Musical crosswalks

The corner of Northwestern Avenue and Dodge Street used to be quiet, only interrupted by the occasional squeal of tires, chatter of students or the monotone voice of the crosswalk announcer.

Now, Northwestern is filled by the tunes of Purdue’s fight song, a triumphant and exciting tune to head to Mackey Arena on game day, but is that what students want to hear on their way to their 7:30 a.m. midterm?

The decision to introduce the fight song to the crosswalks wasn’t a choice of Purdue, it was the West Lafayette Street Department.

“We didn't ask (Purdue),” said Ben Anderson, director of public works for West Lafayette. “We wanted to, I wanted to do it.”

When asked how Purdue feels about the change, Purdue spokesperson Tim Doty said “It’s fine.”

The fight song “Hail, Purdue!” was copyrighted in 1913, according to an article in Purdue Today.

“We clipped a little bit of the Purdue Fight Song (and) we uploaded it onto the file,” Anderson said. “It plays 15 seconds of the fight song and we needed to do some improvements to that intersection and replace the ped buttons that were there.”

The reason behind the update came from the pursuit to look for new ways to make pedestrians press the button to activate the crosswalks, Anderson said.
“We were actually at a vendor showcase show where the different manufacturers of these buttons are displaying their product,” Anderson said. “One of them had Notre Dame's fight song on it and I'm like, ‘that's cool … ish.’ I mean it could be way better.”

The new crosswalk buttons were installed in time for the Feb. 10 Indiana University and Purdue men’s basketball rivalry game.

These buttons don’t just play the fight song for game day though. It plays every day.

“We don't have the ability to turn them on and off remotely,” he said. “You can't do that without physically going to every single one of them.”

The new buttons also serve a more practical purpose than playing the Boilermaker’s fight songs. The buttons are also nearing the end of their lifespan.
“They don't last forever and as they fail and I can't get parts to fix them, then we'll slowly start swapping them out,” he said.

Anderson said West Lafayette is always looking to improve its crosswalk and stop lights system, one of the next steps being to make all the crosswalks at an intersection turn on at once.