the new Puffin style crossing on Railway Avenue brings the red and green men down to the near side of the crossing.
New Zealand’s first ‘Puffin’ pedestrian crossing outside of Hutt Central School has earned golden credentials. Since May 8, the school’s pupils have been using the ‘Puffin’ to get across the busy Railway Ave pedestrian crossing. Hutt City Council was presented with the Golden Foot top award in the accessibility innovation category of Living Streets Aotearoa’s new national walking awards. “Winning a Golden Foot award is a wonderful achievement and it’s great to see our commitment to innovation and improving pedestrian safety in Hutt City recognised,” said Hutt City Council CEO Tony Stallinger. ‘Puffins’ (Pedestrian User Friendly Intelligent Crossings) bring the fluorescent men down to children’s eye-level. Results from the trial on Railway Ave show pedestrians are more likely to cross safely and at the right time on a Puffin crossing compared with conventional crossing signals. Puffins cut out the flashing red man sequence and move the lights to the nearside of the crossing. When the pilot trial was installed Hutt Central School Deputy Principal Judy Pemberton said the children would benefit from the reduction in confusion. “With the old crossing the green man would be across the road, and often the kids would make it half way and then it would turn red. “This confuses the kids if they’ve not yet had traffic training, but now the crossing sign is right there next to them; they see it go green and don’t see the red,” said Mrs Pemberton. Hutt City Council traffic engineer Wayne King said the technology has been installed in the UK since 1993 and he has been pushing for its introduction in New Zealand since then. Mr King said the ‘Puffin’ cuts out the confusion of the flashing red sequence and delivers a clear message to pedestrians. “Most kids understand they must stop for the red light, but get confused when they see adults crossing on the red. “This new system is amazingly intuitive; it’s like a light switch. “I’m hoping they become the standard for the whole country,” said King. Mrs Pemberton would be keen to see more Puffin technology installed around the school and thinks Cuba Street would be a good site. “It’s a great opportunity to see the new system in action, Railway Ave has extremely dense traffic and we’re happy to see an improvement on the automatic crossing that was installed this year. “With recent road changes traffic will increase further around the school, so any extra safety in the area will be fantastic,” she said.
