Helping Orthodox Jews avoid the danger of rushing across busy
intersections on Shabbos without pushing a crosswalk button,
the Los Angeles Department of Transportation has reprogrammed
five intersections along bustling Ventura and Burbank
boulevards so traffic lights will automatically allot extra
time for pedestrians even if they did not activate the
crossing button.
According to a report in the Los Angles News, the
timing patters will remain in effect every week from 4:45
p.m. Friday to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, officials said.
"It's very considerate of them to do that," said Joseph
Tehrani, 48, an Orthodox Jew and civil engineer for
Caltrans.
For Tehrani and others, there is another pressing concern
about these intersections.
"Some of the older people can't walk as fast," Tehrani said
after crossing Ventura Boulevard at Newcastle Avenue, one of
the reprogrammed intersections.
It was in that intersection on October 20 that an elderly
Jewish woman was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver
while she was walking to shul. Witnesses to the crash said
the woman appeared to get stranded in the intersection when
the light changed before she could reach the other side.
In the wake of her death, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura
Chick said she began looking into the issue. At the urging of
Mrs. Chick, chairwoman of the City Council's Public Safety
Committee, and fellow Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski,
engineers changed the timing patterns for shabbos.
"We want our families and elders, all residents in Los
Angeles, to be able to cross streets safely, and, in
particular, we want to be respectful of people's religious
beliefs and traditions," Mrs. Chick said. "This was an easy
thing for the city to do."
All it took was a few clicks of a computer keyboard in the
city's Automated Traffic Surveillance Control Center in
downtown, said transportation engineer associate Dan
Mitchell. The effort was no extra cost to the city.
"It's a minimal effort on our part, and for the most part it
has a minimal effect on traffic since most of it takes place
on Saturday, which is an off-peak day," Mr. Mitchell said.
The time between a green and red light can vary from 5
seconds to 40 seconds, he said. The cycle is shorter when no
one pushes the crosswalk button because the intersection
assumes that only vehicles want to cross.
With the new changes, people will now have about 30 seconds
to cross the affected intersections, with or without pushing
the button, Mitchell said.
As about 40 intersections citywide traffic signals have been
modified on account of Shabbos, Mr. Mitchell said. Some of
these intersections, called "Sabbatical pedestrian recall
locations," were changed more than five years ago.
The ones changed now were the first in the western end of the
San Fernando Valley, Mrs. Chick said. The eight other such
intersections in the valley are in North Hollywood.
While the Encino intersections are now set to change
automatically every Friday, traffic engineers will have to
reprogram them from downtown on religious holidays, Mr.
Mitchell said.
But even that will be automated in about a year because the
department has rewritten the software it uses to control
signal timing at the computers housed in the gray boxes at
intersections. "It will know each day what time, to the
second, the sun rises and sets and has all the special
holidays programmed in," Mr. Mitchell said. "That will
eliminate the need for us to manually implement this (every
holiday)."
There are now no plans to make these changes at any other
Valley intersections, but Mrs. Chick said she is open to
recommendations. "The Orthodox Jewish community congregates
geographically because they have to be within walking
distance of their synagogue," she said. "There are a whole
lot more shuls showing up in this area because of the growth
of the community."
