The secret button at pedestrian crossings

[mixmax]

A good friend of mine had an amazing experience showing what blind people are capable of. He overheard a middle aged man who had obviously been blind for a long time schooling a young girl who had recently gone blind on how to get around. They were standing on one side of the road in a quiet neighborhood, and the man was teaching the girl how to assess the distance across the road. The way he did this was absolutely incredible: tap the cane on the curb, and you can hear the echo from the curb and buildings across the road. With experience you can hear how far it is.

[RyanMcGreal]

A few years ago, Paul McCartney performed at the White House. Toward the end of "Hey Jude", where there were a lot of people up on stage singing the "Na na na na..." part, McCartney accidentally knocked over a mic stand while crossing the stage back to his piano. Stevie Wonder, who was standing nearby, shot his hand out and caught the falling mic stand.

Here's a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3OC_mKo2Fk#t=341s

[imjk]

There are some blind people who use echolocation to remarkable degrees. Take for example this boy who's able to rollerblade in the streets, bypassing moving vehicles using echolocation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QaCeosUmw.

[toki5]

There is (or was, at least) a group of blind mountain bikers who used echolocation to estimate obstacles in their path. I was floored when I read the article[1] about them; that ability always sounded like a superpower to me.

[1]: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sensory-superpowers/2009...

[jgrahamc]

Right after college I volunteered at a social centre in the UK for blind and partially sighted people. One elderly completely blind man used to like to play darts.

He was pretty good at it after a little initial steering and feedback.

[micampe]

Awesome related article that made the rounds a while ago http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/the-blind-man-who-taught...

[driverdan]

It's a skill most people can learn. With enough practice you can judge distances based on sound.

When I was young my parents had a smooth railing with posts that stuck up above it. I used to slide my head on my arms along it with my eyes closed. I could hear when the post would get close and stop. I don't know the maximum distance humans can detect by sound but it's pretty easy for short distances.

[tokenadult]

I'll look for those here in Minnesota, but I don't think those have been installed yet. The intersection near my home that I reach on walking trips to shop, a busy intersection between a state highway and a county highway, had all of the pedestrian crossings upgraded in the last two years. The traffic light poles include pressable buttons that activate a spoken word warning to walk or not walk, with the spoken phrases about which street to cross making clear which direction has the pedestrian right of way. This is out in the outer ring suburbs. The intersection is, I think, in the top ten statewide for largest number of traffic accidents each year (motor vehicle to motor vehicle, mostly, but some involving pedestrians too I think).

In the downtown of Minneapolis, weather has suggested a different solution since the 1960s. Minneapolis has an extensive network of "skyways," covered bridges at second-story level between buildings,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Skyway_System

http://www.skywaymyway.com/

and those are so used now that many businesses think a skyway-level location inside a building is more valuable than a street-level location. There is no issue of a pedestrian running into car traffic at skyway level, and no issue of slipping on snow or ice, which was the original reason for the skyway system.

[callahad]

> The traffic light poles include pressable buttons that activate a spoken word warning to walk or not walk, with the spoken phrases about which street to cross making clear which direction has the pedestrian right of way.

That same button vibrates when it becomes safe to walk.

[brazzy]

> I'll look for those here in Minnesota, but I don't think those have been installed yet.

Given that they were invented in UK, are made by a UK company and recommended by a UK government agency, this is not much of a surprise.

[shanelja]

I was hoping it would be a button to instantly change the lights in your favour, now there is a button I would use.

[jerf]

Ah, that would be something different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_signal_preemption

Some of the systems have been hackable/hacked by non-authorized users. There's been stories every so often here on HN.

[oneeyedpigeon]

What I've always wanted - and what might be more mutually beneficial - is a button to cancel the crossing request. E.g. for all those times you press the button, then realise there's enough time to safely cross without the lights changing.

[tomsaffell]

Certain traffic lights in the UK have something like that. If you flash your lights (at night) as you approach they will change. It's sometimes used where a minor road crosses a major one. At night the lights are configured to stay green for the major road, until either: a) a vehicle is sensed waiting at the minor road's stop line; b) a flash of light detected from the direction of the minor road.

The crossing of the A60 into Rempstone is one such example.

[justhw]

Me too. Does anyone know if kipkay's method actually works?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1cgE2GaFko

[jaynos]

All the pedestrian crossing buttons in NYC (I assume other places as well) have been disabled since all the lights are run together by algorithms now.

[triplesec]

That's what the headline subeditors are paid for

[sn0v]

I'd hoped for the same! :D

[davefp]

"Hugh Huddy is blind and works for visual impairment charities' umbrella group Vision 2020. He says he is always pleased to see a cone on a crossing"

[micampe]

Blind people I know use the verb themselves — and joke about it.

[simias]

In France there's a button at the same location that activates a (very annoying and very loud) bell sound when it's safe to cross. Needless to say I've seen it mostly used by curious/bored non-blind people.

[xyzzy123]

In NZ there's a vibrating nubbin thing plus a "safe to cross" noise.

The most evil thing in the world would be to play the "it's safe to cross" noise continuously on your car stereo :/

[megablast]

In some cities in Australia, the box beeps. It beeps when you should wait, and then a different beep when you can walk. As a person that can see, you get so used to this that you really miss it. It is great for so many reasons, I have caught people before just about to walk into traffic because they thought it was ok to go.

