[NFBV-Potomac-Announce] Speaker Locations and Walk Messages at Crosswalks

[John Halverson]

As we discussed at yesterday's meeting Leroy is summarizing his comments on accessible traffic signals. See below.

John

Good day everyone.
Arlington county transportation officials have been unwilling to employ the audible signals that the survey of the blind and vision impaired preferred, as revealed in the survey we conducted in 2023. The county officials said that they were only following the guidelines published in the Federal Highway Administration's Manual on uniform traffic control devices (MUTCD).  The county has been violating multiple guidelines but, in December, I noticed  that they are no longer violating a major guideline at intersections I have used over the last two months. But I am not familiar with all intersections.

What I am asking is whether you know of any intersections where the following guideline is not followed.

The guideline requires that speakers at each crosswalk be located on two different poles that are at least ten feet apart OR, if the speakers are less than ten feet apart, the walk signal must be a voice message that announces the name of the street that has the walk signal. The voice message should be the same as Arlington county once provided at all crosswalks = street name, walk sign is on to cross street name.Please let me know the following:
1. At how many intersections do you find speakers are less than ten feet apart?
2. Should you find street corners where the crosswalk speakers are less than ten feet apart, is the walk message a voice message? That is, does it announce = street name, walk sign is on to cross street name?
3. If you know the name of the streets where speakers are less than ten feet apart and a voice message is not used (that is, locations where the MUTCD is being violated), please let me know. If you do not recall street names, then please do not worry about it.

There is a second feature I would like to ask you to test for. It is a press-and-hold feature.  Whenever you push a button to obtain a walk signal, hold the button in for three seconds. You should hear an announcement of the name of the street you will be crossing and the name of the parallel street . For example, Wait to cross Quinsey at Washington Blvd.

Please let me know of your findings before our next chapter meeting.  Thank you. LeRoy

PS. I measure speaker distance by putting one hand on one speaker pole and using my cane to find the other speaker pole. I have a rough idea of how much of my stretched arms plus the portion of my cane is about ten feet.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbv-potomac-announce_nfbnet.org/attachments/20250213/73b4700a/attachment.htm>