ASHLAND — The morning commute on Claremont Avenue may look a little different now that two new purple crosswalk pillars have been added near Burger King at Ashland University.
AU students commonly cross Claremont at this spot on their way to grab a bite to eat from the convocation center. From now on, pedestrians can activate a bright light that stops traffic and creates a safe environment for them to cross.
Prior to this, the crosswalk relied on a flashing yellow sign that informed drivers to yield to pedestrians.
“That crosswalk has been problematic for years,” said Rick Ewing, Vice President of Operations and Planning at Ashland University. “We’d been struggling with both pedestrian safety and motorist safety.
“We got together with the city engineer, the mayor, the police chief, the fire chief, as well as a couple of university folks here last fall to look at a demo of this unit and we believe that it’s a significant improvement over what we’ve done in the past.”
People who want to cross Claremont Avenue can push a button on this pillar which causes bright strobe lights to flash, notifying drivers to slow down and stop immediately. The bright lights grab the attention of drivers sooner, giving motorists more time to slow down to a safe stop.
However, this is not the only factor that came into the purchase of these pillars.
“The other element that really king of sold us on it is that there are high intensity LED lights facing each other across the street, so in particularly when it’s night-time, these lights will physically light up the crosswalk as well as the pedestrian in the crosswalk”, Ewing said. “It makes everything much more visible to the motorists.”
The pillars do not make any sounds.
That crosswalk is ridiculous. I could understand if no crosswalk is around . They not only have crosswalk 100 foot down road they have a bridge. How are those kids any more special than I am. What happen to day when you stood there until road was clear then you walk. Now you have to stop on command as soon as someone pushes a button cause to lazy to take the other 2 options right there. When has crossing the road been so challenging for people? Maybe just give the university Claremont there and we can all find another route.