Accessible pedestrian signals - does your area have them?

[Pink Jazz]

For those who know what I am talking about, accessible pedestrian signals are a type of pedestrian signal that include features to serve the blind.  Such features usually include a vibrating button with a tactile arrow, a locator tone, and voice messages.  Typically, the locator tone is a beep that repeats every second until the button is touched, which a voice message saying "Wait" is heard, sometimes also saying the street name.  When the pedestrian signal goes into the walk phase, the button vibrates and either emits a rapid tick sound or a speech message saying "Walk Sign Is On".

I was wondering, does your area have these?  I have seen them in Phoenix, Mesa, and Chandler, and I think Tempe might also have some in a few locations.  They are especially common at intersections across the light rail tracks, and I can understand why.

[freebrickproductions]

We have a few talking pedestrian buttons here in Huntsville. Most of them are located on UAH, but I have found some over in the Five Points area.
Athens has a pair of buttons that beep when you press them.

[M3019C LPS20]

New York City uses them in different areas, and they have been in use since the mid 2000s.

Interestingly enough, over 40 years earlier, the D.O.T. originally experimented with voice command at some intersections in Manhattan.

[DaBigE]

Madison, WI has had the talking type for at least 7 years. The first one of these was installed at the corner of University Ave and Park St. Since then, they've begun sprouting up at various other locations around the city. Due to their higher cost, they're installed only by request/petition, and only in areas of higher expected need (areas with larger concentrations of handicapped residents/destinations). These have also begun replacing older ped signals that chirped or buzzed when the walk indication was on.

Athens has a pair of buttons that beep when you press them.

For the most part, those "feedback buttons" have become the standard around Wisconsin.

[1995hoo]

I'm aware of a single beeping pedestrian signal in DC at the corner of 9th & G Streets NW outside the public library and across from an entrance to the Gallery Place Metrorail stop. There might be others, but this is the only one I know of.

There used to be a beeping signal between the North Carolina state capitol and the Fayetteville Street pedestrian mall. I haven't been back for a visit in a while, but I know the street was reopened to vehicular traffic in 2006, so I have no idea whether the pedestrian signal was replaced at that time.

At least one intersection in Fairfax City, Virginia, has large buttons with arrows that make a sort of ticking sound as they count down to the light turning. I've encountered this at the corner of Main Street and Chain Bridge Road (VA-123); the next intersection to the north may have it as well but I simply don't recall since I don't walk that way as often.

[freebrickproductions]

Do they look like this by any chance?

Pedestrian Button by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

[1995hoo]

The ones in Fairfax look similar to that, though not quite identical. I assume they're functionally the same but use a different color scheme in part due to being in what the city considers an "historic area."

[cl94]

I've seen them in Cleveland, OH along Euclid Avenue

[jakeroot]

Most of the new close-to-the-downtown-area traffic signals in Pierce County seem to be using this style.

New rural signals, while they always include a crosswalk, don't usually include the "accessible" features.

[Pink Jazz]

Do they look like this by any chance?

Pedestrian Button by freebrickproductions, on Flickr

That appears to be the same model used by the cities of Phoenix and Chandler.  The City of Mesa uses a different model with a smaller white plastic button (but still with a tactile arrow and vibrating in the walk phase).

[M3019C LPS20]

That button is a model from Polara. This kind is also in use in New York City.

[cl94]

That button is a model from Polara. This kind is also in use in New York City.

Where in New York is there a modern, active button? I thought they got rid of them all.

[M3019C LPS20]

That button is a model from Polara. This kind is also in use in New York City.

Where in New York is there a modern, active button? I thought they got rid of them all.

Keep in mind that what I mentioned are not pedestrian push buttons related to actuation. Instead, they aid those that are blind. On the official website of N.Y.C.D.O.T., there is a page that shows a list of all of the signalized intersections that have these buttons in service.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/accessiblepedsignals.shtml


Regarding pedestrian detection in New York City, N.Y.C.D.O.T. continues to install pedestrian push buttons at intersections in certain areas where traffic volume is generally unpredictable. These intersections also typically use vehicular detection. Consider Prospect Park (Brooklyn) and areas of Staten Island as examples.

Some of the pedestrian push buttons of today are manufactured by Polara, while others are produced by General Traffic Equipment.

[Pete from Boston]

Here the new ones sharply announce "WAIT" when pressed, then play some kind of wind-up-monkey-playing-a-drum sound as a safe-crossing indicator.  I just noticed one corner here has a different drum pattern for each street at the intersection. Not sure how the blind discern between them.

Older models featured a "chirp."

[Revive 755]

There's a couple signals on state routes on the Missouri side in the St. Louis area that seem to have had some kind of accessible ped signal added, but I'm not sure whether they are producing a beeping to help the push button be located, or to indicate that the walk phase is up.

