A question that might be of interest to other foreigners as well…
We’ve all seen the pedestrian crossing lights in the movies and on TV…
How common are they?
Are they in all major cities?
Do they appear in towns?
Are they just at crossroads with traffic lights?
I’m planning a downtown (I think… what exactly is "downtown? … I’m planning edge of industrial slighty run-down suburb - but “brownstones” (so long as they’re not just New York) not low rise. [Boy is a "foriegn" country complicated???] - passenger/commuter station as part of the next layout. Out front there will be a bus turn-around/stop and a crossroads between a very small side street and a main-ish drag -with switching lines down the middle -
Now the question is… how do all those nice commuters get from the station to their factories without getting run over?
Would there be pedestrian lights? In with traffic lights? Pedestrian without traffic lights?
And of course, the important question… does anyone make a model?
For the most part pedestrian crosswalk signals are in areas where both vehicular and pedestrian traffic is heavy. It allows time for pedestrians to get across busy intersections. Most, I’ve seen, seem to be with traffic signals. Sometimes on the same pole.
Occasionaly, there have been pedestrian only crosswalks(schools), usually like above, due to heavy pedstrian traffic. A lot depends on size of “downtown”, amount of traffic, and how many people got hit by traffic.
I can’t help you out with a supplier, but I can say that crosswalks with light come in all shapes and sizes. I have been to big cities and small towns and in each place I have seen an example of a pedestrian crosswalk with a light. Some of the high traffic areas have timed lights, others (lower traffic) have a button to push to activate the light. They can be at corners and intersections, or they can be just about anywhere needed (there is one for a golf cart crossing in Pinehurst, NC).
So I guess the answer is they are pretty common, or at least what I have seen.
They’re all over the place around here in Canada, mostly push button activated as noted. Saw some while in the US this year that had digital count down timers, giving the amount of time left to get across the street.
Some busy intersections have sound signals too, for vision impaired people. The ones around here sound like “cuckoo, cuckoo”.
One day a guy asked me what the sounds are for, and I told they were for blind people, and he said he was amazed that blind people were allowed to drive! (just a joke I heard somewhere that seemed appropriate here!)
Operational lights would be a trick to sequence with other traffic lights (green= white WALK signal, yellow = blinking DON’T WALK, red = DON’T WALK). Most in my area are mounted lower and to right of traffic signal when viewed with traffic and square shape. 2006 version is led driven, display white walking figure, then red hand; some even count seconds down until signal goes red. Modern downtown areas are mainly office / retail space, with some hotels and industries beyond that. Manufacturing was usually segregated from retail operations. Urbanization has pushed the residential areas much further out and heavy manufacturing has declined overall. Areas without traffic lights would get pedestrian crossings marked in street (white parallel lines) marking crossing. Often at a stop sign or diamond yellow pedestrian sign if mid-block.
First, one thing you should know is that New Yorkers don’t pay attention to traffic signals - pedestrian or otherwise. [(-D]
Second, you’ve hit one of my “pet peeves”.
When I was a young man growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia in the late 50s and 60s the larger towns and, of courese, the cities had “walk/don’t walk” signals at intersections. The electic signs lit up with either WALK (in white lights) or “DON’T WALK” (in redish/orange) as appropriate.
Simple? Yeah, too simple!
In the late 70s, early 80s it occured to the powers that be that not everybody in this grand land could read English. So the text signals were replaced with graphic ones. For “Walk” there was a simple graphic of a man walking (in white lights) and for “Don’t Walk” there is a graphic of an upheld hand (in red/orange).
But wait, it gets better!
Somewhere in the era of politcal correctness that was the 1990s (or thereabouts) it was decided that the graphic pedestrian signals were not good enough. Some people still did not “get” it. Nowadays, these graphic signals are supplemented with text signage (usually on the pole that supports the signal) explaining the meanings of the graphic signals in both English and Spanish!
In the words of Charlie Brown, “AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!”
