Re: Boogie Wonderland: In Defense of the Barnes Dance
It seems to me there’s a good reason why the Barnes Dance is seldom seen in major urban centers these days: it doesn’t work. Hanover may not aptly be described as “urban,” but traffic at the intersection of Main Street and Wheelock certainly feels city-like — and its vehicle gridlock makes me feel like I’m back home in New York City.
In its current state, this intersection takes the Barnes Dance to its absolute extreme: two minutes allotted for vehicles and a measly 20 seconds for pedestrians to scurry across — so good luck getting grandma through in time. This lopsided allocation of time is absurd for any town, let alone one like Hanover, whose lifeblood is its students, pedestrians and bikers. It also tears the notion that the Barnes Dance “prioritizes pedestrians’ time” to shreds.
There are several solutions to this problem: make the ratio of time for vehicles and pedestrians a more tolerable 90 seconds to 20 seconds; keep the vehicle time the same and increase the pedestrian walk time to 40 seconds; or — most ideally — get rid of this stupid song and dance entirely.
Most New York City intersections use leading pedestrian signals, which both give pedestrians a headstart in the signal and allow them to cross parallel to vehicle traffic. This could easily be adopted at Main Street and Wheelock to strike a better balance between pedestrian and vehicle flow.
Finally, if we’re stuck with this asinine traffic system indefinitely, let’s at least paint some diagonal crosswalks. Plenty of people, myself included, begin to cross on the lines absentmindedly before realizing they’ve run out of time to get across diagonally.
Department of Public Works, the ball’s in your court.
Letters to the editor represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
