One thing that really really annoys me about how Auckland treats its pedestrians relates to what happens at signalised intersections. We all know the situation:
- We turn up at an intersection, knowing that we will get the green man at the same time as the traffic travelling in the same direction as us gets a green light.
- Ah damn, the green phase for the direction we want to travel started about two seconds before we hit the “beg button”. When we push the button all we get is a solid red man.
- We need to wait ages for the traffic light in the direction we’re travelling to turn orange, then red, and then we need to wait for all the other phases to go through before we finally get the green man.
- Ah stuff it, just run across the road on the red man anyway.
I think I probably cross roads on a red man just about every single day (generally many more times than once) because of this issue.
Now at the very occasional intersection if the green phase has already started for vehicles and you push the button, you get the green man straight away. This shows that it is possible – just clearly our traffic engineers hate pedestrians enough to not bother doing this any more than extremely occasionally.
Solving the horrific way Auckland treats its pedestrians doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to take a long time to roll out. It just requires those in positions to influence things like traffic signals to actually care about more than just shifting vehicles. Why is it so hard to get things like this to happen?
I think I might make this a regular “column” in this blog – just little ideas around how we can improve life for the poor neglected pedestrian. Maye that will make Auckland Transport notice.
Processing...
This is something I have been meaning to do a post on since I got back from my holiday. My first reaction to your post though is, why do we need beg buttons? While overseas one of the things I noticed in all cities that I visited was that I never once had to push a button to activate a pedestrian crossing. Many intersections had buttons but they had a pedestrian phase built into the signals anyway.
It is pretty clear that with the exception of a handful of places in the centre of town, all other intersections across the city only deal with pedestrians if they need to. Yet the same intersections will often have phases for turning traffic even if there are no vehicles to use it. The way I see it, we need to start treating all modes much more equally and giving EVERYONE time to use the intersection.
Can you imagine what would happen if we made drivers get out of their cars and go and push a button to say that they wanted to get through an intersection. It simply wouldn’t be accepted so why do we treat pedestrians differently.
Actually we do make drivers press a button to cross the road, it just happens to be a magnetic button buried in the road and they ‘press’ it by parking a large lump of metal on it. If no cars have ‘pressed’ it then that part of the cycle gets skipped.
As for pedestrian green phases starting midway through car green phases, drivers don’t look at pedestrian signals and you’d be a very brave pedestrian to put your faith in not getting hit by a car you’ve walked out in front of on the strength of YOU seeing that a signal which the car driver doesn’t look at has gone green. It might be slower to only launch pedestrians at the start of the phase but it’s much safer.
You could eliminate much of that danger by changing the car turn arrows to red, as happens at many intersections at the start of the phase if there are pedestrians crossing.
I think they should make those red arrows a bit longer if people are crossing (hard to implement though, perhaps with sensors?) and change the red blinking pedestrian signal to a green blinking pedestrian signal (as was mentioned on this blog a while ago by someone else)
But the driver doesn’t have to do anything other than drive to activate them, I was referring to actually getting out and having to physically push a button. Also there are heaps of intersections where they still phase through cycles even though no cars are there. Even on main arterial roads you still get held up for phantom phases for side streets when there are no cars to set them off. Hell there are a couple of intersections near me where there is a driveway in the middle and the driveway gets a phase every single time even though there is no cars emerging from it and the arterial road gets held up as a result
That’s crazy! Whereabouts?
In Wellington, the driveway out of Parliament itself is in the middle of the Bowen St/The Terrace intersection traffic lights, and it doesn’t even get a phase!
Auckland Council and Auckland Transport are primarily about avoiding liability and blame and providing a safe environment, a secondary concern is around cars, buses or pedestrians.
There are some intersections where they have put in tactical sensors for pedestrians.
There is one Mt Eden road, it only works if you are standing on the sensors, I turned up there and wasn’t standing on it and pressing the button rather confused why they ped phase won’t run.
(Standing on the sensor triggers the phase, the push button is redundant – this maybe a design fault). Buttons are easy and generally full proof, everyone knows to push them.
