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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."
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.
They haven't worked in Chicago as long as I can remember. I long forgot about those buttons.
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
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
"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.
The loud beeping is for the blind you insinsitive clod.
quite so...the easiest way to pick out a tourist in the city is to watch to see if they stop before crossing the street. most of us just dodge between cars.
conversley, the easiest way to tell if someone in your city is actually from new york (or has spent a lot of time there) is to watch them jaywalk like nobody's buisiness.
filter: +3. Hey, look! all the trolls went away!
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
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".
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
I think the reason that there is even a "Door Close" button on elevators is for the firefighters to gain full control of the elevator.
If you notice in elevators (at least in the U.S.) there is a keyslot where you can switch the elevator from Normal to Off or Fire mode. In Fire mode, the elevator doors don't open until you press the door-open button and they don't close until you press the door-close button.
So, the door close button doesn't normally work, but it's there for a reason.
This is why you must look for the octane label, instead of just the word Premium. Mislabeling the octane of a gasoline for sale is a big time violation of the law.
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.
i've lived in a couple of places in my life: dallas, nashville, boston, ny. all i have to say is that the average ny driver is by far the best i've encountered anywhere.
Surprisingly enough, NY doesn't have any intersections listed in the top 10 most dangerous intersections list, compiled by State Farm.
That list is compiled based upon the dollar amount of State Farm insurance claims for those intersections. I imagine the fleet cabs and busses of NYC are largely self-insured by the operating companies and wouldn't show up as claims to State Farm or any other insurer.
State Farm offers monetary and consultative support to cities with intersections in their top 10 (and a lesser amount to those in their top 100 IIRC) to save themselves money.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
A perennial top 10 intersection is Highway 121 & Preston Road in Plano, TX. There are lots of expensive cars in that area; if everyone there drove 5-year old Hyundai's I doubt it would make the list. Either that or the nearby EDS campus is really a cover for an organized insurance fraud ring.
Generally, it's the law that it is a car. It's not pretending. It's also generally illegal to ride on the sidewalk - that's really dangerous to pedestrians.
See the Chicago Municipal Bicycle Code if you don't believe me.
The bicyclists on the road who are putting themselves in danger are the ones who don't follow all of the traffic signals like a car, or ride at night without a headlight and taillight.
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.
That was the incomparable "The Sirens of Titan". My attempt at a quote (although it's been 20 years).
"The spaceships were completely automated. Pressing the 'on' button caused the spaceship to take off, fly to it's prearranged landing point on Earth, and open the door. The 'off' button didn't do anything, but it was there to make people feel better."
It's a great book. *sigh* it's been more than 30 years, because I recall not understanding the part toward the end describing one of the statues made on Titan as having a "shocking erection". I had no idea what that meant...
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
"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
We got one of the clever ones nearby... for a week it was great... you pushed the button, and it saw you were actually there and stopped the traffic.. plus if you could cross before it automatically cancelled itself.
The next week they completely disabled the sensors and put it in 'don't stop traffic make the buggers wait' mode*, where it's stayed. Nice to know where my council tax is being wasted...
* This mode refuses to change to let pedestrians cross *even if there isn't any traffic for miles*, meaning you cross anyway, then 5-6 minutes later hear the beeps in the distance as it decides to turn red whilst there's nobody actually wanting to cross.
Actual quote:
The only controls available to those on board were two push-buttons on the center post of the cabin--one labeled on and one labeled off. The on button simply started a flight from Mars. The off button connected to nothing. It was installed at the insistence of the Martian mental-health experts, who said that human beings were always happier with machinery they thought they could turn off.
From T-Quote
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
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.
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.
In Manhattan, you're surrounded by people and cars ALL THE TIME, even at 4AM, and at any moment someone could step in front of your car and you could kill them instantly. As such, you drive *very* carefully.
;)
That may be true for the visiting tourist who might be taken aback by the sensory overload. But most New Yorkers eventually tune out alot of their surroundings.
Then there is the pressure of the New York buisness day. Everyday I see people trying to smoke/eat/use the phone/change CD's/apply makeup all while driving a moving three thousand pound projectile.
If I had a nickel for every accident I witnessed while my ambulance was parked at a major intersection because the offending driver did something incredibly stupid, I would have had several steak dinners by now.
The funniest thing is that sometimes, I notice right before the "accident", this stupid look on the drivers face --something between being in pain and being constipated-- that instinctively lets you know that they are aware that they're about to commit to something that will cause someone injury and property damage, but think they might get away with it anyway.
My 2 pet peeves:
1.Cab drivers that will stop anywhere, abruptly from any speed, and at all sorts of angle to pick up a fare.
2. People who follow me (light/sirens) down side streets, then when I have to block said street (to narrow for them to get by) they honk and yell as if I should go aroung the block to let them by. But hey, it's not their mom I'm going to treat.
It's actually a moving violation (as per the NYC VTL) to go down a side street when you see a parked ambulance with it's lights on, regardless if there is room for you to go by.
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.
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.)
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
In Calgary, the buttons are functional. The traffic control lights still change for cars automatically, but in many intersections you won't get a walk light unless you press the button.
Downtown, however, there are no buttons, the walk lights flash with the traffic.
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
engine knock is the result of premature fuel detonation. Higher octane fuel= harder to burn = eliminates detonation. Turbocharged vehicles have to use high octane fuel because compressing air raises its temperature thus raising intake temps and making it a very good environment for fuel burning before the valve closes completely.
it's not "good" on your motor but it certainly isn't going to cause it to spontaneously explode. just run like a geo metro.
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
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.