Downtown Galesburg and downtown Peoria in Illinois have some.  The ones in downtown Peoria at least used to make a kind of painful sound that resembled a hoard of wasps.

[BloonsTDFan360]

In the city of Vancouver, Washington, only a handful of pedestrian signals have accessible features.

Unincorporated Clark County, Washington has been upgrading pedestrian signals in the past couple of months to include accessible features. Here is a video by Clark County talking about these improvements.

[Pink Jazz]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but this appears to be the model used by the City of Mesa, Arizona (the Model 400 variant, the third image in the slideshow):
http://www.pedsafety.com/advisor-guide-aps/

FYI, I recently saw an intersection with Polara Navigators (probably by far the most common model of APS) in San Tan Valley (an unincorporated community in Pinal County).

[thenetwork]

I've seen them in Cleveland, OH along Euclid Avenue

When the Cleveland suburb of Parma Hts. upgraded the signals along US-42/Pearl Road a dozen or so years ago, their ADA crossing buttons also said something to the effect of "You may now cross <STREET NAME>"

[Pink Jazz]

Sorry to bump, but today for the second time I have seen a non-working Polara Navigator APS in Downtown Phoenix; the first one I saw was last year near Chandler Fashion Center.  I wonder what is the failure rate of this model.  This seems to be the most widely used model by most cities.  I wonder if our summer heat is causing premature failures with them.  Luckily the intersection I was at today did not require you to touch the button for the walk phase to come on; it was only there for the blind to know when it comes on (by the vibrotactile and audible indications that it should provide if it worked).

Mesa and Gilbert, on the other hand, use APS from Campbell Company.  I wonder how these compare with the Polara Navigators in terms of failure rate.  Note that these models also produce a different sound from the Polara Navigators; the locator tone has less of a mechanical sound, and the rapid tick is a fast beep instead of a "woodpecker".

[spooky]

Here the new ones sharply announce "WAIT" when pressed, then play some kind of wind-up-monkey-playing-a-drum sound as a safe-crossing indicator.  I just noticed one corner here has a different drum pattern for each street at the intersection. Not sure how the blind discern between them.

Older models featured a "chirp."

The different sounds are supposed to be for different directions. Supposedly with the old chirp and cuckoo audible pedestrian signals, one distinct sound corresponded to the north/south direction and the other to the east/west direction. This of course assumes that the blind or low vision pedestrian knows this rule, and knows the cardinal direction of either the street he is on, or the street he is trying to cross.

[mrsman]

Here the new ones sharply announce "WAIT" when pressed, then play some kind of wind-up-monkey-playing-a-drum sound as a safe-crossing indicator.  I just noticed one corner here has a different drum pattern for each street at the intersection. Not sure how the blind discern between them.

Older models featured a "chirp."

The different sounds are supposed to be for different directions. Supposedly with the old chirp and cuckoo audible pedestrian signals, one distinct sound corresponded to the north/south direction and the other to the east/west direction. This of course assumes that the blind or low vision pedestrian knows this rule, and knows the cardinal direction of either the street he is on, or the street he is trying to cross.

I wonder if anyone knows if there is a standard as to which sound is for north/south and which sound is for east/west.  If there is no standard, there should be a uniform standard.

Also, what to do about two diagonal streets crossing that are both nominally north/south or east/west (i.e. Wilshire and Santa Monica in Beverly Hills, CA).

[HTM Duke]

The only one I know of in Alexandria is at the intserction of Duke St and N Jordan St.  However, I don't remember whether the sound is a click, a chirp, or something else.

There's another accessible signal in DC near the USDOT, at the intersection of M St SE and 3rd St SE.  This one is definitely a newer model, with a WAIT command during the don't walk phase, then announcing that the "WALK sign is on across (blank) Street," and then changes over to counting down the time remaining to cross.

[JMoses24]

There are a bunch of those at the intersection of Turfway Road, Main Street, Rose Avenue and Dixie Highway in Florence.

[Pink Jazz]

FYI, I initially thought that the Town of Gilbert exclusively used models by Campbell Company, however, I did actually see a Polara Navigator on a Gilbert-owned signal at Higley and Elliot.  Perhaps Gilbert might have once used Campbell but switched to Polara, or vice-versa.

Also, it seems that the City of Tempe also uses Campbell as well along with Mesa, since I saw a Campbell APS at Baseline and Rural a few weeks ago.

In addition, the Pinal County DOT has also recently been installing a lot of Polara Navigators at many new installations just outside of Queen Creek.  Never actually seen any APS installed within the Town of Queen Creek, however.  Not sure why the Pinal County DOT would install them around here, since much of this area is rural.