Why only some city crosswalks have audio alerts for the visually impaired

There are about 20 audio alerts, or “audible pedestrian signals,” at crosswalks in Philadelphia. You may have noticed the devices, designed for the visually impaired, outside 30th Street Station.

But why aren’t they at every crosswalk?

For one, they’re only installed when an organization requests them or when the Streets Department determines that there’s a large visually impaired community nearby, the Daily News reported.

But it’s also because some in the visually impaired community don’t want the signals everywhere because they don’t want to be dependent on them.

“Crossing the street is a skill,” Charles Horton, deputy director of the Mayor’s Commission on People with Disabilities, told the Daily News — one, he added, that shouldn’t fall to the wayside because of technology.