by KYW's Mike Dunn
Helping grandma cross the street may be a boy scout’s good deed, but city council is getting into the act. Members are looking at increasing the time for pedestrians to cross an intersection.
Philadelphia city councilman-at-large Bill Greenlea has introduced a bill that would force the streets department to adjust the timing of pedestrian lights, so that even the slowest senior would have enough time to cross:
“It's all tied into other things, and we don’t want to back traffic up otherwise. But you see people trying to cross the street, and sometimes as impatient as motorists can be these days, they start beeping at people. Maybe an extra two seconds might help these folks.”
Greenlea’s bill does not name specific intersections, but he believes crosswalks in center city and the northeast need to be looked at it.
The city has also looked at installing countdown timers at a few major intersections to let people know how much time is actually left before drivers gun their engines.
KYW's Ian Bush spoke with some center city pedestrians, who said that regardless of age or ability, having more time to cross makes sense.
Even if there were a countdown timer at the crosswalk at 16th and Market Streets, you'd only get a five-second warning to scurry across when the symbol changes from "Walk" to "Don't Walk."
Pam works in center city and says that Council's measure, if passed, would make her pedestrian commute much easier:
"Sometimes they have to rush across, or run."
Why is that?
"Because they get caught in the middle of the street. As I'm crossing, the light will change on me in the middle of the street, and I have to run across."
For the time being, she and others on foot say they hope drivers would be more curteous, though some drivers say people need to pay better attention to the lights.
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