Committee will decide where to put audible street crossing signals
By Meaghan Butler
Marjorie Fulton, 66, listens carefully to the traffic before she crosses the street.
She walks with the traffic. When cars stop at an intersection, she stops on the sidewalk beside them. When they begin to cross the street, Fulton crosses too.
Fulton has been blind since she was 10-years-old. But it doesn’t stop her from getting around.
“We’re all very good at listening to traffic,” comments Fulton.
She has no choice because there are only 38 audible pedestrian signals in Ottawa. She relies on her ears and her guide dog to direct her.
Fulton lives at the corner of O’Connor and Waverly Streets, and she says the closest audible pedestrian signal is two blocks away.
Regional councillor, Diane Holmes, who is Fulton’s representative, suggested the regional transportation committee set up an advisory group to represent the blind community.
It met for the first time on November 18 to have preliminary discussions and organize themselves.
“It wouldn’t be up to me to say where to put them,” says Holmes. There are 12 audible signals in Holmes’s ward.
For the past year, Fulton has worked with an informal blind group to lobby the regional government.
“I’ve been waiting very patiently,” she adds.
Holmes says she hopes to rearrange the budget so more money can be used to install audible signals.
J. Terry Keough, the orientation and mobility representative from the Canadian National Institute of the Blind, says the regional budget for audible pedestrian signals is about $15,000 per year.
But the average cost for one signal is $11,500, which means only one audible pedestrian signal is installed each year. This makes the choice of its location crucial.
There are two types of audible pedestrian signals. The most modern makes a bird-call sound to let visually impaired pedestrians know it’s safe to cross.
A “tweet, tweet” call means it’s OK to cross east or west. “Cuckoo, cuckoo” means it’s safe to walk north or south.
Fulton says the older model made a buzzer sound to walk one way and a bell sound to walk another.
The sounds were changed because neighbors at some intersections, like Bank and Flora Streets, complained about the noise. However, Fulton says the bird calls are difficult to hear over the roar of rush-hour traffic.
Fulton says the time it takes the visually impaired to determine it’s safe to cross a street is an important factor when deciding where audible signals should be installed.
She says at complicated intersections, such as Bank and Catherine Streets, she can listen for almost 15 minutes before it sounds safe to cross.
“You wait and you wait and you wait and wait til you’re damn sure you’re not going to get hit,” adds Fulton.
Keough says that in the past audible signals were installed based on the number of requests for a particular intersection.
Fulton knows which intersections she’d like to have the audible signals at.
She emphasizes the need to have them along Bronson Avenue. She also mentions the corner of Laurier and Elgin Streets is a busy intersection.
There isn’t an audible signal at the intersection in front of the Canadian National Institute of the Blind either, but Fulton says it doesn’t need one.
“It’s a simple intersection,” says Fulton.
Holmes adds that the regional transportation department has been dragging its feet about where to install the audible signals.
“If you put a visual signal you should put an audible signal,” says Fulton. “At least that’s what I think.”