METHUEN — Ever cross the street with your eyes closed?
That's what Elaine Aufiero asked city councilors last week. While people with good vision can only imagine what this might be like, the scenario is a reality for Aufiero, who is legally blind.
"It is terrifying, to say the least," she told councilors.
Aufiero was diagnosed with macular degeneration when she was 21. A doctor told her she was legally blind after she was in a car accident when she was 35, and she hasn't driven since.
She walks alone from her home at 20 Washington St. to Rite Aid at 256 Pleasant St. on a regular basis. The walk is less than a mile, but she has to dodge cars traveling in both directions while crossing Howe Street at Marston Corners. The area is one of the busiest intersections in the city — it's near Route 213, The Loop, and roads that lead to Methuen High School and downtown.
There's a crosswalk that leads from the Wave gas station to the entrance to Rite Aid, but the paint is badly faded and the push-button pedestrian crossing signal doesn't work.
Standing at the Rite Aid side of the crosswalk on Wednesday afternoon, Aufiero pushed the button twice to demonstrate that it does nothing. The traffic lights overhead continued to blink yellow for traffic on Howe Street and red for vehicles leaving Rite Aid. They did not turn red to stop traffic in all directions and provide a better opportunity for Aufiero — or anyone for that matter — to cross the street.
Aufiero said she could see just well enough to "kind of" tell when cars were coming toward her from the Howe Street bridge about 50 yards away.
"I can see that car," she said, motioning toward a sport utility vehicle about 30 feet from where she stood. "I can't see into the car, like if somebody is waving me on."
She said she also can't see if somebody is driving while talking or texting on a cell phone.
Aufiero works full time as an administrative assistant at Philips Medical System in Andover, where she uses text-to-speech software that reads what is on her computer screen to help her do her job. She prides herself on living independently and adapting to her disability, and said modern equipment at dangerous intersections is one way the government helps her and other disabled people do that.
Her vision is 2700 in one eye and 2900 in the other. She sees objects that are 20 feet away as poorly as people with 20/20 vision see things 700 feet away.
She carries a white titanium cane that she can fold up and place in her pocketbook. The white cane is a universal symbol to alert others that she is blind. State law requires motorists to stop when they see a pedestrian using a guide dog or white cane to cross a street.
Some people don't bother, Aufiero said.
"I watch and I wait, and when I think I can get their eye, I put my cane out first while I'm standing on the sidewalk, and then I step off the curb and start to go and hope for the best," she said.
Aufiero said she has never had a close call, but she still worries.
She spoke during the public participation portion of last Monday night's City Council meeting. She said she wants someone to fix the pedestrian crossing signal and install a device that will chirp when the lights have turned red and it's "safe" to cross the street.
Mayor William Manzi said MassHighway is in charge of the traffic signals at that intersection, but the city will look into whether it can do something to improve the signal.
City councilors agreed to send a letter to MassHighway to ask them to fix the pedestrian crossing signal and install the chirping device.
"It's probably something that should be at every dangerous intersection in the city, probably throughout the state," City Council Chairwoman Deborah Quinn said of the chirping equipment. "It's not something that's exclusive to that one woman and this one intersection."
The city will look into repainting the crosswalk, Manzi said.
The crossing signal used to work, and Aufiero still pushes the button out of optimism.
"Hope reigns eternal, and I'm always pushing the button to see if it works," she said.
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