One woman was hit and seriously injured in Chevy Chase while she was holding a flag. But, says Nolan, it was in the middle of a blizzard and visibility was zero.
The pilot program "was a little hard for some of my more hard-bitten traffic engineers to accept," says Tangherlini. "And we have a tendency to err very much on the side of continued electrical systems to manage and divide traffic. There is 50 years of traffic engineering science and billions of investment in pavement marking technology and signaling, so it's really hard to get people to accept that maybe a flag will work." Especially in Washington, with a culture devoted to rushing, full of individuals dedicated to the notion of their own preeminence.
Making their way across Connecticut Avenue, pedestrians use a bright orange flag to alert motorists.
(Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)
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Berkeley, Calif., had flags for three years, but so many flags were stolen, even after some residents deliberately defaced them to make them unattractive, that the city gave up on the idea, said assistant city manager Arrietta Chakos. In Salt Lake, where flags are at more than 150 intersections, about 15,000 to 20,000 have disappeared -- gone, says engineer Dan Bergenthal, to "wherever orange flags go." But they cost less than $2 to replace. Traffic signals cost $150,000 to install.
"We had a big problem with theft when we first put them out because they were a novelty," says Nolan. About 100 went missing. She found one of her flags at a construction site, where it could be used to halt traffic for bulldozers. "So I went to other sites and I got a lot of them back, and I told those guys, 'Don't ever take these again.' We haven't had thefts since."
The bigger problem is people finding them too peculiar to use.
At Morrison Street, outside the Safeway, a man is carrying his newly purchased bouquet of purple chrysanthemums. He is clearly nervous about how he is going to get across Connecticut and back to his car. "Can I even cross here?" he asks a reporter. "Is it all right?"
"You could use a flag," the reporter suggests.
He looks at the garish vinyl banner -- he is wearing khakis with a plaid sport shirt and blazer -- and imagines it next to him. He shudders his "Never!" and steps into traffic.
Horns blare immediately.