Well-constructed buildings clustered close together along a network of streets that is conducive to pedestrians. Usually serves as the traditional “public face” of a community
A typical look at the montronsity that has, unfortunately, replaced downtown:
A landscape of look-alike backlit plastic corporate logos and oversized boxes filled with chain stores. Dependent on automobile travel and generally hostile to any other form of transportation.
reno.jpg can’t be too terribly hostile to pedestrian traffic. There’s a NO (raised, closed hand) showing on the pedestrian signal box attached to the traffic light pole in the photo.
One variant sometimes seen is a pushbutton operated signal at a point where there is no intersection. There will be standard three-color traffic signals positioned to control the motorized traffic and box-style pedestrian signals facing along the crosswalk.
The latest signal sequence here in Sin City goes - green traffic signal, green “walking man.” "Walking man changes to yellow “hand,” flashing once a second, with countdown from 20 to 1 alongside. Yellow traffic signal and red ‘hand.’ Red traffic signal.
Wow! Just three & half hours and all this good stuff! [:D] Thanks all!
I probably should have said “mid 80s west-of Chicago” as usual but the answers are great anyway.
One thing they remind me of…
When I was in Yugoslavia in about 1969 the pedestrian lights showed white outlines. The “Dont walk” was like a cross between a skittle and a Christmas tree and the “Walk” light was like the sign on a “Gents” door. They were “Walk” at the top - reverse to our normal of Red “Don’t walk” figure very like the “Gents” sign and Green profile figure clearly striding/leaning forward “Walk” sign. Don’t know about anyone else but to me that Gents sign of a head-on figure could be read as a profile of someone walking… some nice stranger reached out and grabbed me and pulled me back from a rather large truck.
Writing this makes me realise just how hard it is to describe the images with the meanings in just words… so please don’t “AAAAARGH”! too loud with Charlie Brown! (Without looking at an old sign that you see every day try to describe it… it’s amazingly hard… this also goes to noticing the detail that we put into our layouts… there are so many things we “see” every day that we don’t notice at all.
It’s really weird to recall this after all those years! All my posts here…and one or two other things… might never have happened.
Anyway… thanks for the great answers… keep them coming please! [8D]
A rider comes into the station on a commuter shuttle (running left to right on the layout as seen from the viewing side) on his/her (PC) side there are warehouses…
Would these have been being turned into “lofts” by the 80s?
Getting off at the station he (Non PC) finds himself on an embankment and has to take a subway type stair to street level. (Oops… that’s subway as in street underpass not Underground railway/metro/U Bahn).
How bad might the graffitti be in the mid 80s?
Coming out the station front… horrible glass fronted 70s Amtrak thing… He has the buses in front of him, shops to his left and right for just a couple of fronts and then the main drag across his path.
If he does a U turn he can walk back under the track.
If the track is on a string of bridges would there be small businesses under them - like we have here?
Straight on he can go down a narrow street opposite. To the left of this is a factory and to the right a demolition site. You may have figured that he is walking toward the viewer so he is about to fall off the edge of this world. It occured to me that, used on the front edge of a baseboard “background structures” like Walthers’ “Fireproof storage and transfer” (933-3189) could make excellent demoition sites… most of the building has already been “removed”/knocked down…
So then the area might have some housing like their “Parkview terrcae Apartments” ((33-3176)… among other things…
Would housing mix with industrial/commercial/storage like this… at least as the area changed character? Bothe changing structures in some places and usage in others?
Sorry, Dave, wasn’t ARRRGGGHing at you - just at the beauracratic ineptitude that would require bi-lingual text signs to explain (supposedly) universally understood graphic signals. That and the fact that the government thinks we are so stupid that we cant cross a street with out a government instruction manual!
It depends on a lot of things. How heavy industry is used, if rents are higher it eliminates the lower class crowd, if rents low or buildings are empty it attracts homeless, druggies, crime, then people stay away from area. They want to feel safe, day and night.
A good mix would be fairly industrial, with a typical daytime shops, (lunchenettes,delis, pawnshops or thrift stores, a small druggist, a gas station/ autobody /repair shop, etc) and some low/mid price rent type housing.
