Lucy Tran
27 December, 2004

I personally think whoever came up with the twenty second time crap, as I call it, in order to cross the street is completely ridiculous.

Today was Boxing Day and I had a drink in my hand, which won't be that important later in the story. While seeing the lights turn green for my turn to walk, the "cuckoo" sound comes on (for blind people and other hearing disabilities) and I had about five seconds to get over to the other side. I wasn't nearly half way there and the road was so wide, making us more vulnerable.

I tried to make it as fast as possible for other drivers to get their chance as well but as soon as I did, I could tell that the person who was sitting in the driver's seat wasn't too happy about it; me being "slow", which I wasn't.

This has happened to me a couple of times before whenever I go out and I think it's time we either extend the time longer or cancel it. I mean, we have so many seniors around this neighborhood and what if they don't make it to the other side on time and end up getting hit by another car?

We all have our paces when it comes to walking. I heard Toronto has a thirty to forty second time limit now and it sounds so much better than what we have here. Back in the day, I remember we didn't have it at all and plus, it was more crowded at chinatown than you'll ever think of. This tells me the increasing rate of impatient people we have here in Vancouver.

Since the time this article was written, pedestrian signals in the Toronto area have been upgraded to also "count down" the time between green and red lights. Good luck to those crossing the street.