Retired Librarian Concludes Four-Year Crosswalk Button Study By Calling For More Research

MUNCIE, IN—Retired librarian Marjorie Pell, 71, announced Tuesday that her four-year longitudinal study of the crosswalk button at her corner had concluded, calling the findings "promising but underpowered" and saying more research was needed.

"Across 2,314 presses, the light changed 2,314 times," said Pell, gesturing to a wall of color-coded binders in her living room. "Unfortunately, it also changed every time in my no-press control group, so I can't yet rule out confounders."

Pell recruited six neighbors as unpaid research assistants and trained them in stopwatch calibration and what she called "neutral press posture." Assistant Dwight Okafor, 44, said he had not crossed the street casually since 2022.

"I press with my left index finger only, at a 90-degree angle, wearing a sleep mask so I'm blind to the outcome," said Okafor. "I've been hit by a hedge twice."

The project suffered a setback last spring when a passing teenager pressed the button 11 times in rapid succession. Pell said the incident "contaminated the sample" and discarded the entire month of data. "Eleven presses in four seconds," she said. "That's not a pedestrian. That's an outlier."

A one-page press release accompanying the 340-page study states that crosswalk buttons "may hold the key to pedestrian empowerment." This reporter reviewed the press release in full and found it rigorous.

Reached for comment, municipal traffic engineer Glen Haskins, 58, confirmed the signal has run on a fixed timer since 1998 and that the button is not connected to anything.

"He is a single unreplicated source," said Pell. "And he has an obvious conflict of interest. He's seen the wiring."

At press time, Pell was applying for a grant to study the button across the street, which she described as "an independent cohort," and had formally requested that Haskins be excluded from peer review.