Has any traffic signal ever been paid less heed than this one? Technically it’s a pedestrian signal, whose purpose is to help those on foot avoid being killed by traffic. Like so much in life, the signals offer the viewer a stark, binary choice; a white silhouette of an ambling human figure means Walk; the […]
Has any traffic signal ever been paid less heed than this one?
Technically it’s a pedestrian signal, whose purpose is to help those on foot avoid being killed by traffic.
Like so much in life, the signals offer the viewer a stark, binary choice; a white silhouette of an ambling human figure means Walk; the red palm of an outstretched hand means Don’t Walk! There are no written words — the viewer needn’t read English, or read at all, to get the message.
Even given that, virtually no one pays them mind. Some of New Haven’s most overeducated denizens are often seen staring blankly at the signs while idling at a downtown intersection, frozen with indecision about what the sign means and what they should do: Walk? Or Don’t Walk! Then they invariably step out in the path of oncoming traffic.
If you are a New Haven taxpayer, you will not be comforted to learn that the Walk/Don’t Walk! signs cost $800 each (just to buy, not to install) — and that the city has some 1,000 of them in service (eight units per four-way intersection), according to the city’s director of traffic and parking, Douglas Hausladen. Complete traffic signage and infrastructure (stoplights, poles, wires) for a single city intersection runs about $440,000, he said.
