I’ve mentioned before that I find New York City traffic fascinating. Not as an everyday phenomenon—I don’t relish sitting on a bus for 15 minutes to go two blocks—but as an engineering problem.

Part of that engineering is the signs, so when I am stuck on a bus or walking around, I like to examine them. Who decides on the font? The layout? Who is the wordsmith behind the classic “Don’t Even THINK of Parking Here” and the more recent “Times Square Shuffle”?

More importantly, who is messing with the Walk/Don’t Walk signs?

This has been annoying me for months, and I hesitated to even post it because it might seem too nitpicky, but I feel it needs a public airing, so here it is. Most Walk/Don’t Walk signs in New York match the photos above. A chubby hand for “stop,” and the outline of a walking person for “go.”

In the past year, however, I have noticed an intruder staking its claim at certain intersections. The skinny hand…

…and the opaque man:

The first time I saw the skinny hand, I immediately disliked it. Its fingers are manicured and dainty (especially the thumb), and the inclusion of the wrist is overkill.

Chubby looks like it will slap you—hard—if you don’t park your ass on that sidewalk. Skinny politely asks that you maybe step out of the way, or not, whatever. Skinny doesn’t want any trouble.

Opaque man vs. outline man is a closer call, but I prefer the curves of outline man to the chunkiness of Mr. Opaque. Opaque man holds his back arm at an odd angle, not so much “walk” as it is “walk like an Egyptian.”

Is this the beginning of an anti-chubby revolution? Is skinny/opaque the new wave? It wouldn’t be the first modern makeover of the pedestrian crossing signals. Kevin Walsh of the exhaustive, entertaining Forgotten NY notes with a touch of disdain that the signals used to say “DONT WALK/WALK” (note the lack of apostrophe) until the Department of Transportation began replacing them with pictograms in 1999.

Fearful that the city was making another change, I got in touch with the NYCDOT. Here’s the email I sent earlier today to the commissioner’s office.

Hi there,

I’m writing with a question re: pedestrian walk/don’t walk signs. In my neighborhood, I have noticed two types of signs with slightly different designs for the go/stop signals. One type of design has, for lack of a better description, a “chubby”-looking hand for “stop” and the outline of a walking man for “go.” The other type has a thinner hand and a walking man whose shape is filled in. Just out of curiosity, can you explain the difference in design?

I have included links to images so you can see what I’m talking about:

“Chubby” hand:
http://geekoutnewyork.com/images/chubbyhand.jpg

“Skinny” hand:
http://geekoutnewyork.com/images/skinnyhand.jpg

Thanks in advance, and keep up the great work,
John Teti

The sign-off may seem a little kiss-assy, but I find you get better results if you come off as an admirer. Don’t get me wrong, DOT officials, if you are reading this, I am a tremendous fan! Tremendous!

I’ll let you know if I get a reply. I won’t rest until Chubby Hand is safe. By the way, this may be the most pointlessly obsessive post I’ve written yet, which makes me pretty proud.