Counters on Central Ave at Vernon?

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

Yesterday there were two women with clipboard 'counting' on the corners of Central + Vernon (I asked them what they were doing and that's what they said: 'counting". They weren't very friendly). Anyone know what's up with that? It's a fast street but that would be a stupid location for a traffic light.

Comments

[derekp.livejournal.com]

If only there were machines they could put on the road that would count the traffic automatically... oh wait!

Maybe they were counting pedestrian/cycle traffic?

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

The problem with those is that they get blown up by bomb squads.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I told you: blame the moron lieutenant, not the squad itself.

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think they were counting heads, not cars. Didn't look "official" - and I wasn't concerned about it - just curious.

[nathanjw]

The counting machines are pretty bad at counting turn actions as opposed to just the number of axles or vehicles that cross a particular point. They're also annoyingly fragile, even without the BPD overreacting to them.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

My friend used to do this out in Western Mass, and you have to note which way the car turns from the intersection, whether it is a car or truck, etc.

[ron_newman]

And I once took part in a similar survey of bicycle traffic on Martha's Vineyard. It requires undistracted attention if you want to do it properly.