An initiative in the city to bring all pedestrian signals at intersections into ADA compliance has put Charlottesville in the lead nationwide when it comes to high-tech crosswalk accessibility.

“We had enough that were no longer in compliance, and just in the last few years federal regulations had changed, so we said, ‘We’ll just do an overall city project,’” says Brennan Duncan, the city’s traffic engineer.

The new pedestrian signals have indicator tones that beep at regular intervals and provide audio instructions for visually impaired pedestrians. And that’s not all. They also pair with an app from the manufacturer, Polara, that gives added tools for pedestrians with visual impairment including increasing the volume of the audio signal at the intersection to make it easier to locate as an app user approaches within 30 feet.

It’s welcome news to Sarah Pool, who has a visual disability and travels around the city on foot.

“With the typical traffic signal, people who are blind had to listen to the movement of cars to tell when the walk sign came on,” Pool says. The increased numbers of electric cars has made it even more challenging.

“The lack of sound when they are stopped and minimal sound when they move makes it impossible to hear them,” Pool says. “All this has combined to make crossing the street more dangerous than it was in the past.”

About one-third of the city’s 75 signaled intersections have been upgraded already, and Duncan says the project will be complete in about six months.

“As of the end of this week, we will have the most [intersections] in the nation that will be able to be used via this phone app,” he says.

The total cost of replacing all the signals is about $600,000.

“City Council thankfully has been putting money aside for upgrading ADA,” Duncan says, noting that the app did not add any additional cost.