Re: Pedestrian signal design question

Phillip Christensen wrote:
Mike Tantillo wrote:
they use a solid white man, and a flashing orange/solid orange hand.
Someone who knows alot about MUTCD related stuff says that once
countdown pedestrian signals become more widespread, they may eliminate
the flashing hand, and have the man be lit up with the count down, and
when the countdown hits zero, the solid hand comes on. This way the
engineers won't have to use a "one size fits all" equation to determine
when to stop allowing new peds into the intersection, and will allow
people to make that choice on their own, based on the amount of time
left.

That's an interesting idea. Let the pedestrian determine if they'll
have enough time to clear the intersection.

I see pedestrians making that decision all the time anyway, crossing
even against the solid hand if there's no traffic coming anyway!

I love those new countdown timers. They replaced almost all of the old
ones downtown in my city, and have started to put them up and other
intersections around town. Its almost as helpful for the drivers as it
is for the pedestrians. When I'm driving, I can tell from a further
distance if I can clear the intersection or not before the red light.

I use them for that purpose too while driving.

Where did that idea originate anyway?

.

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