Most long bridges I’ve seen didn’t have any buildings underneath, except an occasional newstand/ hotdog vendor, but if there’s enough room, I’ve seen cars and truck trailers parked under them. Even a ramshackle plywood/cardboard shack for the homeless.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the more flamboyant graffiti didn’t start appearing until the late 80s or early 90s. This not a hard and fast rule and there are certainly exceptions to be found, but I feel the further back you go the less gaudy and less noticable graffiti should be. Also not all of it should be “serious”.
I remember back in the early 80s I worked in the Washington D.C. area. Every day I would pass under a railroad bridge (plate girder bridge) just before I passed the Washington D.C. LDS Temple. The Temple is a beautiful piece of architecture. It must have reminded someone of the Emerald City from the movie The Wizard of Oz because on the side of the railroad bridge I mentioned earlier, someone spary painted “Surrender Dorothy”.
By your time period, implosion was the preferred demolition technique for urban areas. CDI had been in business for a quarter of a century by then. Depending on the stage of demolition, the structure would either be selectively gutted (skeletonized at ground floor and at selected floors above ground, other floors relatively untouched,) gutted and prepped (wooden boxes or geo-cloth wraps around columns, wires to a central junction point, with one leg running off to a safe location for the blasting machine) or a pile of broken building materials mounded on the ground. The transition from gutted and prepped to a junk pancake only takes a couple of seconds.
The only time walls would still be standing is if the building had burned and collapsed - and they wouldn’t have been left standing long (too dangerously unstable.)
Just a thought
Chuck (who lives where casinos implode every time a certain blonde comes to town)
No problem! I know the feeling. Every time I cross the border into Wales I cringe at the bi-lingual signs. I’m just waiting for the government to tell the English Counties that they have to go bilingual too in order not to discriminate against the Welsh.
When the DLR extension opened to Lewisham the “Stay off the tracks” warning signs were in a huge number of languages… all with the same pictogram. Why use a pictogram at all? I think the signs had nine languages… not enough we had at least 15 major groups in Lewisham. My last neighbours were Sri Lankan Christians… got out in what they were wearing… lovely people who all worked hard every day - except Sunday. One side of my family were probably refugees about 200 years ago.
Thanks again for all the info! [:D]
Just a further thought… would there be some buildings that wouldn’t be imploded? ([V] not half so much fun [V]) but would be knocked down with the good old ball-on-a-chain and jack hammers? I got the whole idea from a HUGE crane smashing a factory down in West London last time I was down there. Figured that the cut up steel skeleton would make some good gondola loads while trucks could handle the rubble… the new Athearn Macks are superb…
Um [%-)] … why are the columns protected with geo-blanket or boxed in if they are going to be blown up? I can understand it if the building is being gutted to be re-furbished… but???
Then again… if it’s being imploded… they pull out the insides and then collapse the walls inward? Wouldn’t this look much the same as a burnt out shell?
The blanket and chainlink wrap around the columns is to minimize flying shrapnel from the exploding demolition charge. Particularly important if one is doing the implosion in a built-up area…
I remember when they blew up the old Seattle Kingdome stadium a few years ago, they had to do that in order to protect the brand-new Safeco Field baseball stadium with its glass facade, which stood just yards away. [:D]
Along with the protective cover over the glass of Safeco, not one glass pane was broken during the Kingdome implosion. Very impressive!
Safeco Field I think is an absolute must-visit place for baseball fans who also love trains… The BNSF mainline runs past the stadium directly outside the right outfield bleachers, and on average a BNSF train passes every 10 minutes or so.
From what I remember, the old traffic lights had ‘walk’ light up in green letters and ‘don’t walk’ light up in red letters (1960s). They were gradually phased out with lights that had the orange hand for ‘don’t walk’ and a pinkish-white ‘man walking’ for ‘walk’ (1970s and 1980s). The old lights were stacked on top of each other like a vertical traffic light, while the new lights (1990s to present) are more compact and have the walk and don’t walk symbols side by side. The latest versions use LEDs.