by Julie Carroll and Billie Louise Bentzen
The American Council of the Blind surveyed 163 pedestrians who are legally blind regarding their experiences in independently crossing at intersections with and without audible pedestrian signals. Surveys were administered orally to 154 people in groups who were attending conventions in Florida (30), Virginia (24), and California (100). Responses were by a show of hands. Surveys were administered orally and individually to nine people in various locations in Pennsylvania. The number of respondents for each question varied from 128 to 159.
Respondents indicated that they sometimes had difficulty knowing when to begin crossing (difficulty hearing surge of traffic on street beside them), which they attributed to one or more of four reasons.
- The surge was masked by right-turning traffic: 91% (144 of 158)
- Traffic flow was intermittent: 86% (132 of 154)
- The intersection was too noisy: 81% (125 of 154)
- The surge of traffic was too far away: 65% (98 of 152)
Respondents indicated that they sometimes had difficulty traveling straight across the street for one or more of the following four reasons.
Difficulty figuring out where the destination corner was: 79% (101 of 128)
Veered because there was no acoustic guideline (parallel traffic): 75% (119 of 159)
Veered because the street was too wide: 70% (112 of 159)
Confused by unexpected features such as medians or islands: 85% (138 of 155)
Respondents had experienced one or more of the following problems with push buttons.
Couldn’t tell whether they needed to push a button: 90% (142 of 158)
Had difficulty locating the push button: 87% (137 of 158)
Couldn’t tell which crosswalk was activated by the pushbutton: 81% (127 of 157)
Push button was so far from the corner that they couldn’t push the button and then return to the crosswalk and prepare for crossing before the WALK interval began: 78% (122 of 157)
Respondents had experienced one or more of the following eight difficulties with existing accessible pedestrian signals.
The signal was too quiet: 71% (112 of 158)
Couldn’t tell which crosswalk had the WALK signal: 68% (107 of 158)
The signal was too loud: 45% (71 of 158)
Couldn’t remember which of two sounds was associated with crossing in a particular direction: 27% (42 of 158)
Confused by the sound of an APS for another intersection: 19% (30 of 158)
Couldn’t localize the sound of an APS and use it for guidance: 6% (10 of 158)
Crossed street with an actual bird instead of bird call signal: 4% (7 of 158)
Didn’t cross because they thought the signal was an actual bird: 3% (4 of 158)
8% (12 of 158) of respondents had been hit by a car.
29% (45 of 158) of respondents had had their cane run over.
62% (98 of 158) of respondents have gotten partway across an intersection and realized that the light had changed against them.
36% (57 of 158) of respondents try to avoid crossing unfamiliar signalized intersections.
17% (26 of 158) of respondents limit their travel to familiar areas due to the complexity of intersections.
34% (22 of 128) of respondents have one or more audible pedestrian signals in the area where they live.
20% (24 of 128) of respondents were aware of the existence of local guidelines for the installation of audible pedestrian signals.
The frequency of experiencing any of the above problems is influenced by many factors, including the environment in which respondents live, and their own travel experiences. Therefore, the percentages reported here cannot be generalized to all environments or to all blind pedestrians. In addition, respondents were asked only whether they had sometimes experienced particular problems. Their responses did not reveal whether the problem was experienced rarely or frequently. Therefore, the results are only suggestive of the relative frequencies with which blind pedestrians experience difficulties at intersections.
The percentage of respondents who sometimes experienced various problems is not necessarily the same as the perceived severity or importance of those problems. For instance, a blind pedestrian may have difficulty locating pushbuttons but consider this a less important problem than being unable to determine which crosswalk is actuated by a push button, because the difficulty of locating a push button is not normally life-threatening, while pushing the wrong button to cross a street may lead to crossing with the wrong signal. Therefore, respondents were also asked to indicate the one problem in each of four categories which they considered most important.
The two problems considered most important in knowing when to cross were: 1) right-turning traffic masked the surge of parallel traffic — 71 percent (91 of 128) and 2) traffic was intermittent — 13 percent (16 of 128).
The two problems considered most important in crossing straight across the street were 1) getting confused by an unexpected feature such as a median strip or island — 57 percent (62 of 108) and 2) not knowing where the destination corner was located — 18 percent (19 of 108).
The two problems related to push buttons which were considered most important were: 1) knowing whether there was a push button — 58 percent (57 of 98) and 2) they had trouble finding the push button — 15 percent (15 of 98).
The two problems considered most important in using APSs were: 1) the APS was too quiet — 36 percent (24 of 67) and 2) they had difficulty remembering which sound was for which direction — 21 percent (14 of 67).
California is the only state which has specifications for APSs. Bird-call type signals are recommended, and are widely used throughout California, although several other types of signals are used in a few cities. Elsewhere in the United States, there is less uniformity in signal type. The bird-call type signal, sounding “cuckoo” for north-south crossings, and “peep-peep” for east-west crossings, is intended to convey to blind pedestrians unambiguous information about which street has the WALK signal. To obtain data on the success of this strategy, responses of Californians (100) vs. non-Californians (63) were compared for two questions.
Seventy-eight percent of Californians (78 of 100) and 50 percent (29 of 58) of non-Californians indicated they sometimes did not know which crosswalk an APS was for. Twenty-five percent of Californians (25 of 100) and 29 percent (17 of 58) of non-Californians indicated they sometimes couldn’t remember which sound was for which direction. Therefore, despite the greater use of and familiarity with bird-call type signals in California, which are intended to clearly indicate which street at an intersection has the WALK interval, blind pedestrians in California report a particularly high incidence of problems in deciding which street an APS is for.
This may be partly a result of forgetting which signal is associated with which direction. Other possible causes include being unaware of either the direction in which they are traveling, or the compass orientation of the intersection.
Forgetting which signal is associated with which direction was considered the most important APS problem by 23 percent (10 of 44) of Californians who indicated a most important problem with APSs, vs. 17 percent (4 of 23) for non-Californians, and difficulty deciding which crosswalk an APS indicates has the WALK signal was considered the most important APS problem by 14 percent (6 of 44) of Californians and 30 percent (7 of 23) for non-Californians.
Since many Californians, who are primarily familiar with bird-call type signals, indicated that they had difficulty determining which street had the walk signal, and a number of Californians indicated that they considered difficulty determining which street had the walk signal to be the most important problem in using APSs, this survey indicates that a bird-call type signal is of no particular advantage in conveying information about which crosswalk at an intersection has the walk signal.