Comment 114271

By mdrejhon (registered) - website | Posted October 16, 2015 at 11:37:07 in reply to Comment 114261

Some education may be needed for those not aware that this is actually deployed (it is!), as not everyone is familiar with parlance (e.g. PXO):

Did you know that some pedestrian crossings (more common in other parts of the world than Canada, alas) use standard traffic lights -- but are permanently green until immediately activated by pedestrians? These are the best types, they activate almost immediately for pedestrians (usually), they use standard traffic lights with good compliance by motorists.

If the "permanent green until pedestrian activated" light has been staying green for a long time (e.g. minutes), there's no reason why a pedestrian crosswalk button shouldn't immediately activate.

Immediate activation means instantly causing green to go yellow-then-red -- Before the pedestrian can safely walk across, it takes only 4-5 seconds (or so) to get the WALK signal. You need time for cars to brake -- the yellow-then-red sequence on a traffic light, followed by a small safety delay (red in all directions) followed by a green (or WALK light) for the pedestrians. The standard time between green light followed by green light in the cross direction, is approximately 5 seconds (for the yellow-red delay, all-red delay, followed by the other green), varying depending on location.

After pedestrians crossed, pedestrians cannot immediately reactivate the traffic light for another, approximately 30 seconds (or another number, e.g. 15, 20, 40). A button press done quickly, will just signal the crossing to do a now-delayed activation right after the minimum-allowed green cycle time for cars.

That way, it doesn't frustrate drivers when there's huge surges of pedestrians (e.g. school end-of-day), as when the traffic light goes back to green for cars, it cannot immediately go back to red for at least a minimum delay (e.g. 30 seconds).

But at other times when there's not many pedestrians, the traffic light for cars is permanently green for many minutes at a time, until instantly becoming yellow on the button press of a pedestrian (for quick pedestrian convenience).

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-10-16 11:49:40

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