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Concept
Pedestrian scramble
Summary
A pedestrian scramble, also known as scramble intersection and scramble corner (Canada), 'X' Crossing (UK), diagonal crossing (US), scramble crossing (Japan), exclusive pedestrian interval, or Barnes Dance, is a type of traffic signal movement that temporarily stops all vehicular traffic, thereby allowing pedestrians to cross an intersection in every direction, including diagonally, at the same time.
In Canada and the United States, It was first used in the late 1940s, but it later fell out of favor with traffic engineers there, as it increases delay for pedestrians and drivers. Its benefits for pedestrian flow and safety have led to new examples being installed in many countries in recent years, including the world's busiest pedestrian intersection at Shibuya, Tokyo, which began operation in 1973.
The name "Barnes Dance" commemorates traffic engineer Henry Barnes while alluding to a barn dance. While he did not claim to have invented it himself, Barnes was a strong advocate of it, having observed the difficulties his daughter experienced on her way to school. He first introduced it in his home city of Denver, Colorado in the late 1940s. Around this time, the pedestrian scramble was being tested separately in Kansas City and Vancouver. Barnes later brought it to Baltimore and New York City. When Barnes became traffic commissioner of New York City in 1962, his first action was to look for intersections to implement pedestrian scrambles. The first pedestrian scramble was installed ten days after he took office at the intersection of Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street, to great acclaim. Following the success of this first scramble, Barnes began adding more scrambles across the city, at Wall Street; 42nd Street at Fifth Avenue and at Madison Avenue; and Brooklyn.
In his autobiography The Man With the Red and Green Eyes (1965) Barnes recorded that a City Hall reporter, John Buchanan, coined the phrase by writing that "Barnes has made the people so happy they're dancing in the streets.
Official source
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