LEE COUNTY, Fla. — One by one, people are stepping up to new pedestrian crosswalk signals on Cleveland Avenue in Fort Myers only to realize they’re not working the way they expected.
ABC7 Investigators discovered the confusion within 24 hours of them being turned on last week.
Four days after the traffic beacons were installed, they are still inconsistent.
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On average many pedestrians are waiting as long as five minutes or more to cross six lanes of traffic.
Getting to the other side, a busy US-41 can be like a game of the 80s arcade game Frogger.
Some of those who use the crosswalks say they don’t think they have enough time to get across the highway.
A timer gives them 26 seconds, and that is if they get the signal to cross.
Melondy Lewis crosses the highway daily and said she never knows if they’re even working.
That’s because it can take several minutes for the signal to activate after pushing the button.
Students at Coronado High School along Cleveland Avenue say long waits for a signal to cross are a common occurrence for them.
Tony Commacho said sometimes the signals don’t work at all.
“We sometimes wait like five minutes. If we wait a while, we just cross because we want to get on our bus, and we want to get home,” Commacho explained.
On Tuesday, we set a timer as he and a group of students waited five minutes to cross the roadway.
Some students gave up waiting altogether and looked for a break in traffic to spring across the highway.
“It’s the easiest way to get across the street,” Commacho said.
Some students gave up waiting altogether and looked for a break in traffic to spring across the highway.
“It’s the easiest way to get across the street,” Commacho said.
ABC7 also discovered a signal flashing and calling for traffic to stop even when no one was using the crosswalk.
It can be confusing for many drivers who said they were confused about whether to come to a complete stop if no one is in the crosswalk.
Some drivers remained stopped even when the red lights began flashing as other drivers sounded their horns to get moving.
Legally cars must come to a complete stop during flashing red lights and proceed when the coast is clear.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) controls the signals and said it is not normal for a pedestrian to wait three minutes to cross.
FDOT said it is still gathering data as the timing of the lights is not 100% worked out.
Last week, The Fort Myers Police Department (FMPD) admitted there are still some kinks in the system.
“It’s 100% possible we need to work some things out and tweak things to make it perfect,” FMPD Officer Kyle Martins said.