Chapel Hill reduces crosswalk wait times

Many people jaywalk in Chapel Hill, but the town is making efforts to curtail that potentially dangerous behavior.

Brian Tennent, traffic signal system analyst for Chapel Hill, said he has been adjusting wait time limits on intersections, most notably the crosswalks in front of the UNC Health Science Library, Fraternity Court and McDonald’s on West Franklin Street.

Tennent said each crosswalk was adjusted to shorten the time between when the crosswalk button is pressed and when the light changes to allow pedestrians to walk from 120 to 140 seconds, to 60 to 70 seconds.

“This will reduce pedestrians’ desire to jaywalk, because with the higher times it was increasing their urgency and chances of jaywalking,” Tennent said.

Tennent said since the adjustments were made at the end of October, the system appears to be working.

“Franklin and McDonald’s, Columbia and Health Sciences are adjusted now,” Tennent said.

“I implemented those on Oct. 30 and have been monitoring them every day since, and it’s been running according to plan. Fraternity Court has basically been adjusted for the demand of volume, and unless there are any issues that come up, it will stay the way it is.”

The change comes after resident Charlie Hileman submitted a video to council members showing how long the wait time was at the UNC Health Science Library.

“This timing is quantitative and engineers know it, but apparently that systemic approach is not being applied to Chapel Hill,” Hileman said. “At least they are not transparent enough about it, and if they are using it then I haven’t seen it.”

Hileman noted the foot bridge by UNC Hospitals and the pedestrian-activated flashing lights at crosswalks as two beneficial projects the town has taken on to improve safety.

“They have made these big projects that are really money intensive, but the basic question of how does a pedestrian get across the road is still unknown,” Hileman said.

Councilman Jim Ward said the council strives to maintain a balance between cars and pedestrians or bicycles.

“We have a traffic light system that is sophisticated enough to time these things right,” Ward said.

Councilwoman Maria Palmer said not fixing the wait time could lead to bigger problems down the road.

“If the wait is too long and unreasonable, pedestrians see traffic is not coming and the light is not changing then they’ll run across without waiting for the appropriate light,” Palmer said.

“And then the light changes and everyone has already crossed so then cars think it’s unreasonable, and they might speed on through. Either way it poses a safety issue that had to be fixed.”

Hileman said the town is doing a good job of accommodating its growing needs, but the fight for safer crosswalks is still ahead.

“It’s a battle,” Hileman said. “The history of these southern towns is that they didn’t have walkability in mind while they were being urbanized, and now they have to address that.”

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