Audible Pedestrian Traffic Signals and Conditioning
By Richard Eriksson on February 2, 2005 - 11:21am
Walking around the streets of Portland, Oregon in November, I was struck by two thing: they really had problems with drainage during the fall (because the leaves clogged up the drains), and there were no audible traffic signals. Every time I would cross the street—and we're talking just the narrow two-land streets downtown—I would expect to hear a chirping sound. (Vancouver claims to have the most audible traffic signals in Canada as late as 2003.) But there was none, and instead of being able to zone out for a few seconds, I actually had to pay attention to the inaudible (i.e. visual) signals.
Now, obviously the audible signals are designed for visually-impared pedestrians, but I've come to expect them, so I had to wonder how much in this city we are conditioned to listen for the signal rather than really pay attention to the orange hand and the white walking person to make our decision as to whether to cross the street. Like I mentioned, unless I'm walking with somebody, I usually just turn my brain off for a few seconds while traffic goes about its ugly business and then when the appropriate sound triggers a response, I turn the brain back on to make sure someone isn't right-turning into me.
Does anybody else do that, and does anybody else expect or even demand that other cities implement this feature so that they can get some "brain off" time?
Post new comment