Pedestrian crossings: Who is in control?

Have you ever stood waiting at a pedestrian crossing and thought pushing the button on the traffic light didn’t make a difference? You could well be right. Especially if you’ve had that feeling at most of Auckland’s major inner-city intersections, particularly on Queen St. Or if you’ve ever waited at a busy crossing in Wellington’s central business district, like Taranaki St.

These are only some of the intersections across the country where pedestrian crossings operate on a cycle and pushing the button once, twice, or a dozen times in frustration won’t do a thing. At other intersections, they’ll work on a timer during peak use during the day and early evening.

‘‘In some busy areas like Queen St we have a pedestrian cross on every cycle during specific times regardless of whether the button is pressed or not,’’ said Mark Hannan, Auckland Transport’s media manager.

There were about 20 intersections in Auckland which operated like that. ‘‘We don’t use this widely because if a pedestrian signal is automatically placed and there is no need for it, a delay will be created for all the other phases.’’

In Wellington, an automated demand feature means pedestrians don’t need to press a button either at some intersections.

But don’t feel duped - many major cities across the world have automated crossings. In Boston in the United States, almost every pedestrian crossing in the downtown area has a button that doesn’t do anything. There, some pedestrians reported feeling ‘‘duped’’.

Boston’s traffic is so congested traffic engineers can’t afford to have pedestrians affecting the flow of vehicles, so their intersections run on automated cycles that give everyone a turn. It’s the same in other big cities like New York, according to The Boston Globe.

Although the issue is not at the same level in New Zealand, in Auckland and Wellington the crossings with signals are often automated to make things run smoothly during high demand.

Andy Foster, president of the New Zealand Traffic Institute and a Wellington City councillor, says automated cycles everywhere would lead to problems - for example, a cycle might work during the day, but not the night.

‘‘Some are on a static cycle because they [traffic engineers] always expect pedestrians to be there. Trying to balance it out is a complicated beast,’’ Foster said. ‘‘Most traffic lights ... are not in isolation. They are part of a whole network. To change one on street ‘A’, what happens on the next street gets affected.’’

While what impatient pedestrians can now identify as automated crossings might be frustrating during the day, it also goes the other way, Foster says. Drivers would get annoyed at crossings always controlled by pedestrians.

Wellington City Council said it managed about 400 crossings. Some were user demand only, some fully automated and some a mix depending on traffic.