Traffic phases only run when a very vehicle is on the loop, there are 2 general exception, either the loop is faulty / damaged or the main direction phase will default to and run every time.
As a foot note here, if a loop does not see any traffic for x numbers of hours it assumes it is faulty, often around 5am in the morning from no traffic over night it reaches this point and they starts running unneeded phase until it is either reset by the traffic operators or a vehicle goes over the loop.
At intersections where there is no conflict they can and some do re-introduce the ped phase or they run the ped phase for the same time the traffic phase is run (with longer orange – flashing red man to allow anyone to clear it at 1.2 sec per metre)
This is normally over a one way street or where this is a free left turn and red right turn arrow from the other direction, where no cars are going to turn into it.
They don’t allow this for intersection where vehicles may turn over it as there is no safe way to protect the pedestrians.
The thing I find interesting is they are removing free left turns to make intersections safer but in doing this they also remove the ability to re-introduce the ped phase or run it for the whole time.
Running every ped phase every time is going to cause huge delays to everyone, ped phases cause intersections to run a much longer time, the general rule is walk (green man) + 1.2 seconds per metre (flashing red man) before it can end the that phase and move onto the next one.
It won’t cause delays for everyone, pedestrians will be able to cross easier. You are confirming what is the problem, in that the only people who’s time is considered important are those driving cars and pedestrians should only get a turn if they beg for it by pushing a button.
Why can it work ok in every other international city but not in Auckland?
That is a fair point, I think for some CBD streets and town centres it would be a good idea.
I will point out that if it runs a ped phase in one direction with no one there but someone wants to cross in another direction they will end up waiting for the other phase to end.
I can think of many intersections on main arterial routes where running every ped phase every time would cause massive congestion to everyone except the odd pedestrian, including cyclists and buses. With no gain if there is no one there to cross.
If a car turns up to an intersection and has just missed the right turn phase (and filtering is not on – this is where the red arrow turns off after x seconds) then they have to wait the whole phase as well.
I have been to Paris, there traffic light system is totally different to ours, they don’t mark road lanes, bus lanes are sectioned off with half logs. But there city is also totally different. They also have an amazing public transport system and 6 million people living in an area smaller then Auckland.
And even then some of the intersections on busy roads had push buttons!
I know from friends comments in China, they don’t even try and have ped crossings, there are tunnels under the road for people to cross which is what everyone is moaning about on Symonds St.
It is not comparing apples with apples.
It is pointless running a phase if no one is there. They have loops in the road to detect if there are vehicles, if there isn’t a car then it won’t run the phase (except for the reasons I noted before), I am a cyclist and my carbon fibre bike doesn’t get picked up, I find this annoying, but there isn’t any easy solution, they are trailing a camera system on K Road, but cameras are not fool proof, need cleaning and a lot more maintenance. The best option is actually a push button like peds have.
The easiest and more universal way for pedestrian is to have a push button.
Even if the phase runs every time, if your 2 seconds to late you are going to get the red man and since every ped phase runs you end up waiting ages even if no one is crossing the other direction.
They won’t reintroduce the ped phase at intersections where vehicles may turn over the path of the crossing, the current OSH / PC / safety culture of NZ won’t allow it!
Some of the issues are more to do with technology limitation rather than traffic engineers
Other issues like the phasing on Symonds St is another can of worms.
I know the phasing for the Auckland Uni Engineering ped signal has been increased during the interpeak period to cater of the masses that cross there and Alfred / Symonds / Grafton now runs 2 ped phases for each cycle during the interpeak as well. During the day the peds come first, peak periods Symonds St carries a lot more people on buses then people walking and a good number of people walking are going to the buses anyway.
Its probably a bit of a feedback loop going on though, the more priority given to drivers and the harder it is made for pedestrians the less pedestrians there are and the more drivers there are. The opposite of course happens as well, by making it easier for pedestrians the more there will be and so the more justification there is for further improving things for them. It comes down to what we want to prioritise.
In Christchurch on the bike path by the railway line they have a similar set up (sensors in the cycle lane several metres before a road intersection) – so if you slow up a lot before the intersection and make sure to bike over the sensors, you will have a green arrow to cross the road and not have to stop biking. Not sure how this would work for pedestrians though, as sensors set back from the curb would mean green pedestrian signals, even if people on the footpath weren’t crossing.
