Who invented the crosswalk signal?

The story of who invented the crosswalk signal is not a single, straightforward narrative, but rather a collection of distinct technological and philosophical milestones that unfolded over decades, reflecting the growing dominance of the automobile and the subsequent need to protect the pedestrian population. It is a history woven with mechanical engineering, legislative attempts to tame urban chaos, and specialized solutions designed for visually impaired travelers.

# Order Before Electricity

To understand the crosswalk signal, one must first acknowledge the invention of the crosswalk itself—the designated space on the roadway. Long before colored lights blinked in sequence, the concept of orderly pedestrian movement was championed by a man who never trusted cars: William Phelps Eno. Eno, often called "the father of traffic safety," is credited with inventing several fundamental elements of modern traffic control, including the pedestrian crosswalk, the stop sign, the traffic circle, and the one-way street. What makes this history fascinating is the inventor’s personal experience; Eno never learned to drive a car. His entire motivation stemmed from being an expert pedestrian attempting to impose order on motorized traffic that he viewed with intense distrust. Eno’s contributions, dating back to the early 1900s, established the idea of where a pedestrian should cross. This conceptual groundwork, however, was non-electrical, relying on signage and arrangement rather than active signaling technology.

The very early attempts at traffic control predated the recognizable electric signal. In London in 1868, the first gas-lit traffic lights were installed near the Houses of Parliament, proposed by railway engineer J.P. Knight. These manually controlled signals used semaphore arms, and at night, red and green gas lights appeared, still managed by a police officer. The inherent danger of manually controlled gas lights—they sometimes exploded and injured the officers—quickly highlighted the need for a more reliable, automated system.

# The Dawn of Electric Signaling

The true age of the traffic signal dawned in response to the increasing volume of automobiles in urban areas during the 1920s, where pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, and cars competed for space.

The widely regarded first electric traffic signal was installed in Cleveland, Ohio, on August 5, 1914, at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street. This device, based on a design by James Hoge, featured four pairs of red and green lights controlled by a manually operated switch in a nearby booth. This system’s primary aim was simple stop-and-go indication, ensuring conflicting signals were impossible. Interestingly, this initial electric apparatus emitted an audio signal with every change, intended to alert all road users who were still unfamiliar with light-based controls.

A significant refinement came from William L. Potts, a Detroit police officer, who is credited with developing the first four-sided traffic signal that incorporated three colors: red, amber, and green. Detroit implemented this three-color system, which introduced the yellow light to signal an impending change, in October 1920. Potts also designed the first automated version in Detroit, eventually controlling fifteen intersections from a single location. The standardized three colors initiated by Potts have remained the global norm, standardized in the U.S. since 1935.

Another important contributor to the automated signal was African American inventor Garrett Morgan, who patented a mechanized traffic signal in 1923. Morgan’s design included a T-shaped pole with rotating flags, crucially incorporating a third position for an all-directional stop. This feature was specifically designed to enhance pedestrian safety by halting traffic across all intersecting paths, allowing people to cross through the intersection more securely. General Electric purchased this patent from Morgan for $40,000.

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# The Invention of the Pedestrian Signal

While general traffic control was evolving, the need to specifically signal pedestrians led to a separate, yet overlapping, evolution of signals, particularly for those with visual impairments.

The first acoustic signals specifically installed for the benefit of the blind appeared in the 1920s. These early attempts were sporadic and usually featured a simple bell sound when the pedestrian light was green, often located near schools for the blind. The limitation was severe: the sound only indicated when it was safe to cross, but gave no information about where the crossing was or when the "Don't Walk" phase began, requiring the visually impaired person to first locate the pole.

The late 1930s mark the period when visual pedestrian-specific signals began to emerge in major American cities, moving beyond simple vehicle control lights:

1. Dr. John Harriss (New York City): In February 1934, Dr. Harriss, a former police traffic official, tested an experimental signal on Fifth Avenue. His device featured an illuminated hand that shone with the palm facing outward, distinct from the standard circular red light. His system introduced a multi-period cycle where all vehicular traffic stopped for pedestrians to cross in all directions, including diagonally—a system later known as the "scramble".
2. Chicago’s "Walk" Indication: In December 1934, Chicago implemented a "progressive control" system on Michigan Avenue that included a dedicated "Walk" light. This light appeared while vehicle traffic in the same direction had a green light, timed so a pedestrian stepping off the curb could reach a safety island before the corresponding vehicle traffic was signaled to proceed. This system meant pedestrians might only cross half the street at a time.
3. "Wait" and "Walk" Signs: The direct precursor to the modern signal arrived in New York City in December 1938, where signals reading alternately "Wait" and "Walk" were planned for Times Square. This is cited as the earliest reference found for that specific dual-word indication.
4. The "Walk/Don't Walk" Debut: Just a year later, in 1939, Washington, D.C., installed the first iteration of the signs we recognize today: large, bright "Walk" and "Don't Walk" neon signs. Traffic Director William A. Van Duzer championed these, noting that previous, less prominent walk lights had failed to hold pedestrian attention.

An important contextual point here is that the shift to visual "Walk/Don't Walk" signs targeted the distracted general public, whereas the earlier acoustic signals were addressing the fundamental safety need of the visually impaired. This created two parallel tracks of signal development that eventually converged and diverged again with modern technology.

