoch would save the baseboard drilling.
Run new wire from the new hole direct to the furnace and disconnect the old.
Or check this out - GO Wireless!
Goals for 2011: 1. Stop plate tectonics. 2. Prevent animal predation. 3. End supernovae now. 4. Rid the world of evil.
I've heard somewhere that the elevator door close buttons don't actually do *anything,* the door closes on it's normal timeout... but the button is just there to make impatient people feel they've accomplished something. ... don't know if they do work when firefighters have control of the elevator...
can anyone confirm this?
Go ahead and try it in NYC though, you'll only do it once, from then on whoever pushes your wheelchair for you will wait until the light changes.
Yeah, right.
You clearly are not a New Yorker. I've been crossing THROUGH midtown traffic for over twenty years and the only thing I ever ran into was a cake I stepped on while damn near jogging *backwards* through midtown to impress a girl (hey, I was fourteen).
Real New Yorkers do not wait for lights. We wait for gaps among the oncoming cars. Frogger indeed. Stand at any major intersection with several lanes (the corner of 96th and Amsterdam a block from here will do nicely) and you'll periodically see somebody, maybe even me, stride purposely between the cars in the middle of rush hour and then wait, standing on the yellow line as the cars, buses and trucks go rushing by two inches away, until a clear spot opens up to cross the rest of the way.
The rush feels good. Nothin' like regular literal brushes with death (as the wind from the passing trucks pulls my jacket taut) to keep me awake and aware.
Occasionally I'll be on a yellow line with several others who took the same risk, so we all have to squeeze onto the line until a space opens up in traffic or the light changes. Happens to me on East Houston on a regular basis. Gotta say that is one time that even I am not conversational.
But baby, if you can't handle the pace you should stay in the suburbs where you belong.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.