And i’m sick and tired of cars and buses inching out into the intersection, waiting for me to cross so they can turn left…what’s a few more seconds waiting patiently at the white line while I cross?! GRRR!!!
05. We turn up at the crossing, press the beg button and wait for the green man. And although there’s a red arrow for left turning vehicles, a number of drivers go through on the basis the main light is green. If we’re lucky the driver may stop, but often they don’t. AT describes this as a ‘behavioural problem’ and nothing to do with them or their design of the intersection. We are told to approach the police, but they’re too busy chasing Mr Dotcom.
06. You refrain from walking and take the car next time…
My pedestrian crossing gripe is the ones that wait until there is a totally useable and spontaneous gap in the traffic before giving you the green man (person, I guess). The setup is: busy road; press button; wait ages; traffic clears (on its own); cross; light goes green after you have already crossed; drivers pissed off my phantom pedestrian and resolve to run light the next time (or so it seems).
What is the point of the crossing if it makes you wait just as long as you would have had to anyway? The only proper way to use these setups is to press the button even if you have no intention of using the crossing. Guerilla pedestrianism…
I always find myself randomly pushing ped crossing buttons even when I am not crossing. Maybe a streak of naughtiness or maybe a vain hope to help another poor pedestrian from waiting forever.
And then there’s the other end of the scale where people waiting to cross don’t push the button. Often because they’re only waiting for a gap, not a green man. Other times it’s tourists, unaware of the beg buttons. Frustrating when you see it happen as you approach an intersection…
My gripe is the awful intersection of Customs St, Beach Rd, Fort St, and Britomart Pl. There’s a Barnes dance in one part of the cycle, but you can’t activate it unless you’re crossing the mouth of Customs St: so you have to choose between crossing the road in the wrong direction just to push the button, or hoping someone else will come along and do it (usually, but not always).
Sharon Hunter, Christoper D, Len Brown, Jarbs, et al: are we ever going to audit the existing traffic lights and even out the bias against pedestrians?
They need to be reviewed region wide.
Today I observed mayhem and chaos (even heard some tooting) around 5.30pm at the intersection of Queen and Custom St. East/West due to the changed timing of the Barn Dance.
Witness 25-30 people walk into the intersection as they always do before the Queen Street north bound light phase changes to red, only to be nearly run down by vehicles with a green light on the east/west. (Unfortunately these vehicles on the green light then park in the intersection as these lights is now out of phase with all the other lights on Custom Street East/West.)
*are
The other thing I really hate is at the sigalised pedestrian crossings when you push the button but nothing happens for ages. Is there any reason why the traffic lights don’t respond immediately by turning the lights orange then red, so the pedestrian can go?
As David O suggests above, the button only provides a green man when there is a natural gap – in maybe 3 or 4 minutes. haha, sucker.
Semi-seriously though. it all comes down to capacity doesn’t it? At the Dominion Rd shops it can take a few minutes to get the green man at a ped crossing. If this thing was triggered at will, it would reduce capacity.These arterials are bursting at seams with cars. When do we seriously consider lowering the capacity of these auto sewers? I suppose it depends on whether you live out west and impact each of these little town centres on your way to work, or whether you live in them.
Of course the best solution for these competing views is PT.
Mr A, it is the way the lights work to coordinate with each other. If the intersection is in the middle of nowhere then you will get a crossing pretty quickly. If it is part of a chain of intersections, then you will be waiting a while.
OMG it’s the end of the world, a car had to wait a few seconds!!!!!!!!
😀 I’m just explaining the behaviour, not why that system is being used. But obviously its because of cars.
I always push the button and wait at unfamiliar intersections. I run across the road adn dont push they button at familiar intersections to avoid delays to drivers. Not really sure what you can do with drivers. You can put up signs to give way to pedesrtians, you can put up red arrows for a few seconds or 20 seconds and people will stll run the red.