[tome]

That's not a button.

[iand]

Downvoted because you have no actual opinion on the article's content so you pick on a trivial side issue and raise its importance disproportionately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law_of_trivialit...

[drostie]

You're right. We should stop calling anything a button which is not used to fasten cloth via a buttonhole, even if the entire English-speaking world uses the term euphemistically to refer to round things.

[dalore]

Yes I think you and I have a different definition of a what a modern 'button' is than the BBC.

[bmslieght]

technically is is call a tactile rotating cone (or tactile for short).

Traffic Signal Engineer.....

[keiferski]

I've always wondered why elevated pedestrian walkways aren't more common. Too expensive, no doubt, but the savings in travel time and lives from accidents seems worth it.

[jaibot]

Two cases: Dense urban areas and sparse lightly-trafficked areas. In lightly-trafficked areas, you're absolutely right about the cost limitation.

In the dense urban case, where "elevated pedestrian walkway" means "getting people away from cars", it means decimating foot traffic to stores and restaurants, ceding the area to automobiles. Generally regarded as horrible for dense urban environments.You see this more in urban planning a few decades back, and it tended to not help the surrounding area. If you look at the places where people want to live and travel to, you don't see elevated walkways. So it's fallen out of favor, with more emphasis on getting speeding cars away from dense areas.

The exceptions are things like the NYC Skyline, which is basically a pedestrian freeway between and through areas already dominated by pedestrian foot traffic and relatively light and slow vehicular traffic.

[ColinWright]

In part because people drop things from them onto the cars underneath. Recently a pedestrian overpass was removed from a street near where I live because of that. They replaced it, at great expense, with an underpass. Now that's been closed because people didn't like going through it at night, and it smelled really rank anyway.

Finally, we have a pedestrian crossing with lights. It's less safe for the people, and more inconvenient for the cars, and all because not everyone behaves nicely.

[bitwize]

When I was in Brisbane, most pedestrian crossings vibrated and made a distinctive sound -- a single "chirp" followed by quick beeps -- to indicate it was safe to cross.

In Boston, to disambiguate different nearby crossings, the walk signals may make different noises. It used to be a beep in one direction and a chirp in the other, but these days it could be a snare drum in one direction, and a cowbell in the other. (I guess some city planner had a fever for which there is only one prescription...?)

[kisielk]

In Burnaby, BC we have some pedestrian signals that will audibly count down how long is left to cross the road as well as providing a visual counter on the signal itself.

[thezach]

Here in Kalamazoo, MI we don't have these... but all of our crosswalks beep and talk.

For example it will tell you "Water, Walk sign is on across water" and then count down when you get 15 seconds away from the point when you can no longer walk.

I do wish it would say "Walk on water like Jesus did"

[kall]

We have a similar vibrating button in Germany that also indicates in which direction this light actually points with a tactile arrow.

[patrickg]

Not only that, it also tells you if there is an "island" in the middle of the road where you should step over. The arrow has a bar through it (looks a bit like a cross sign)

[Fletch137]

We were told about them in school - I use them when looking at my phone with headphones in when walking around cities. Maybe telling people about them is now more relevant than it was when I was in school, for just this reason.

[dayjah]

In San Francisco the button you press vibrates aggressive when it is time to cross. I just discovered this yesterday and thought it amazing. Consider my surprise to read this today!

[nivla]

Wait but isn't this the purpose of the chirping sound when the crossing signal comes on? Far more effective and serves more than one person. However I realize it may not work on people who are both blind and deaf.

[oakesm9]

If there are two crossings next to each other where either can be on green while the other is red, the noise wont be there. It's to make sure that someone waiting at the red crossing does not hear the noise and cross. I think the article mentions that somewhere.

[falcolas]

As per the article, those are not installed at every intersection. In my experience, they're rare outside of large cities.

[JDGM]

At many of the crossings in Ise, Japan there is a button to call for assistance crossing the road. Or give more time to cross for old people. Or something like that, which I didn't quite understand.

I remember going there with a friend who was absolutely furious with me for pressing the button, twice in fact. This was on one of the most sacred days of the year to visit Ise, one of the most sacred places in Japan, and it punctuated a long string of hilarious/egregiously-insensitive etiquette blunders I had made throughout the day.

[Rovanion]

In Sweden the traffic lights make different ticking sounds depending on what state they are in. The traffic lights have three states: red, green and blinking green which means that it'll soon turn red again. Super handy for us seeing too since you don't have to watch the light to know when it's changed.

There's a sound clip on Wikipedia in which you can hear two of the states: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/LA2_dont_...

[cesarbs]

Here in Bellevue, WA they have an interesting (not to say obvious) solution to having a sound play when there are pedestrian crossings in both directions. The north-south ones play a sound, while the east-west ones play a different sound. As far as I've observed, that's consistent throughout the city. Some crossings don't have sound, though. I'll check if they have the cone thing.

[ohwp]

In The Netherlands we have a ticking sound in the pole called "rateltikkers" (rattle ticker). When red the tick is about once per second. When green it is ticking very fast.

[antihero]

As kids we used to believe that if you manually turned the knob, it would force the lights to go green.