In previous note I have been vitriolic about these new crossings, and I am beginning to feel an obsession mounting. I guess one of the problems is I use this damn crossing everyday, so everyday I get a clearer view of the brain-dead design that makes it a danger to safe road traversal.
First up, the single walk/don’t walk display on the crossing has recently been joined by another a bit further up the pole. The displays are both the same except that the top one has no button to request to cross. Why a new one? It seems that the visibility afforded by the original lower may not have been enough, or been offputting as it was so low. The new one is higher. Actually a little higher than eyeline, making you look up and focus close, as the lower one makes you look down and focus close. Take a look at the picture of Simon Crosbie modelling the crossing to see what I mean.
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Simon has done some independant research and tells me that this ‘Puffin Crossing’ as it is apparently known, was designed so that the user would be forced to look the way the traffic was coming as the display was on the oncoming traffic side only. Good idea, if you are about four foot six (or now six foot ten) and stood in the exact right spot to see the traffic past the display. This is also assuming the display and pole are transparent, of course, and you can focus your eyes at all distances simultaneuously, and there isn’t any one four foot seven (or six foot nine) standing just in front of you.
Next, hopefully over the next week, for your pleasure, there will be a video report and triangulated drawings to make it clearer still.
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As a further addition to DH’s comments, these things are also supposed to have an active motion sensor. This is to allow ’slower moving’ pedestrians more time to cross than the default period.
All I can say is the ones I’ve timed so far don’t work!
Categorically.
I’ve sadly walked, strolled, shuffled, idled and dawdled over the same crossing several times just to test this. (Yes, using the stopwatch function on my very neat digital watch!)
The barely audible signal lasted the same time for each crossing. Now, as I can’t actually see the little man on the panel whilst I am crossing the road (and therefore have no idea how long I have left, or when the lights are about to change), I feel somewhat vulnerable. I have no idea whether the lights stay red longer. There is no way to tell, apart from risking death from the Formula1 starting grid wannabees that invariably must race away from the lights at the earliest possible moment.
I have also noticed that the location of control panels on the crossing pillars varies from location to location. There are also small ones at about waist height for some very complicated junctions.
This has been bugging me from the moment I first encountered these crossings in Liverpool quite some time ago.
If any of the designers of these things would like to chip in and comment, I’d love to know what was going through their minds.
I find these crossings far more difficult to use than Pelican crossings. I actually think they are dangerous. Far more so than the crossings thay are replacing. They seem to make far too many assumptions about the optimum conditions for effective use.
Next, I’m going t o discover where the audio blind spot is, and if the tactile alert on the buttons works. (I love that one, it lets you know when you can start crossing, but unless you’re Reed Richards, you’re not going to know when it stops vibrating!!!)
Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but I do not like these things.
SimonC
Comment by Simon Crosbie — June 27, 2004 @ 5:30 pm
http://therandomthink.blogspot.com/2005/12/ppppppick-up-puffin.html
I HATE THESE CROSSINGS.
The lack of a farside indicator is really annoying. I teach my kids to look both ways before crossing the road, and I’ve got a stiff neck from looking down at the box.
Comment by GW — January 5, 2006 @ 12:54 pm