– Most intersections have more vehicles using them then pedestrians. If you did the calculations there probably would be little bias against pedestrians because there are so few of them and their crossing time takes up so much time. If every intersection had Queen st level pedestrians, then you would have more barnes dances. Until such time, expect the status quo.
– Overseas they mostly use fixed time with auto demand peds. In the US, pedestrians have right of way, in NZ, vehicles do.
– Traffic lights cannot see queues of traffic or gaps of traffic.
– You cannot reintroduce a green man walk phase in a parrallel vehicle phase that has already begun because you will be putting pedestrians into conflict with vehicles.
– Barnes dances are generally used in high pedestrians areas or near primary schools.
– Until the number of pedestrians complaints outnumber the number of driver complaints, you are unlikely to see much change.
What if there’s a green light for straight ahead traffic and no showing light for left turn traffic. Someone pushes the button and immediately an orange light for left turning traffic appears, then goes red – then the pedestrian gets the green man. Not impossible, though obviously something you’d only do if there’s enough time left on the phase.
What you might seem to be missing Ari is some recognition that most of the high level transport plans and strategies say we need to put pedestrians first, or at the very least improve the way we treat pedestrians. I’m pointing out that “at the coalface” what actually happens is a complete disregard for these strategies.
If we’re really going to continue doing the things the way we do now we really need to update our strategies so they say “we’re going to continue to treat pedestrians like the scum of the earth they are” so we’re consistent with what happens in reality. See how that goes down.
As mentioned above, there is probably a bit of a feedback loop going on, the more priority given to drivers and the harder it is made for pedestrians the less pedestrians there are and the more drivers there are. The opposite of course happens as well, by making it easier for pedestrians the more there will be and so the more justification there is for further improving things for them. It comes down to what we want to prioritise instead of looking at things as they are now and basing our assessment off that.
“I run across the road adn dont push they button at familiar intersections to avoid delays to drivers.”
Wow. When we allow ourselves to start thinking like this it’s obvious there’s something seriously wrong with the current system of priority. Priority is the core problem here, and it is affecting our choices and behaviour. We get rewarded for choosing one mode, punished for choosing another. Trying to address this situation is not about getting tough on drivers (you and me), it’s about cutting pedestrians (you and me) some slack – fair go please!
Orange, If I see the road is clear and I think it is safe, I run across without pushing the button. There is no point delaying other people needlessly. For me it is just common courtesy. Their time is just as important as mine. The pedestrian crossings are there to assist people to cross safely. If you dont feel you need them, then don’t use them (but accept the consequences).
Mr A, LOL, I suppose those transport plans are about as truthful as the MoT talking about increases in funding to PT. A major step needed would be the NZTA to give pedestrians the right of way at uncontrolled crossings.Those plans and strategies also include something about reducing congestion and keeping people/freight moving etc.
Regarding the reintroducing of the ped phase while a parrallel vehicle phase is running is not possible as far as I know UNLESS there is a left turn slip lane OR it is a one way road. Then the ped can reintroduce. as you suggest. There are safety reasons related to driver reaction time that the mainroad phase has to shut down as well (not jsut the left turn) before the parrallel crossing can start with a green man again. In order to shut down the main road phase you have to jump to a side road phase(even if there are no cars on the side road). To jump to the side road phase you have to wait till the main road has run it’s course which can be longer than required at that point in time.
Well there’s the crux. If the road is indeed clear there’s no-one to inconvenience when the pedestrian phase is swiftly activated by pushing the beg button. But we know it’s going to take too long and instead of legally crossing on a green man, we (illegally) dart across the road. Now, I agree it’s courteous to then not press the button so people won’t have to wait for nothing, but if traffic signals were more responsive to beg buttons in the first place we wouldn’t have to be in this position – we wouldn’t have to worry about being a nuisance to other road users when we’re simply trying to cross the road legally…
The quick response time is probably the only reason that students use the new(er) pedestrian lights on Symonds St (by the Engineering building). Otherwise they’d still be crossing illegally and potentially getting run over.
