Comment 88970

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted May 24, 2013 at 20:33:09 in reply to Comment 88866

I agree that Hamilton's pedestrian priority signals are better than PXO's for the reasons Molloy gives. They have been used in western Canada for decades.

The problem is they are very expensive (at least $80k), which means that most unsignalized intersections have no marked pedestrian crossing of any kind and never will.

In other words, the pedestrian signals are not a feasible solution to provide pedestrian crossings except on very busy streets with very high pedestrian crossings.

This is why intersections never meet the city's criteria: the intersection must be both dangerous and have existing high volumes of pedestrians crossing to justify the investment. If there are pedestrians crossing already, the city argues it must be safe, and if they don't they argue there is no demand. It's a Catch-22, just like we saw at Aberdeen and Kent!

Hamilton (and Ontario) needs to regularize the signs plus painted lines crossings used almost everywhere else in the world since they are cheap and low maintenance. It is simply a matter of educating drivers that they must stop when a pedestrians steps off the curb. Drivers understand this in other places, like BC, Alberta and France!

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