October 13, 2008
Watchdog
Walk, at your own peril, at intersection
The crosswalk signals at Paca and Saratoga have been out of service for months as the city says it has waited for other repairs. (Sun photo by Amy Davis / January 28, 2008)
THE PROBLEM // A pedestrian crosswalk signal in downtown Baltimore has not been working for months.
THE BACKSTORY // Reader Bob Lambert wrote to Watchdog about the nonfunctioning crosswalk signals at Saratoga and Paca streets, near Lexington Market.
He takes the light rail from his Glen Burnie home to his job at the Social Security Administration building at Saratoga and Greene streets and felt that pedestrians needed more warning about the impending traffic.
"One more time, I crossed there with my life in my hands," Lambert said in a telephone interview after work last week. He noticed that some construction at that intersection had been completed nearly a month ago but that the crosswalk signal had not been reactivated.
"If [the traffic signal] starts changing when I cross, I just scamper," Lambert said. "But there are folks that can't."
Steam leaking from a conduit under that intersection last year had shorted out the cables for the pedestrian signals, said Adrienne Barnes, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Transportation. The department hired a contractor to repair the steam conduit, she said, and that work was completed in December.
Barnes said department officials had to inspect the contractors' work before repairing the pedestrian signal. "It wouldn't have made any sense for us to go in and redo the wiring until they were done," she said.
The repairs to the crosswalk signal were to be completed by yesterday, but a water main break in the area interfered with those plans, Barnes said.
WHO CAN FIX THIS // Felicia Oliver, chief of traffic engineering for the Department of Transportation, 410-396-6905. City residents can also call 311 to report problems.
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