Finding the Pedestrian Button
At signalized intersections,
pedestrians need to determine if there is a pedestrian button to push and if
so, where it is. Since pedestrian buttons are usually placed at random
sites in many jurisdictions throughout the
·
Starting at the
corner, walk along one side of the sidewalk (the side where the button is more
likely to be located) while moving the cane in a wide arc, reaching far beyond
the sidewalk as well as reaching across the sidewalk, looking for poles that
might carry the button.
·
After walking
beyond what seems a reasonable distance to find the button, walk along the
other side of the sidewalk back to the corner, scanning with the cane as
before.
·
If the button has
not been found before returning to the corner, walk around the corner and
continue along the sidewalk while scanning with the cane until having reached a
reasonable distance, then return to the corner while scanning on the other side
of the sidewalk
This procedure will usually
enable people to find the button if it is not too far from where it is
expected. However some buttons are
placed unreasonably far from the crosswalk, or are located behind bushes or
guardrails, so far from where they are expected that they cannot be found even
when using a systematic scanning procedure.
NOTE: Many actuated
intersections provide no pushbuttons for pedestrians to signal the computer to
provide them with pedestrian timing sufficient to cross, and some have pushbuttons
on only one side of the cross street. If
no pushbutton is found for crossing a main street on one corner of an actuated
signal, the pedestrian might cross the side street to look for a button there. If no button is found or available, the
pedestrian should be aware that when the vehicular traffic from the side street
has the green light to cross the main street, there may not be sufficient time for
pedestrians to cross. It would be
beneficial to contact the traffic engineer and advocate for the installation of
pedestrian buttons to cross (see “Blind Pedestrian Killed;
Intersection Design Contributing Cause”).
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