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Directions for Frogger, BU edition
By adamg on Wed, 04/04/2018 - 2:17pm
Ilana Brownstein spotted this flier today outside Boston University's College of Fine Arts, 855 Comm. Ave., just past the BU Bridge.
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Comments
8 lane change good luck everybody else!
http://i.imgur.com/tSL7HnG.jpg
Shouldn't it be 15 seconds to
Shouldn't it be 15 seconds to get to the center platform and then await the next signal?
And do you ...
Wait half way across an intersection for ten minutes waiting for the next green light?
Why?
Why should pedestrians have to wait through two light cycles to get all the way across the street?
Good point
But the flyer makes the assumption that one needs to get entirely from one side of Comm Ave to the other in the allotted time else they might get hit by a car, trolley, or bicycle, which is not quite true. My gut is that BTD has timed these lights so that pedestrians can get from curb to trolley platform safely.
I cross Comm Ave at Pleasant about 20 times a year, with a young child in tow. I've usually been able to get fully across without having to stop in the middle, but when it has happened, my world hasn't crashed down on me.
Is there any evidence
that BTD that about anything except cars when considering the timing....
Yes
Go to the intersection of Hyde Park Ave and Southbourne Road and hit the walk button. That walk signal is set up so that the residents of the elderly housing complex on one side of the road can get to and from the other side of the road. So, they do treat different walk cycles differently based on different factors, vehicular traffic flow being one of the factors.
Bravo
You found one instance of an on-demand beg button.
You really need to get out more
I passed 5 intersections with signals on my way from Roslindale to Forest Hills this morning. 3 of them have a means for pedestrians to activate a walk signal. The other two have concurrent green lights and walk signals.
But we weren't talking about that. We were talking about the length of the traffic signals. I will once again suggest you take a reading comprehension class.
Nah we were talking about BTD caring only about cars
The narrative is that BTD cares about moving cars more than it does about pedestrian crossings. You provided one, now 4 places, where pedestrians can on-demand activate a beg signal.
Here, I know about one near Audubon Circle, so its up to 5 now. Guess I do get out enough, eh?
Keep moving those goalposts though!
I know reading can be hard
So I'll put this all in one reply.
geep9 wrote:
You see the word "timing" at the end of his comment. And you see in the photograph that there is a time given for how long the walk sign is over by SFA (not Audubon Circle, by the way.) I noted that there is at least one traffic light where there is a long walk signal, for a reason. Then you got involved and made it about your hatred for cars. Then, simply, I noted how the light cycles went at all of the intersections from my house to Forest Hills Station. Didn't leave any out. Didn't go in an indirect way (start at Corinth and Washington Streets and walk north.) It looks like you couldn't handle the idea that in fact the BTD does try to ensure that pedestrians can cross streets at intersections safely.
Have you ever seen how other cities, both in the US and around the world, handle these things. Here's a hint- they don't even put the stupid button, because rarely can a pedestrian cause all traffic to stop for safe crossing. In Boston, out side of the central districts, it's really common.
Hatred for car *culture
I love driving cars. I just hate focusing our infrastructure solely around moving them around at the cost of everyone elses safety and convenience.
But yeah timing was at the end of the statement, which of course isn't the only thing BTD can do in terms of pedestrian safety. The broader theme of the thread was BTD cares only about cars. You finding a few examples of well timed signals doesn't really stack up well against the overwhelming examples of BTD treating pedestrian infra as secondary to cars. I've noted that at this very pedestrian crossing at the start of the post, there currently is no paint for the crosswalk. Which city entity manages that?
But I'm still not sure what you are getting at with the button thing. Are you in favor of just not having them at all and putting the pedestrian signal as part of the standard light signal? Honest question, no snark there.
I'm going to me nice
Mainly because it was a nice post of yours.
I went on about buttons because you mentioned the "on demand beg button." As we all know, downtown, in the Back Bay, and in a couple of other spots, there are buttons that do absolutely nothing. In other cities, the button wouldn't even be there, since the default is to have the pedestrians flow with the traffic (you know, green would be green for all.) Boston is an odd bird in that they will have traffic lights where a pedestrians can get the traffic to completely stop to let them safely cross. Ironically, this doesn't happen where there are the most pedestrians, but it does show that Boston does have a bit more concern for walkers than other cities.
I cannot claim that the BTD does not aim its policies at moving automobiles around the city as best as possible, since they do. I will claim, though, that there are intersections where cars are allowed to languish. I see the example I gave mainly on foot, and it makes sense to give senior citizens more time. That said, the SFA example is shoddy. The SFA side of the street is solely a pedestrian crossing, which ends at a Green Line stop. The Target side of the street is the intersection of Comm Ave and Amory Street, and Amory Street is in another municipality. Could the City lengthen the time? Sure. Should they? Probably. Is the best thing to do posting a stupid flyer assuming that if one can only get halfway across the street in 16 seconds they are doomed? Not really.
And remember this one thing- I walk a lot more than I drive. Time wise. Distance wise I probably drive further. Being able to safely cross a street is important to me. I hate crossing Ukraine Way for that reason, but by and large I get by in Boston walking.
That actually clears things up
And makes a lot of sense. I'll be honest, I think I've gone a little overboard posting this week and for that I apologize. Thanks for taking the time to lay it out, I need to take a step back sometimes and breath :)
It's been fun arguing with you
Have a great week-end!
they're not that organized
while I can't say that I've used every intersection as a pedestrian I can say that the ones I have used make me think that it's kind of random how each works. After 5 years in the Seaport area I can tell you that there aren't two intersections that work the same as another.
