Valley’s first lighted crosswalk proposed

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2003 | 11:29 a.m.

A new neighborhood in Henderson may become the first in the Las Vegas Valley to have a crosswalk bordered by in-ground lights.

City officials hope the crosswalk lights will make the crossing safer, and they want to see how well drivers pay attention to them before installing more around the city. One pedestrian safety advocate applauded the move, and said she hopes more lighted crosswalks will follow.

Henderson's lighted crosswalk would connect Cinnamon Ridge, a new residential development, to a nearly finished park across Burkholder Boulevard at Cinnamon Ridge Way.

Robert Murnane said his staff requested a lighted crosswalk for that crossing because of expected heavy foot traffic to and from the park.

Nationwide there are about 1,000 lighted crosswalks, including one at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, and in several California cities.

The lights rise 3/4 of an inch from the pavement and are four inches wide. They are set off by either the press of a button or a motion sensor triggered when pedestrians step onto the crosswalk. The lights typical continue flashing for 17 to 23 seconds.

Erin Breen, director of the Safe Community Partnership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said her group has been looking into lighted crosswalks for about seven years.

She said the crosswalks in the valley tend to fade fast and lose their reflectivity within weeks, making them especially hard to see at night.

But if they were bordered by lights, Breen said: "Not to be cliche, but the difference really is night and day."

"They will entice pedestrians to use the crosswalks and teach motorists where to look for crosswalks," she said. "It will only enhance pedestrian safety."

Breen said at least 47 pedestrians have been killed by traffic in the valley this year.

Robert Herr, Henderson's traffic engineer, said that while reflectors do a good job of highlighting where a crosswalk is for an oncoming car, the lights will do an even better job because they will be brighter.

Herr said the crosswalk lights could be installed within two months on Burkholder. However, an official with developer Beazer Homes Nevada, which Herr said is responsible for installing the lights, said company and city officials still need to finish discussing how much they will pay toward the lights.

The lights cost anywhere from $10,000 to $60,000 depending on size of the road, whether the lights are solar power or connected to power lines, and whether a button or motion sensor is used to turn on the lights.

In Petaluma, Calif., about 40 miles north of San Francisco, there are four lighted crosswalks.

Petaluma Public Works Director Rick Skladzien said the system works well in areas where traffic is relatively slow and there is a lot of pedestrian traffic, such as in the city's downtown and near a shopping center. However, he said two of the lighted crosswalks don't work very well, because they are on roads with a lot of traffic with speed limits of 40 mph.

Herr and Murnane said they not sure how many lighted crosswalks will eventually be installed. They said if there are too many, drivers will pay less attention to each one.

But Breen disagreed, saying that the lights would certainly be better than faded white paint that now identifies a crosswalk.

Michael A. Harrison, president of LightGuard System, the company that owns the patent for the crosswalk lights, also said he doesn't think the lights would eventually be ignored by drivers.

"They will see the lights flashing and know a pedestrian is coming and no one wants to hit a pedestrian," Harrison said.

Harrison started the company in 1991 after a friend of his struck and killed a pedestrian, he said. The lights first were installed along a crosswalk in California in 1993. The company is now preparing to extend the use of the lights to railroad crossings and regular traffic light intersections, where they would flash red for red lights.

"The flashing lights are a psychological barrier that's impossible to ignore," Harrison said. "A driver sees the lights go on and says 'What the heck is this?' and slows down."

The lights are aimed away from the crosswalk and are intended to be invisible to the pedestrian.

"The pedestrian should be reacting to the vehicle stopping, not the lights," Harrison said.

Henderson City Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers said that although she hadn't heard of the proposed lighted crosswalk, it sounded like a good idea.

"It could be very helpful," she said.