I think there’s a problem at the base of all this traffic light thing. It’s that intersections in Nz are way too over signalized. There are colored arrows everywhere all the time and the horizontal signage is busier then a Canaletto painting. The drivers then drive through the intersection as if it was a piece of straight road, not paying attention and thinking that if it’s green, then I can just go and forget everything else. The first thing they forget is pedestrians. I think a left turn should always be allowed to cars when the main light is green, with no red arrow. But at the condition that pedestrians and cyclists going straight always have right of way. In my opinion should be the same for right turn as well, in roads with one lane per direction of travel.
turning traffic must give way to pedestrians crossing if there is no green arrow. the problem is that they don’t, and pedestrians die. so engineers put up red arrows everywhere. but it is a behavioural problem. arrows help but people still run red lights. personally i hate driving in chch because of the lack of right turn arrows at most large intersections. more lanterns apparently reduces accidents. pedestrians ask for give way signs and now there are drivers who think you only give way if there is a sign.
The worst I can think of is the crossing outside Otahuhu College. The crossing phase there takes forever, and you see dozens of kids (and a lot of community) risking their lives in traffic. There’s a de-facto arterial road outside the school, and it has been given the default priority.
A tragedy waiting to happen. Will it take another Tamaki Drive for them to do something about it?
yes.
Worst still … Te Atatu Road / SH16 intersection, southside. Students from Rutherford college cross on the diagonal, immediately adjacent to and contraflowing alongside traffic flying off the motorway westbound and turning north, because the phasing of the two legs crossing Te Atatu Road and the westbound on-ramp are so very badly coordinated. Very, very scary to witness.
WORST EVER OFFENDER: The pedestrian signals across the southern end of Hobson Street. These cross a ONE-WAY street. Repeat after me. One-way street. Meaning that when that southbound movement is stopped, NOTHING EVER CROSSES THE PEDESTRIAN PATH. Perfect safety.
But there is no AUTOMATIC pedestrian green – unless you have already made your “application to cross the road” (pushed the button), you won’t get a green light. And AT / NZTA (it’s part of a motorway interchange) refuse to put in an automatic pedestrian green, despite several requests.
hobson fanshawe?
That is a two-stage signal though, so slightly more complex. At the south end of Nelson, they don’t even have that excuse.
Sorry, now I am confused, and also added a typo into my own text. I was thinking you were talking of Nelson / Fanshaw, and my second sentence was to say south end of Hobson for my example.
Not sure where you would give an automatic green on Hobson / Fanshaw IF that was the one you meant, and not a typo of yours. I guess the eastern arm does have that same issue, yes, quite similar – you are right.
Best pedestrian crossing lights I came across were in Copenhagen, Gentofte, actually. They have timers on all phases, so, once you’ve pushed the beg button, you know how long you have to wait and once the green man cycle starts you also know how long you have to cross. Strangely enough, knowing how long you have to wait goes a long way to eliminating pedestrian crossing rage. But, of course Danish traffic engineers seem to work from the principle that all transport modes are equal, unlike those in Auckland. If Auckland traffic lights were required to show pedestrian wait times then we might get embarrassed traffic engineers to start rethinking where they’re coming from.
Sorry Christopher, the Countdown lights just don’t come in triple digits!
Experienced a new high in driver self-entitlement at the New North Road/Blockhouse Bay Road traffic lights this afternoon. After diligently waiting for the green man I began crossing Blockhouse Bay Road only to notice that a car turning left from New North Road was ignoring the red arrow: I photographed the vehicle. I then proceeded down St Jude Street when, some 300 m from the lights the same vehicle drove up, stopped and the driver got out and demanded that I delete the photograph; asked if I had a driver’s license; and told me that if I didn’t like the traffic in Auckland I should move to some place smaller. No menace, but there you have it; your ordinary Aucklander’s view of pedestrians.
So why is this the top article that comes up in 2018 when you are trying to find out if the pedestrian walk signal (siren) should be going every couple of minutes all through the bight when there are no pedestrians!
Probably because it’s the closest in subject matter. If the results of a search aren’t meeting your needs, another way to search is to use google. If you use “greater auckland” in speech marks and the topic of interest, that can work well.
Transport-associated noise is a problem, isn’t it? Where’s the location in question? There could easily be readers who could suggest ways you could go about getting a change there.