Windsor, Ontario, is the first and only city ive been to that uses the traditional double section pedestrian signal with LED walk on the bottom. All new double section pedestrian signals have the timers everywhere else ive been. The signal on the left was likely a retrofit, while the ones on the right are only a few years old. I know Fortran does sell individual LED walk modules as well.
Very interesting, I never seen any other city do this, kinda nice to see the classic walk on bottom and hand on top setup which all seemed to have died out when they got rid of incandescents. It would be neat for them to make a combined man/countdown module to keep the classic incandescent look.
I also wondered why Canada never approved the incandescent look crosswalk LEDs, they make them with the US symbols but I've never seen one with the Canadian symbols.
Interesting. I rarely see individual LED modules. Didn't know they still made them. Around here, they had been using the 12" single section fiberoptic modules, which had the words "DONT WALK" on it. The "WALK" portion did double-duty as the orange for the "DONT WALK" designation and the white for the "WALK" designation. I loved those since they had words instead of symbols (more vintage look to them) and they were a single section.
So when RIDOT converted to LEDs, it made the conversion pretty simple since the signals were already one section. The few incandescent 2-section units were retrofitted with the man/hand on the top and the "WALK" section left alone. But then when they required the countdowns for all intersections (which I think is stupid; only thing they're good for is timing how long you have to drive through the intersection until the vehicle signal turns red lol) they had to replace all the signals with 2-section units. So at first it was a help but then it came back to bite them... There's still plenty of intersections with no countdowns though.
Toronto used to have the Dont walk and walks too way before my time lol. They were all double section though. Seems here that the single section pedestrian signals in the GTA era is dying out. They still get installed in some places. MTO hwy ramp intersections in my city use the single section still. Not every intersection, Its now phasing out a bit too. This is one of the few upgraded intersections owned by MTO that now utilize the double section with the Timer. The Toronto MTO intersections never seemed to have changed to single section at all. I think it would have been cool if they used these at the MTO intersections here instead of single sections or timers.
I think the timers are actually more dangerous. Especially when it counts down to 0 and the light doesn't change or the walk symbol comes back. on.
Yeah, they were CGE with Don't Walk/Walk lenses like my reconstruction. I believe they either came painted black or yellow. They later got replacement hand and man lenses when Don't Walk/Walk lenses got phased out.
Toronto was interesting in the sense that by the time they decided to mass changeout the old incandescent CGE pedestrian signals, countdowns were already taking off so many of the CGEs got countdowns when they refitted to LED. Apparently a city report stated that converting the CGEs to countdown was cheaper than the labour costs of reconfiguring the signal arms to accept single section pedestrian signals.
York Region did their mass changeout in 2003 and installed a lot of single section pedestrian signals, those got reconfigured for countdowns around 2007 by adding a new section and reconfiguring the signal arms again. They didn't replace the single section signals though, they added a section and so you can a lot of frankensignals in York Region such as a Eagle bolted to a Fortran countdown section.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the countdowns that go back to a walk sign or the ones where the amber is delayed by a few seconds. Technically you can argue that the countdowns are not intended for the driver but everyone knows the drivers all look at the countdowns. I never got why they did the return to walk at 0, if the intersection is a semi-actuated (side street only gets a green when there's traffic) they should just hold the main street light at green and walk until the controller detects a vehicle or a pedestrian.
Hmm that is weird. Most intersections here just keep the DONT WALK symbol until the button is pressed (which is never...) The few intersections that are automated (almost always 4-way intersections) will give a walk signal whenever the street parallel to the crosswalks is green. Then the counter begins counting. When the counter gets to zero the vehicle lights go yellow then red. Then the cross street goes green and the ped signals give a WALK signal. I personally think when a walk signal is given, all vehicle signals should be red. Obviously that doesn't work for automated intersections but for manual-triggers walk signals that's how it should be done IMO. RIDOT only does that in downtown areas.
@Joe, there's lots of intersections in Brampton where the timer counts down then, turns to walk lol. It actually happens when a side street has a car that triggers its turn for green, so triggers the main street's count down in preparation, but that car makes a right turn on red, so no more need for a green on the side street, it's actually detected that the car is gone which cancels the side street call for a green. So the main street's count down preparation to turn yellow is cancelled, its countdown to walking man ensues. Sometimes the timing causes side street greens yet there is no cars there for it.
Login
I also wondered why Canada never approved the incandescent look crosswalk LEDs, they make them with the US symbols but I've never seen one with the Canadian symbols.
So when RIDOT converted to LEDs, it made the conversion pretty simple since the signals were already one section. The few incandescent 2-section units were retrofitted with the man/hand on the top and the "WALK" section left alone. But then when they required the countdowns for all intersections (which I think is stupid; only thing they're good for is timing how long you have to drive through the intersection until the vehicle signal turns red lol) they had to replace all the signals with 2-section units. So at first it was a help but then it came back to bite them... There's still plenty of intersections with no countdowns though.
I think the timers are actually more dangerous. Especially when it counts down to 0 and the light doesn't change or the walk symbol comes back. on.
Toronto was interesting in the sense that by the time they decided to mass changeout the old incandescent CGE pedestrian signals, countdowns were already taking off so many of the CGEs got countdowns when they refitted to LED. Apparently a city report stated that converting the CGEs to countdown was cheaper than the labour costs of reconfiguring the signal arms to accept single section pedestrian signals.
York Region did their mass changeout in 2003 and installed a lot of single section pedestrian signals, those got reconfigured for countdowns around 2007 by adding a new section and reconfiguring the signal arms again. They didn't replace the single section signals though, they added a section and so you can a lot of frankensignals in York Region such as a Eagle bolted to a Fortran countdown section.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the countdowns that go back to a walk sign or the ones where the amber is delayed by a few seconds. Technically you can argue that the countdowns are not intended for the driver but everyone knows the drivers all look at the countdowns.
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.1304779,-123.0920308,3a,20.4y,98.55h,95.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1so6Lk0QiUJNOmOq0eK0l1GA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en