News

By Rich Pollack

    John Boden was driving south on State Road A1A after dark and approaching a pedestrian crosswalk a few months ago when he happened to see the silhouettes of two women and four children in the headlights of a northbound car.
    Dressed in dark clothing and carrying no lights, the pedestrians had remained invisible to Boden until he was very close to the crosswalk.
    The experience, he says, helped launch him on a one-man crusade to get state and local government leaders to add flashing LED lights along the edges of pedestrian crosswalk signs to alert motorists when there are people in the crosswalk.
    “Realizing that there was the potential for me to kill a family was shocking,” says Boden.
    So far, Boden’s efforts have been unsuccessful, met with feedback from state transportation officials who say there has to be a compelling reason — a pattern of problems at certain crosswalks — before additional lighting can be added.
    While there haven’t been any major accidents at crosswalks near his Highland Beach home in recent years, Boden suspects there have been many near misses. “Everyone I’ve told this story to says ‘It’s happened to me, too,’ ” he said.
    At the same time Boden is launching his campaign for more-visible signage, state officials say they are in the process of deciding whether to continue replacing in-street pedestrian warning signs — those in the middle of the crosswalks — at locations where they are continuously being knocked down.
    “Because they’re hit so often, it’s becoming expensive for the department to replace them,” says Jonathan Overton, the Florida Department of Transportation’s assistant district traffic engineer for the area that includes Palm Beach County.  He estimates that there are between 100 and 150 of the signs statewide, with the biggest concentration in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
    Should the state choose not to replace signs — sometimes referred to as paddle signs or rebounders — that are repeatedly knocked over, municipalities would still have the option to pay for the signs and have them installed by city or town staff.
    That’s already occurring in some coastal towns such as Ocean Ridge, where Police Chief Hal Hutchins says the town routinely replaces knocked-down crosswalk signs.
    In Highland Beach, however, paying to replace the signs —  available for between $65 and $70 —  could end up being costly. The town has eight crosswalks and at a recent commission meeting town officials said they estimate that more than 100 signs have been replaced during a three-year period.
    Both Overton of DOT and Highland Beach Town Manager Beverly Brown say signs near driveways tend to be knocked down the most.
    While signs — both the in-road signs and state-mandated yellow and black crosswalk signs on both sides of the road — do raise awareness, Overton, along with some Highland Beach town commissioners, say education of pedestrians may be the most effective tool in preventing near misses like the one Boden faced.
    “The burden for crossing the street still lies with the pedestrian,” said City Commissioner Carl Feldman, who suggested that perhaps the town’s Police Department could make presentations on crosswalk safety. “Education is important.”
    For his part, Boden is continuing his efforts to have pedestrian-activated flashing LED lights placed on the yellow and black diamond-shaped pedestrian crosswalk signs.
    Those lights, which he said he’s seen on State Road A1A in northern Florida, draw more attention than some of the more common blinking yellow crosswalk lights that can be activated by pedestrians.
    “Everyone wants to do this,” he said. “I’m going to find a way to climb over this wall.”