The aesthetics of the beepings of street light walk signals

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Chester described the ghetto sounding ones in SLC.

There are a few in downtown Seattle that make sparsely timed space zapping sounds.

In Santa Monica (the first time i ever heard them in my life, when I was a kid), they make a bloopy cuckoo sound. Same thing in Victoria, BC.

Any others to report?

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 14 November 2003 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

"ghetto sounding"???

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 14 November 2003 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but the ones in SLC are paying tribute to Ice Cube's "Ghetto Bird", so they win.
-- chester

From the SLC thread... :)

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 14 November 2003 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

When I walk home, I pass a cross walk, and there is a button so that the blind can have an audible signal.

Now I'm not blind, and have no need to press the button, but the sound is so wonderful- like a clockwork nightengale made into an automan-that I press the button, just so I can listen.

Sometimes, after class, I walk home with some one, and he has started to throw himself against the button, preventing me from hearing the lovely noise.

Now this is a pop music blog- but Brian Eno's best work in the last ten years has been the microsoft start up signal, and those who hear one thing often hear others. I love everyday noises-the ding of the bus as it signals a stop, the precussive click of a keyboard, chalk on chalk board, boots finding their way down stairs and through hall ways.

The John Cage epigram about noise being music, and vice versa should be a way to live life.

i wrote that for nyplm

― anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 14 November 2003 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

In Sackville, if you held down (as opposed to just pushed) the button for the walk signal on the one intersection with a stoplight you'd get a cheep cheep for one direction and chirp chirp the other. They were supposed to be some kind of birds but they sounded pretty generic yamaha keyboardish to me.
Sackville has THREE traffic light now, but only that original has a button to press.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 14 November 2003 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Melbourne: Loudest crossing signals ever. Forget blind, you could be comatose and still find the other side of the street.

― Hunter (Hunter), Saturday, 15 November 2003 02:01 (twenty-two years ago)

There are so many crossings in such proximity in Dawlish that none of them make a sound because blind people were getting confused and stepping into the road when the adjacent signal was beeping and getting run over. I blame Darwin.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Saturday, 15 November 2003 02:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Not all of that is true. But some of it is.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Saturday, 15 November 2003 02:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Always the flashing noises of Dublin's crossings stun me with their modernity.

Modern, the crossing noises of Dublin flash me always.

Crossing in Dublin always the crossing (flash!) noises (flash!) me stun.

― the pinefox, Saturday, 15 November 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Berlin: the signal sounds like a Thomas Brinkmann record. A dry click.

Tokyo: it either plays a spooky pentatonic folk song, or does a bird alarm cry.

― Momus (Momus), Sunday, 16 November 2003 00:33 (twenty-two years ago)

while walking on campus one day, i overheard this idiotic sorority girl informing her gaggle of new pledges that the beeping crosswalk was there to assist deaf people! now i can't help but think of that every time i hear it.

― Emilymv (Emilymv), Sunday, 16 November 2003 00:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Living at the crossing end of the road which has a school at the other end of the road is really annoying at about 8:30 in the morning when I've just finished a shift.

The minimum time between beeps is 40 seconds.

― celeste (Celeste), Sunday, 16 November 2003 01:29 (twenty-two years ago)

And the green and red man signs are there for the benefit of the blind.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 16 November 2003 11:16 (twenty-two years ago)

five years pass...

It's bad ilx form to do this, but this thread really should have taken off.

― "Sustainability Sucks" T's Ahoy For Urban Outfitters Bootches (Mackro Mackro), Thursday, 25 December 2008 21:06 (seventeen years ago)

Mental ones in Brussels are like a sound installation.

― Plaxico (I know, right?), Thursday, 25 December 2008 21:11 (seventeen years ago)

Some crossings here have a nub on the botton, when the green man is on the nub rotates, this is so blind and deaf people can know when to cross the road.

― Jarlrmai, Thursday, 25 December 2008 22:07 (seventeen years ago)

'Walk Now' by Orbital samples the Sydney crossing sound (the chirp-bipbipbipbipbip that drops in in the middle of the track). really freaked me out first time I heard in situ.

― sister s (ledge), Thursday, 25 December 2008 23:16 (seventeen years ago)

It's bad ilx form to do this, but this thread really should have taken off.

It's 'cause it's just another one of those block rocking beeps.

― $800 Billion Fonzi Scheme (libcrypt), Thursday, 25 December 2008 23:49 (seventeen years ago)

― sister s (ledge), Thursday, 25 December 2008 23:53 (seventeen years ago)

here is the orbital/sydney one:

― sister s (ledge), Thursday, 25 December 2008 23:59 (seventeen years ago)

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