# Crosswalk Markings Versus Signals

While electrical and visual pedestrian signals were being developed in the US, the physical marking of the crosswalk continued its own evolution, largely separate from the signaling technology. The simple painted lines we recognize globally today were formalized later. In Slough, England, in 1951, the world's first official crosswalk with stripes—the zebra crossing—was installed. The design was named for its resemblance to a zebra’s stripes. This concept quickly gained traction, cementing the visual pavement markings that Eno first conceptualized decades earlier. While the zebra crossing was a step forward, Britain continued to experiment, introducing the "panda crossing" in 1962, which was quickly replaced due to driver confusion.

The United States also saw its crosswalk design evolving, with a fundamental shift in philosophy occurring since the 1950s: moving away from merely accommodating pedestrians to actively prioritizing them.

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# Sound Returns: The Accessible Pedestrian Signal (APS) Era

By the 1960s, acoustic signals for the visually impaired saw a major advancement, this time originating in Japan, where a system inspired by bird calls became widespread—cuckoo sounds for north-south crossings and chirping for east-west crossings. While intended to help the blind locate the crossing and time their movement, this system had severe flaws: the auditory difference was often not enough to distinguish direction unambiguously, and the sound only occurred during the walk phase, offering no indication when the light was red. Furthermore, neighbors often complained about the constant noise.

This noise pollution spurred a move toward less intrusive, actuated systems in the 1990s:

• Actuation: Clicker systems, activated by a button on the post, began appearing across Europe and the US, sometimes accompanied by a faint "location beep".
• Tactile Alternatives: Other systems relied on touch, such as vibrating boxes in Switzerland or rotating cones in England.
• The Location Problem: A critical failing remained: these push-button systems did not help a pedestrian locate the intersection from a distance; they had to find the pole first, which was not always immediately adjacent to the crosswalk.

This need for location and advanced information led to the next major breakthrough, this time originating in France. In 1993, EO GUIDAGE (now Okeenea) invented an accessible pedestrian signal that could be controlled by remote. This was a radical departure, as the signal itself announced its existence, stating the color and the street name during the "Don't Walk" phase (e.g., “pedestrian red” followed by the street name). This innovation meant visually impaired users did not have to search for a pole to operate the signal.

This French development effectively leapfrogged the push-button and vibrating systems that were prevalent, although push-buttons lingered in some places like Paris due to tourism needs. The technology became standardized in France in 2002 under the NF S32-002 standard, which dictated message content and radio frequency.

Considering the timeline, the invention of the concept of the crosswalk belongs to pioneers like Eno in the early 1900s. The invention of the electric signal belongs to Hoge and Potts in the early 1910s and 1920s. The invention of the pedestrian-specific visual signal ("Walk/Don't Walk") is attributed to the efforts culminated by Traffic Director William A. Van Duzer’s team in Washington, D.C., in 1939. Finally, the invention of the modern, remote-activated, information-rich acoustic signal is credited to EO GUIDAGE in 1993.

When looking at the American context of the 1930s, Dr. Harriss’s illuminated hand signal and the Chicago "Walk" light appear to be the earliest forms of signaling that specifically addressed the crossing cycle for pedestrians, making them strong candidates for the earliest crosswalk signal technology in the US, even if they weren't labeled "Walk/Don't Walk". A deeper look at the functional difference between these early 1930s lights and the 1939 neon signs reveals that the latter provided explicit, textual information ("Walk") rather than just a permissive color, which is the true evolution of the signal as we understand it today.

The progression of pedestrian signaling highlights a fascinating divergence in priorities across the 20th century. The initial focus was on providing basic safety cues to the blind using sound, which was eventually superseded by broader, visually-oriented textual cues (Walk/Don't Walk) for the general population experiencing distraction. Only much later, with remote technology in the 1990s, did the acoustic signal re-emerge as a sophisticated tool, specifically designed to convey complex information back to the visually impaired user in a way that solved the initial location problem. For instance, in a modern grid, while the color signals dictate vehicular flow—a system that is increasingly incorporating computerized detection via pressure plates installed in the 1950s—the APS provides an auditory layer that confirms location and street direction, a clarity that the 1960s Japanese bird-call system completely lacked.

For someone considering modern urban planning, the fact that the earliest electric traffic signals (1914) emitted a warning sound to all users, while the first dedicated signals for the blind (1920s) used a simpler bell, shows how early sound was a universal alert before it became a specialized tool. Then, the emphasis shifted entirely to visuals ("Walk/Don't Walk" in the late 30s/early 40s). The reintroduction of complex, informative sound only happened with the invention of remote actuation in 1993. This suggests a temporary de-emphasis on auditory cues for the general public, possibly because visual distraction (like texting, which the Smithsonian mentions prompted a German city to install traffic lights specifically for texters) became the primary contemporary hazard being addressed by visual signs. The modern, fully informed APS system represents a full circle, marrying the foundational need of the blind community with the digital capabilities that didn't exist when Potts first wired up his three-color lights.

The sheer number of separate "inventions" related to traffic control—from the physical crosswalk marking by Eno to the three-color light by Potts and the all-way stop by Morgan—shows that urban safety in the first half of the 20th century was not solved by one person, but by a series of iterative, often localized, problem-solvers reacting to immediate danger. The crosswalk signal, therefore, has multiple inventors depending on which component you identify as the crucial element: the concept of directional crossing (Eno), the first electric indicator (Hoge), the three-color sequence (Potts), the pedestrian-specific cycle (Harriss), the textual instruction (Van Duzer’s team), or the remote acoustic feedback (EO GUIDAGE). There is no singular moment, but a cascade of innovations driven by accidents and the quest for pedestrian autonomy.