Look both ways
Adrian's got an interesting post that deals with some conversations with some UGA Police Officers involving increased enforcement along Sanford and Baldwin. The officers are working to target pedestrians who jaywalk or, more accurately I suppose, walk out into the road when the light is green rather than red.
Adrian notes, and I agree, that this intersection, which is easily one of the most traversed on campus and is frequently overflowing with students who spill out into the street regardless of the signal, is in dire need of a light that doesn't require one to push a button to get a walk signal.
What would be ideal would be the type of signal that exists through downtown Athens-Clarke County where the pedestrian is given a running clock of how long they have before their signal ends. Of course, this type of timed signal is what we should start employing at all of our major intersections, and I think installing those along the Prince Avenue corridor, particularly near The Bottleworks and Go Bar, would dramatically improve the perception and reality of pedestrian safety.
Adrian notes, and I agree, that this intersection, which is easily one of the most traversed on campus and is frequently overflowing with students who spill out into the street regardless of the signal, is in dire need of a light that doesn't require one to push a button to get a walk signal.
What would be ideal would be the type of signal that exists through downtown Athens-Clarke County where the pedestrian is given a running clock of how long they have before their signal ends. Of course, this type of timed signal is what we should start employing at all of our major intersections, and I think installing those along the Prince Avenue corridor, particularly near The Bottleworks and Go Bar, would dramatically improve the perception and reality of pedestrian safety.
posted by Jmac at 5:22 PM
2 Comments:
Hey JMac:
Why don't you call Transportation & Public Works Director David Clark and ask him about these things? I have talked with him in the past (as I believe Adrian has) and he generally fills you in fairly well on the issue. I understand that traffic engineering is never as quite black and white as it first seems.
One problem Adrian noted to me is that he was told that the people have complained that Baldwin is too backed up, and the cars need to be able to move through there more efficiently. This was interpreted, so Adrian said, by the person he spoke with as indicating the need for the light at that intersection to not have part of the cycle allow for pedestrian traffic.
I think that's odd, since the very reason why stop lights apply to all directions of vehicular movement at significant or major intersections is to prevent cross-traffic interfering with motion in a different direction with a clearly interpreted signal. Put it another way, if Alps-Hawthorne had no light whatsoever, but Broad had a light cycling through green to red, you'd have catastrophe. But by making one flow stop and another go, with signals that can be easily interpreted, you'd get at least an order that enables some kind of flow better than purely anarchic traffic.
Baldwin at Sanford is, essentially, two cross-traffic roads with a third dimension of pedestrian traffic. If the signal allowed for that third dimension to have clearly defined boundaries, perhaps that order would be enough to move what anarchy there is into a more ordered arrangement.
This probably makes no sense.
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