Arlington to pedestrians: beg for us

Last Wednesday, Arlington County officials announced plans to roll back 78 automatic pedestrian phase activations, also known as “beg buttons,” throughout the county.

Arlington County enacted the beg buttons at 93 intersections last spring as scientists were still gauging the seriousness of COVID-19, and county officials grappled with how to react to people stuck in their homes and their greater need for space outside.

Instead of making pedestrians push a button at an intersection to signal that they’re trying to cross, they installed the automatic pedestrian recalls so the intersection signal automatically shows the pedestrian “walk” sign whether there’s a person there or not. It removes a required step people have to take when crossing a street, can lead to shorter wait times, and helps make walking more appealing. It’s also a smoother option for people with mobility devices since some buttons are hard to reach or not placed in convenient locations.

At a time of uncertainty during the pandemic, the new method removed the need for people to push a button, quelling fears that the coronavirus could live for long periods of time on surfaces.

Several densely-populated areas of the county appear most affected by the about-face, including nearly the entire Columbia Pike corridor, about 30 intersections along the Langston Blvd Corridor from East Falls Church to Rosslyn, multiple intersections on Glebe Road and Washington Boulevard in Ballston, as well as Army Navy Drive in Pentagon City.

However, county officials plan to keep the auto-triggered signals at major corridors, including Rosslyn-Ballston and Crystal City “where pedestrian activity level is high,” the release said. Arlington spokesperson Jessica Baxter told GGWash that 15 signals set to automatic pedestrian recall in the Crystal City area would remain as well.

Explaining why the county was undoing its pandemic change, Baxter told GGWash that “the theory amongst professionals is when there is manual input by a pedestrian at a walkway, pedestrians are more likely to pay attention to their surroundings. This is due to the need for conscientious input, such as looking up from phones and scanning the area before pressing the button.”

In the press release, officials also pointed to the expected increase in car traffic at the start of the school year as a reason for the switch, which many pedestrian advocates deem counterintuitive.

“The [press release] says basically: kids are going back to school so we need to make it harder to walk,” tweeted Gillian Burgess, an advocate with the Sustainable Mobility for Arlington County Board (SUSMO) and Arlington Families for Safe Streets. “It’s not a good look.”

(Disclaimer: the author is an Arlington resident and member of the SUSMO Board of Directors).

The chair of Arlington’s volunteer transportation commission, Chris Slatt, had choice words about the timing as well. “To use the start of school to justify this change and to claim it is to ‘improve walkway safety’ is, frankly, gross and unacceptable,” he said on Twitter. “We are at the start of a school year where parents are trying to figure out how to safely get their kids to school without cramming them onto a crowded bus, and here is Arlington DES planting a giant flag in the ground that says ‘Don’t walk. Don’t bike. DRIVE.’”

Arlington Planning Commission Vice Chair Daniel Weir summed it up by saying the change would “reflect a literal prioritization of vehicular traffic” over pedestrians. “It’s a statement of values, it’s saying ‘we think the public right of way is for cars first and pedestrians should fit in as an afterthought.’ That’s just not an acceptable value judgment in an urban space.”

Policy on pedestrian actuation varies by locality. DC’s Design and Engineering Manual notes that requiring pedestrians to push a button “should be used only at actuated signals, and only when pedestrians are present less than half of the signal cycles at the peak hour. At pre-timed signals, WALK and DON’T WALK indications should be part of every cycle.”

In other words, pedestrian buttons should only be used when signals at an intersection change based on when cars arrive. And even in those cases, they should be used only when pedestrians are frequenting the intersection less than half the time during the peak hour.

Baxter told GGWash that signal timings and pedestrian recall buttons in Arlington are “determined by both vehicular traffic and pedestrian activity patterns,” noting the County relies “on both standard and engineering judgment.”

VDOT spokesperson Ellen Kamilakis said the state agency generally doesn’t set pedestrian activation buttons to automatic recall.

Arlington Board member Takis Karantonis chimed in on Twitter that “a more detailed explanation” about the “return of beg-buttons” is needed.

Update: This article was updated at 3:20 pm, August 24, 2021, to include comments from the Virginia Department of Transportation.