Internal view of the Econolite “E8” neons. Notably Washington DC would use to to indicate when permissive vehicle turns were allowed to cross the crosswalk, and thus for pedestrians to be on the lookout for cars failing to yield. The later introductions of countdowns gave further feedback as to exactly how much time they had.Īs a side note, there used to exist flashing “Walk”s, and most controllers have a setting for selecting it. Flashing the clearance and thus separating it from the buffer gave differentiation to what in reality meant “start walking if you can move fast” and “get out of the intersection now”. People being like the are, pedestrians tended to notice how long the clearance interval and buffer were, and would start walking on the “Wait” indication, sometimes with very little time actually left. Telling pedestrians what to do rather than what not to do was seen as more direct (and audible pedestrian buttons still say “Wait”), but “Walk” and “Wait” looked similar enough to be confused on a small lens across the intersection. In 1961 “Wait” was replaced by “Don’t Walk”, and flashing the clearance interval was introduced. With the advent of 12″ vehicle signals the pedestrian signals grew also, although for many years it was common to have 9″ pedestrian signals with 12″ vehicle signals. ![]() There was also experiments with aqua blue “Walk” lenses that never caught on, nor were officially sanctioned.Ĩ″ circular lenses were hard to read across increasingly wide streets, so 9″ square lenses were introduced, mounted on adapter sections that attached to the bodies of standard vehicular sections. The theory is that this made the white color more distinctive as opposed to all the other incandescent lamps around, but it decreased the overall brightness, and was never universally adopted until the LED era, with LEDs being naturally lunar white. ![]() ![]() Also, later on some of the whites were modified to “lunar white”, by using a light blue filter over the yellowish incandescent lamps. Typically they would be added to the bottom of an existing signal.Įarly pedestrian accommodation, first with the green lens designed to throw some light downward, then with the separate “Walk” lensįrom the early days orange and white were standard for pedestrian indications, but red and green were also used. Later, encouraged by traffic signal companies that wanted to sell more segments, a separate white on black “Walk” indication was introduced. As a rudimentary accommodation, the Crouse-Hinds “Smiley Face” lenses came out, that were especially designed to throw light down. Such a signal would be hard to see by pedestrians and traffic near the intersection alike (in fact there were gizmos that consisted of a prism to be mounted to your rear-view mirror to make it easier to see overhead signals). (Earlier I mentioned the Darley, the ultimate in cheap, which used only three bulbs and had a simple, integrated controller). As early as 1930 federal standards encouraged signals at the corners of the intersections, where they could easily be seen by pedestrians and cars alike, however in practice agencies would go the cheap route and hang a single stoplight over the center of the intersection. Since almost the beginning it was recognized that additional accommodations needed to be made to pedestrians. Tags: +Don't Walk, +Neon Traffic Signal, +Pedestrian Signal, +Stoplight, +Traffic Signal ![]() A History of Pedestrian Signals Septemat 3:03 pm | Posted in Traffic Signals | Leave a comment
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