Geneva wants pedestrians to push its buttons

People trying to cross State Street in downtown Geneva, the city has a message for you:

PUSH THE BUTTON. YOU HAVE TO PUSH THE BUTTON.

New crosswalk signals along State from East Side Drive to Anderson Boulevard are confusing pedestrians and they have been calling city hall to complain about "broken" signals, said Mary McKittrick, city administrator.

The Illinois Department of Transportation reprogrammed the signals six weeks ago. For the last five or six years, the "walk" sign came on automatically, said Robert Smith, the city's traffic specialist.

"So they (pedestrians) kind of got out of the habit of doing that (pushing the button)," Smith said.

A study he conducted earlier this week showed about 50 percent of pedestrians didn't activate the signal.

Further complicating matters was that signs indicating "push for signal" were missing or unreadable in some places.

The city is in the final year of a three-year program to have countdown timers programmed into the walk signals. They tell pedestrians how many seconds are left in the cycle. Although IDOT controls the signals, the city paid for the programming.

IDOT told the city that having walk signals always come on, even when there are no pedestrians, could lead to driver complacency. It also contends that having need-only walk signals will increase the green time for vehicle traffic, improving capacity on the roads.

Pedestrians have been crossing anyway, but Smith worries that drivers may not be expecting that. If there is no "walk" signal, the vehicle has the right of way -- not the pedestrian, Smith said.

"We have a very vibrant downtown area with very heavy pedestrian traffic," Smith said. A 2004 study showed that from noon to 4 p.m. weekdays there were 172 pedestrian crossings on average per hour at State and Third streets.

Smith called IDOT and now new signs are in place. They include an explanation of what the various signal symbols mean.