Star Tribune
By Liz Navratil and Emma Nelson
Minneapolis is banishing the “beg button” at hundreds of city intersections, automating the walk signs so pedestrians don’t have to touch a potentially germ-ridden surface.
The walk buttons remain in St. Paul, where city officials talked about changing them earlier this month but decided they had higher priorities
After COVID-19 began spreading in Minnesota, both cities closed certain streets and made other changes to encourage people to walk outside — while urging them to stay six feet apart.
Minneapolis decided that shouldn’t require them to press a button, touched by who knows how many fingers, merely to cross the street. Now a walk signal will come on automatically.
“We felt one of the ways we could reduce the risk is by making it so pedestrians do not have to push a button,” said Allan Klugman, a traffic engineer for the city.
There are roughly 820 intersections in Minneapolis. Before the pandemic, about 320 of them — the majority located downtown — had the automatic walk signals that do not require people to push a button. The city is in the process of converting the signals at roughly 450 intersections.
The remaining 50 had features that would make it difficult to change them.
Engineers at the city’s Traffic Management Center can make the switch, because the signals are tied into the center by fiber. Once that’s done, the city then sends workers to post signs at the intersections that have been updated.
Minneapolis began the bulk of its work on the signals last week and hopes to wrap by the end of this week.
In total, about five people are involved in Minneapolis’ efforts. Aside from the staff time, the only cost was printing up signs notifying people of the changes and acquiring the zip ties used to hold them in place, Klugman said.
The St. Paul Public Works department considered following Minneapolis’ lead, but decided against it after most council members at an April 8 meeting said they would rather the department focus on its long to-do list of street projects this spring.
In addition to spending three days reprogramming about 250 signals across the city, public works employees would have had to spend at least a week posting between 1,000 and 1,200 laminated signs telling pedestrians not to press signal buttons, Interim Public Works Director Paul Kurtz told the council.
“I personally want to say that I appreciate that we’re thinking this stuff through,” Council President Amy Brendmoen said. “As you’re talking about the effort, I’m wondering about the impact, and I’m wondering if it is the best way to use our resources, especially given the significantly diminished amount of traffic on our streets these days.”
(c)2020 the Star Tribune (Minneapolis)