[nfbwatlk] Article regarding NY streets

[Mary Ellen]

Good points, Debbie.

The NFB position on audible pedestrian signals has become much more nuanced
over the past decade.  When they first were introduced in the early 1970's,
the consensus within the Federation was that any place congested enough to
warrant a walk signal probably was congested enough to give us plenty of
information about traffic flows.  That was before right turn on red,
flashing arrows, and all the other complexities traffic engineers have added
to visual signaling.  Now the NFB position, which was adopted some time
within the past ten years, (or maybe the last fifteen), is that APS is
valid, but that the blind people in each local community should be consulted
about where they belong and where they don't.  Since not every signal is
going to have an APS, and since we don't want every signal to have an APS,
our intent was that they be put where blind people feel they're most needed.
The tendency in some communities was to put an APS near the agency for the
blind even when those intersections were easier to navigate than some others
in a town or city.

Because some have not heard that we've moderated our earlier opposition, we
have some educating to do.  There are those within the Federation who are
still opposed to APS as a matter of principle.  I personally don't like them
when the traffic gives clear information because they tend to distract me
from listening to the traffic and I tend to get lazy, a potentially
dangerous lapse.  

The city of Kelowna has done a really clever thing.  Because neighbors were
complaining about the noise of Aps, the city has rigged theirs so that they
only sound when a person holds the "walk" button for three to five seconds.
If someone just presses it, no APS, and no ambient noise to disturb the
neighbors.  Blind people who want to hear the chirps and tones can hold the
button; those who don't want to hear the APS, blind or sighted, can just
push the button quickly and listen to the traffic only.

That compares with Victoria, where the APS goes off every time the walk
light comes on.  When streets are close together, as in short blocks, it's
not uncommon to have a hard time distinguishing between the APS for one
street and those for the street a block away.  It's also fairly noisy.  

Part of the difference is that no walk sign comes on for anyone in Kelowna
unless a button on a pole is pressed.  I had been calmly walking across an
intersection for more than three years with no problem when I happened to be
crossing with a young girl.  She freaked out because the "walk" sign wasn't
on.  That's when I realized there was a pole with a push button there.  The
traffic was very easy to distinguish; it never occurred to me that the
sighted weren't getting their walk sign until she told me.

As a mother teaching young sighted children how to judge traffic, I disliked
the little stick man walk sign.  First, I thought the word "walk" is nicer
because it's a subtle but powerful means of teaching a young child that the
printed word has value.  Second, and far more important, I found that my
children were paying attention to the stick figure and ignoring traffic.  I
kept telling them to keep an eye on the cars, since nobody has ever been hit
by a lighted stick figure!  Come to think of it, that's not a bad reminder
for us adults, with or without an APS, to paraphrase a campaign slogan from
twenty years ago, "It's the automobiles, stupid."

I've come to value an APS in some circumstances, but I hope I never get
complacent and forget to check out what I hear the traffic doing.

The major difficulty with the article from the New York Times is that it
grossly underestimated our ability to pick out information from the
environment and also grossly underestimated our ability to deal with change.
Your point that older people find change more difficult is valid, but the
writer seemed to say that the blindness, rather than age, was the reason for
difficulty in adjusting.  Anyone who thinks blind people need an unchanging
environment has never lived in a home with several small children!  Grin.

-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of debby phillips
Sent: August 1, 2012 7:34 AM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Article regarding NY streets

Good morning all.  I read with interest the article that Marci sent the link
to.  For those not good at accessing Facebook, I went to Google and did a
search and found the article right away.  
Now, to the meat of what I'd like to say.

At first reading I too was offended at the article, but I would like to
point out a few things.  First of all, Ken Stewart is 78, I believe the
article said.  Older folks (and someday we will be in that category) don't
deal with changes as well as younger ones.  So it's not just a matter of
traveling as a blind person, but in some instances, at least, we are dealing
with an aging population.  However, having said that, I will say that good
cane skills er good dog handling skills are absolutely essential.  But I do
think that we as blind folks have to learn to adapt to change, because
whether we like it or not, the days of fairly simple traffic patterns are
gone.  With right on red and turning lanes now available that sound of
parallel traffic can be deceiving.  (And I've been in a small town for eight
years, so I admit that my judgements about city traffic are probably off a
bit.  But things are changing rapidly.  Whether we like it or not,
(especially with gas prices) people are going to use more hybrids, and more
bikes to get around.  They are definitely harder to hear.  I like the idea
of pedestrian plazas though, admittedly they might be harder to stay
oriented in.  So it seems to me that we need to figure out new ways of doing
OandM that take these things in to account.  We also need to figure out how
to teach our friends and family to help us learn new areas, or changed
areas.

Now, I also know that this next statement may not be totally NFB correct,
but I do think that there are times when it is necessary for there to be an
accessible pedestrian signal.  There was a street here in Colville that was
almost impossible to tell when the light changed to walk.  The parallel
street had little traffic, and telling when the walk sign was on was very
difficult.  Either there would be no parallel traffic, there would be one
car and maybe a quiet one at that, and then the walk sign was gone.  they
were going to put in an accessible signal, but what they did instead is they
took out all the traffic lights along Main Street.  (That was NOT my idea).
Lol.  Now cars are supposed to stop for pedestrians.  They have stopped for
me, and other people have said that it's great, but time will tell.  This is
a year-long pilot program to see if it gets traffic through town more
quickly.  It will, and Colville being the small town that it is, most people
will stop for folks walking.  But anyway, that's one way for the state to
get out of putting in an accessible pedestrian signal.  (Grin).

One thing in the article, they kept mentioning DAVID PATTERSON, but I
thought he didn't use a white cane.  And as for memorizing every little hump
in the sidewalk, that's crazy.  And I don't know anybody that counts steps.
If I ever have to start doing that, I'll probably be admitted to the crazy
ward, cuz counting steps and keeping track of everything else I'd drive me
to more.  
What's this thing with sighted folks counting steps, anyway?  
Everybody asks me, do you count your steps?  I would love to hear how NFB
folks in New YORK City are dealing with the changes in the streets, etc.
The article was pretty negative.  Actually QUITE negative.  It made Ken
Stewart out to be an idiot, and I've read his writings for years and know
that he's not, he's actually 
a pretty bright guy.  Hope this isn't too far astray.    Peace,    
Debby

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