It's a hands-free pedestrian crossing - technically a 'Touch-free Crossing Point' - installed at Canary Wharf.
There's no need to press the button, you just wave your hand close to the sensor to register your presence and the box lights up. No touching is required hence no transfer of germs, either from you to others or from others to you. It's very much the healthy way to cross the road.
You won't set it off by mistake, you have to get quite close. I apologise to passengers on the bus which came round the corner just after I triggered the sensor, but it's important to do these experiments to find out how things work.
The boffins have even thought about blind pedestrians because there's still a button for those who are expecting one and can't read the sign which says they don't need to press it.
These Touch-free Crossing Points have appeared on several different roads through the heart of Canary Wharf including North Colonnade, South Colonnade and Bank Street. They're not part of TfL's pedestrian priority trial, they're independently funded as befits a commercial private estate.
Changing from the DLR to the Jubilee Line at Canary Wharf? Now you can do so without violating the sanctity of your fingertips or dashing willy-nilly through the traffic. It sounds very much like the Covid-safe pedestrian future has arrived.
BUT it's a bit late isn't it? We've been through the worst of the pandemic and then these touch-free crossings turn up the year after. Where were they when we really needed them?
BUT Covid isn't spread by touch even though we've all been hardwired to recoil from touching things. All the scientific evidence now suggests that surface transfer is relatively insignificant compared to airborne transmission, so button-less crossings aren't really going to help.
BUT other diseases like colds and flu are spread by touch, which is the main reason the government jumped on the "sanitise! sanitise!" bandwagon so early in the pandemic, so these crossings aren't just baseless hygiene theatre.
BUT the Canary Wharf estate is riddled with doors, especially if you're trying to walk north-south, so all the benefits of not touching a button are likely to be cancelled out by grasping a handle, pushing a bar or touching a pad.
BUT the crossings don't all seem to work in an identical manner. One set of lights favours traffic even when there isn't any, showing red only when the sensor is triggered, while another shows the green man continuously until a vehicle actually turns up.
BUT I'm basing this apparent behaviour on walking across the estate once, so I may have jumped to incorrect conclusions about signal programming based on insufficient evidence.
BUT even though they've gone to all the effort of installing touch-free crossings this doesn't mean people are using them. For example on South Colonnade neither of the two crossings are on the direct desire line route between the DLR and Jubilee line so people are merrily strolling across the uncontrolled part of the road inbetween. Having to add a sign saying "← Use the appropriate crossing →" is a sure sign that your expensive touch-free solution is a practical failure.
BUT these signals aren't brand new, I'm just depressingly unobservant. I've uncovered a seven-month-old thread on Reddit discussing Touch-free Crossing Points at Canary Wharf so they've been around since at least March. I must have walked past umpteen times but have only just spotted them.
BUT they were being used in other countries like Australia long before 2021. They've cropped up in Pontypridd and Glasgow too. They look like just the sort of thing Singapore would have introduced years ago. I imagine they could be extremely useful on the Sabbath in areas with a devout Jewish population.
BUT they weren't much use yesterday morning because there wasn't much traffic and it was easy to walk across the road anyway. This is often the case on weekdays too. Jaywalking has always been touch-free so this isn't necessarily the amazing innovation it appears to be.
BUT Touch-free Crossing Points are a gamechanger if you're mobility restricted and hygiene-obsessed, and to be frank an excellent idea we could do with seeing more of.
BUT they're also expensive so unlikely to be replacing your local pushbutton box any time soon, so you'll probably need to come down to Canary Wharf if you want to stop the traffic with a wave of your hand.
