Douglas County Installs its First Two Audible Pedestrian Signals in Highlands Ranch

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Douglas County has made it easier for visually impaired citizens to safely cross two busy intersections in the Highlands Ranch area by installing audible pedestrian signals.

The first audible pedestrian signal was installed at the Highlands Ranch Parkway, University and Colorado intersection. This signal verbally announces which crosswalk’s “walk” signal (by street name) is active. The voice-recorded messages were selected instead of the traditional “chirp, chirp” and “cuckoo” signal to assist pedestrians in quickly recognizing which direction is safe to cross.

A “chirp, chirp” audible pedestrian signal for the crosswalk across the north side of the intersection of Lucent and Plaza was also installed.

Both audible pedestrian signals were installed at the requests of visually impaired Highlands Ranch citizens who frequently cross these intersections. Douglas County’s traffic signal technicians completed both upgrades at a cost of $3,700.

During the most traveled one-hour time periods the following number of vehicles pass through the Highlands Ranch Parkway, University and Colorado intersection: 3,200 in the morning, 3,700 around noon and 4,700 in the evening. Similarly, Lucent and Plaza experiences hourly totals of: 3,100 vehicles in the morning, 1,800 close to noon and 3,600 in the evening. With this high volume of traffic, it is important that citizens can cross the street safely.

For more information on Douglas County’s Traffic Division, please visit www.douglas.co.us/publicworks/engineering/Traffic.html.