Today, I went to Sapporo. It was fun. But the thing I wanna write about is this thing I saw next to the crosswalk lights in downtown. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures because... well, I was kinda afraid of pulling out my camera and taking a few pictures. I guess I was just a little embarassed. Anyway, I'll do my best to describe it to all of ya.
Ok, so just to the left of the crosswalk signal (you know the thing that tells you when it's safe to walk and when not to walk), hanging right next to the signal, was this additional signal. No, this is not Davis, so it wasn't a bicycle crossing light. It was a vertical bar with red gradations on it. The best way I can describe it is, it's like a vertical life bar on a fighting video game.
At first, I didn't notice it because all the red bars were off. But then, as I was waiting for the crosswalk light to turn to the green walking man, I noticed that the vertical bar was half full. And then, one of the bars turned off. After a few seconds, another turned off. One by one, the bars on this weird signal turned off until there were no bars left. Before I got the chance to think about what the weird signal was for, I noticed that the crosswalk light turned to the green walking man, and so, I starting walking with probably the stupidest look on my face.
And then, I figured it out.
So I tested my hypothesis on the next crosswalk that had the disappearing vertical bar light. The crosswalk light was green but I stayed put like an idiot because I wanted to see if I was right. Sure enough, while the crosswalk light was green, the disappearing vertical bar light was completely off. But then, when the crosswalk light turned red, the disappearing vertical bar light was completely full with red bars. And slowly, the red bars disappeared until there were no bars left... and the crosswalk light turned green.
The disappearing vertical bar light was a visible timer for all the pedestrians, telling them when the crosswalk light was going to turn green. Are there any more of these signals out there?