Pedestrians seek sidesteps to speed, sight impairments

Many visually impaired, elderly and slow-walking people who say they are at a serious disadvantage as pedestrians are asking for new technology to help them safely cross the valley's busy streets.

One problem many slower walkers face is not having enough time to cross the street at intersections.

"My residents are in total fear of crossing the street," said John Smykowski, director of Montera Meadows retirement community.

Montera Meadows is located on the corner of a busy intersection at Tropicana Avenue and Mojave Drive, across from a Wal-Mart and various other shops and restaurants. Smykowski said many residents like to walk to do their shopping but many times get stuck in the median of the four-lane intersection because they can not get across in time.

"There is not enough time for them to walk across and not a wide enough median for them to stop on. They are constantly discussing this problem in their small groups."

Bella Belmonte, senior services manager for the city of Las Vegas Housing Authority, said this is a concern of the senior citizens she oversees as well.

"Many of the senior citizens are partially disabled, or walking with a cane, so there is not always enough time," she said. "At long crosswalks, sometimes it's not even enough time for me!"

Pat Gourley, principal engineering technician for Clark County Public Works, said the time allotted to cross the street, as adopted by the National Manual on Uniform Traffic Devices, is determined by an average person's walking speed of 4 feet per second.

Gourley explained that once the walk buttons at an intersection are pushed and an entire movement of traffic cycles, the "walk" signal lights up for seven seconds. The flashing "don't walk" signal is safety time to get individuals across the street, calculated at the rate of four feet per second.

There is a dilemma on how to solve the problem. Gourley said the purpose is to prevent "gridlock," which is when no cars are moving through an intersection. Because of this fear, traffic engineers try to keep pedestrian walking time equal across all intersections.

Las Vegan Gloria Chaffee is facing another problem as a visually impaired walker, and she is trying to come up with a solution.

She and her husband met Monday with Ward 3 City Councilman Garry Reese to discuss their concerns about the welfare of visually impaired and elderly people in Las Vegas who cannot rely on their sense of sight to cross the street at busy intersections.

For more than three years, Chaffee, who is legally blind, and her husband have been trying to get audio command signals installed at intersections. These signals would allow pedestrians to hear a voice command when it is safe to cross the street. As president of the National Federation of the Blind of Nevada, she said many members of her organization are afraid to cross the street because they can rely only on their sense of hearing.

"It's like the blind are ignored in Las Vegas. We need to get the public to realize we are here, which we can't do if we can't get out of the house and cross the street," she said.

There is one such signal at Maryland Parkway and Harmon Avenue, which was installed there after a blind student and her seeing-eye dog were killed, she said. She said she hopes it won't take another death to get the audio signals installed.

Reese had some positive comments after the meeting, although he made no promises.

"The cost would not be a problem with me. There might be a lot of merit, and once I find out for sure, I would like to try them (audio traffic signals) at three different locations for 90 days. I can't promise anything, but if they are safe, I would like to put them in."

The Regional Transportation Committee met later Monday afternoon with a private vendor to discuss possible technology for the audio signals.

Mirjana Panich, from Bob Panich Consultancy based in Australia, spoke about her design for audio tactile pedestrian push-buttons to RTC officials.

These push-buttons are designed specifically for the visually impaired, and they have been used in Australia for 10 years. A transducer (located in the push-button housing) emits audible and tactile signals that differ between the don't-walk period and the walk period. The audible signals tell the pedestrian when they can walk, and a tactile signal is also felt on the push-button.

"This system will let the visually impaired person know the intersection is accessible and give them information on where the push-button is," Panich said.

One advantage of this system over others is that the audible signal adjusts to the noise levels.

"The main advantage is it is oriented in a push-button, which allows for a tactile locator and it is ambient to sound," said Philip Tate of Dick Campbell Co., who would distribute the product.

The equipment would cost $500 a unit per button, or $4,000 per intersection.

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