Effects of Various Minimum Green Times on Percentage of Pedestrians Waiting for Midblock “Walk” Signal

Abstract

Pedestrians often do not wait for the “Walk” sign at signal-controlled midblock crossings. Many factors may contribute to this phenomenon, but one variable could be the waiting time. One study has shown that as the waiting time for an elevator in university buildings was systematically increased, more people took the stairs rather than the elevators. It is likely that the major reason why people try to cross against the signal at midblock signal-controlled crosswalks when there are gaps in traffic in the first half of the roadway is the length of the average waiting time. It is common to have minimum green times of 1 min or more on a main line with a signal-controlled midblock crosswalk. Arriving early in a cycle, a pedestrian may become frustrated and attempt to cross a street with fast, heavy traffic. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of waiting time on pedestrian signal compliance at two midblock crosswalks in Miami-Dade County, Florida. One crosswalk traversed an arterial multilane road with two-way traffic, and the second crosswalk traversed a multilane road with one-way traffic. At both crosswalks the minimum green time varied between 30 and 120 s. The results indicated that the rate of pedestrian compliance decreased as the minimum green time was increased and that the rate of compliance dropped more rapidly as the minimum green time was increased at the location with the lower average daily traffic and one-way traffic. The data also showed that the percentage of pedestrians trapped at the centerline increased with an increased minimum green time.