Explains why there is no crosswalk there currently
Yeah yeah theres construction going on but I've seen a few cars rolling into the path of pedestrians that have the Beg Signal, I'm sorry I mean the Walk Signal.
Nice Theory
Reality: no room in the middle for everyone who would need to do that.
Sure
Except for the platforms of the trolley stop. Are you saying there’s no room for people waiting for the trolley?
Life is a lot more
Life is a lot more complicated when there are >100 BU students pouring out of classes wanting to cross the street. Those center platforms don't hold as many people as are crossing in between classes.
Oh, come on now.
I worked at that campus for many years and crossed Comm Ave. daily. First, I rarely met 100s of students en mass rushing across the road at any time. And I don't think it has changed that much since that time.
The poster is silly. There are crosswalks that are light controlled. You have the T platform. It is not like you have to high tail it across all lanes of traffic to reach the other side - lol.
Blew it
You just blew all credibility with this statement:
The word selection is key too
No mention of the specific period of history, just "since that time." Could mean the Stone Age, which I guess would be accurate.
Meanwhile I biked by here and saw hundreds of students en mass rushing across the road some time ago, as in Tuesday morning.
Why should commuters in their
Why should commuters in their cars have to wait for the zombie pedestrians staring at their phones while they stroll across the street?
EYES UP, PHONE DOWN!
I wish people would follow this advice. The whole stretch of Comm Ave from Packards to Blandford is real bad for pedestrians looking down at their phones while crossing the tracks. EYES UP, PHONE DOWN!
Repeat after me
A car does not make me special
A car does not make me special
A car does not make me special
If you are commuting in a car:
I am a guest with a big toy
I am a guest with a big toy
I am a guest with a big toy
Because pedestrians were here
Because pedestrians were here first? Because drivers are the ones who chose to operate a huge and deadly piece of machinery in a city? The pedestrians are moving a lot more than the lazy obese drivers. And drivers look at their phones all the time. The big difference is they kill people when they do it. Are you honestly not smart enough to see the hypocrisy?
That's not unreasonable
If you are waiting for the light, once it changes you take 4 seconds to cross outbound Comm Ave, 4 more for the center platform and tracks and the final 4 seconds for Comm Ave inbound....and you still have 3 extra seconds left over.
And as pointed out by others, if that's not enough time, you've got the generous platform area to wait for the next light to finish crossing the street.
Bottomline: Both peds AND cars need to get to their destination. This seems sufficiently long enough for peds without keeping traffic stalled for too long.
Yes, if you're not behind a
Yes, if you're not behind a crowd of people trying to cross, and you have no ailments to slow you down. But why are the ped lights only barely long enough - cars that aren't even at the intersection when it turns green can make it through the light, but peds need to be on your mark and ready, set go the instant it changes.
Unreasonable
I disagree that this is a reasonable time to cross the whole street. It's maybe a reasonable time to get to the trolley platform, but not all the way across the street.
I (crudely) measured the distance from curb-to-curb using Google Maps. I got 117 feet.
The MUCTD specifies that pedestrian walking speed should be assumed to be 3.5 feet per second (http://www.nysmpos.org/pdf/Ped%20Signal%20Timing%20Fact%20Sheet_Final.pdf). Which means that this pedestrian light ought to give 33 seconds, not 15.
To make it all the way across in 15 seconds, you'd have to walk about 7.8 feet per second, or 5.3 miles per hour. From reference.com: "Some people are capable of exceeding 5 mph while still maintaining a walking gait, but the natural tendency is to begin running at much beyond 4 mph".
That is to say, this signal requires most people to literally run if they want to get across the road in one cycle. And, getting all the way across the street in one cycle seems like a reasonable expectation to me.
Its funny how lazy, sedentary
Its funny how lazy, sedentary lard bodies in cars think that pedestrians are the ones who aren't moving their legs fast enough. Thats like Roseanne giving work out advice to Lebron James and calling him a loaf.
At some intersections on Comm
At some intersections on Comm Ave, you only get a walk light halfway across at a time. So the only legal way to cross is to wait on a tiny island between the road and the tracks.
There's no way this island could hold a daytime crowd of pedestrians. Fortunately most people do the perfectly safe (but illegal) thing and cross all the way. The side street has the green light, so there's no reason to make pedestrians wait.
Another issue with this
Another issue with this particular intersection is that there doesn't seem to be consensus among the green line operators as to whether the traffic signal applies to them with there being no cross street. Some stop at the red light during this crossing period, while others blow the horn and continue at full speed. The 15 seconds is definitely not enough time to cross one side, get honked at by a train, wait for it to pass, and then continue.
Ditto for drivers
Everywhere in the city, it is:
walk signal time - time taken by special motorists who can't see yellow or red lights = actual time to cross
That light is for the green
That light is for the green line BU West stop. If you want to cross the street the St. Paul light is much longer. But that's also a half block away and may be too far for some pedestrians to walk to.
I can tell you one thing:
I can tell you one thing: Whoever it is who programs the walk signals clearly never actually goes out to see what it's like to use them. And they definitely have not gone out during the time between classes to see if the signals are set adequately for the hundreds of people trying to cross.