Shaneka Woods and her 4‑year-old used to risk their lives to cross Blake Street amid speeding cars. Now they have a first-in-the-city, solar-powered, talking, flashing crosswalk sign to help them halt traffic.
The new apparatus, which was installed this month at the corner of Blake and Stone Streets in the West Hills neighborhood, is called a Rectangular Rapid Flash Beacon (RRFB). It’s the first of its kind in New Haven.
The crosswalk now has two new bright yellow “Ped X‑ing” signs topped with a solar panels that power two bright flashing lights below each sign. The buttons flash immediately when a button is pressed, warning traffic to slow down. The button also triggers recorded instructions that tell pedestrians to show drivers they are ready to cross, walk when cars stop, and wave to thank the driver.
The new apparatus arrived after a push by Beaver Hills Alderman Brian Wingate, who filled out an application for the city to provide secure passage for his Blake-crossing constituents. The application, available in the city’s Complete Streets traffic design manual, is a way for New Haveners to request traffic improvements.
On Friday morning, Wingate stopped by to check out the new crosswalk light with Bijan Notghi, the city traffic engineer who made it happen. Click the play arrow to the video at the top of this story to see them test out the crosswalk.
Wingate said he requested a solution there after speaking with seniors who live nearby at a housing complex on Hard Street. Whizzing cars were making it hard for them to cross the street to get into Westville Village, Wingate said.
“Basically they were saying they need something here to slow down the traffic,” Wingate said. “So I said, ‘Well, let me see if I can get a traffic light here.’”
Traffic lights can cost as much as $250,000, according to Notghi. An RRFB costs only about $15,000, Notghi said.
“Between 2004 and 2006 there have been 14,330 pedestrian fatalities in the United States,” he said. “In the same period, about 193,000 people got injured because of motorists hitting pedestrians on the street.”
RRFBs have been shown to have an 80 percent compliance rate, Notghi said. That is, four out of five cars will stop for a rapidly flashing rectangular beacon at a crosswalk.
He pushed the button to demonstrate how it works, unleashing a chipper female voice from speaker built into the flashing light housing.
“Hello!” the voice said. “You’ve activated the crosswalk signal. Wait for the traffic to stop before you cross. To show traffic that you want to cross, place one foot near the curb line. And remember, thank the driver for stopping as you are crossing the roadway.”
Notghi said the unit can be programmed to deliver the message in Spanish, French, and Chinese.
Cars slowed to a halt as Wingate and Notghi ambled across the street under cover of flashing beacons. Safely on the other side, Wingate said, “It’s most definitely going to take some getting used to, because this is the first one in the city. But I think it’s great for the taxpayers, because we are saving money by doing this, and hopefully, more importantly, saving lives.”
Cycling and traffic-calming advocate Mark Abraham (pictured) happened by on his bike, equipped with a baby seat behind his. Although he said he prefers in-road pedestrian signs, Abraham said the new flashing sign will probably be welcomed by neighbors.
Notghi pointed out that the in-road sign is battered and scarred from being hit by cars, and that it won’t be there during the winter.
Woods came by after dropping her 4‑year-old son Mekhi at preschool.
“I like it,” she said of the new blinking sign. She said she crosses Blake street five mornings and five afternoons a week to take her son to preschool. She said it’s been terrible to cross. “People don’t stop! You have to be in the middle of the road to get them to yield.”
But the new signs are working, she said. “They see the flashing lights and slow down.”
Sid Emami (pictured), a Canadian who was visiting his daughter in the neighborhood, walked by with his bichon frise Teddy, who was wearing a pink sweater. Emami was less enthusiastic about the new flashing lights. “I push the button. I’m waiting a long time, but the drivers didn’t pay any attention.”
Things are different up north, he said. “In Canada, as soon as you push the button,” the cars stop, Emami said.
He said the utility of the new flashing lights still simply depends on who’s behind the wheel. “Some of the drivers are OK, some are not.”
Complete Information
The new RRFBs on Blake Street came about as a result of a Complete Streets request. City traffic czar Jim Travers said the city is working on a system to make tracking of such requests more transparent and interactive.
Currently, submitted requests are simply listed on the engineering department’s website as downloadable PDFs. Travers said he and city engineer Dick Miller are looking into ways to make the information more usable.
“Ultimately what we all want to see is a better intent of putting information on there,” Travers said. He said he’d like to see a site where people could browse the filled-out request forms and check on their statuses — whether the project is under review or in design, what data has been gathered on how fast traffic is at the location in question, how many cars go by in a given time period, and how that data is being interpreted in support of or against a proposed traffic-calming measure.
Almost makes you want to have some traffic cameras...