Rubing the Crossicon

Here is an email which has been sent to the City Manager as I am running out of steam on this.

Dear Cork City Manager,

I am writing about the new pedestrian crossing signals that are appearing in both City and County (I have spotted them as far afield as Castlemartyr), which are silent.

I started enquiring about these on a basis that was purely curious at teh end of June last but have been unable to get a clear answer (indeed, any answer at times) to my queries. These are Green Man crossings that used to be audio-visual (at least where I have personal experience of them) but are now silent, or visual only.

I have had a range of 'clarifications' from the City Council (after sending information requests for over a month, including emailing Ian Winning, form whom I received no response at all, and finally turning to the City Councillors for help), from 'we're adding audio signals later' to 'they are provided with a vibrating touch pad' to 'they were never audio so they will not be now'.

These are all mutually exclusive responses - which one is it?

The signals I have used personally WERE audio signals and do not now have vibrating touch pads. So these responses seem to be a nonsense. And how a vibrating touch pad is going to help a visually impaired person across the road, I have no idea.

This flies in the face of the NCBI's best practice guidelines for Green man crossings. It also appears to contravene the Equal Status Act 2000 (Sections 4 & 6).

I am flummoxed to know how the City Council will be able to pay the (inevitable?) court fine when they are taken to court under the Equality Act or Equal Status Act as providers of a public service which is not usable by all. (See April 2007 when Dublin City Council were taken to court by a citizen in conjunction with the Equality Authority for turning off the audio signals on some pedestrian crossings on O'Connell Bridge.)

The particular crossing that caught my eye is the dangerous junction where High Street, Southern Road, Douglas Road and Capwell Road meet. It is so bad that the cars themselves are restricted from turning right from Capwell Road onto Douglas Road. How is a visually impaired person supposed to cross here without audio signals?

Can you give me any kind of concrete answers?

Such as:
Why have these signals been changed?
How much did it cost?
How does a visually impaired person cross this junction?

Thanks and regards,
Anne-Marie Curtin