Friday Foto Mystery - What's different?

Something has changed in the photo below. Can you tell me what it is?

Mystery photo

It's not an animal. Not a vegetable. It's not a mineral. It's a numeral! While crossing Pacific at 19th for lunch yesterday I noticed a relaxed feeling that I never had before. Like I should take my time and not feel rushed. I snapped this pic while the crosswalk blinked red and realized what was different. There were no numbers counting down to the impending rush of oncoming traffic! Makes sense to remove the countdown because it gave folks the impression they had only 6 or 7 seconds to cross four lanes of road and a large Link platform without realizing the blinking red gave another generous 20 seconds or so.

If they wanted to keep the time they should just have it be a total time and not divide it into a "walk" time and a "better get your butt across the street" time. One chunk of 25 or 30 seconds counting down would do nicely and wouldn't cause anyone to run, twist their ankle, fall in front of the light rail, and sue the city.

Comments (6) | To Top

1/26/2007 @ 9:11am

That countdown was nervewracking. You had to wait so long for the light to change that once it did it took you a precious second before you realized you could go. Jaywalking was less nervewracking.

by Sharon Styer

1/26/2007 @ 9:19am

Definitely. I'm glad to see that go as good as intentions to inform pedestrians were.

by KevinFreitas

1/26/2007 @ 10:59am

Yeah, the way they had it before was like a two stage race with the clear zone countdown and then the red zone countdown.

However, is it possible that the light isn't just burned out.

by Erik

1/26/2007 @ 11:27am

It was missing the countdown in both directions so I think it's been shut off.

9/10/2007 @ 8:45pm

An equipment failure stopped the countdown. The units have been replaced.

by Joe TS

9/10/2007 @ 9:51pm

Thanks Joe TS -- I saw that this was a problem. Good to know it's been fixed.

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Fri. January 26, 2007, 06:46am PST