Columnist: City worker’s system helps blind, deaf get across streets

Besides having a really cool nickname, Tony “Speedy” Gonzalez is a tinker extraordinaire. If you’re at the right street corner at the right time, you can hear — really hear — his handiwork.

Gonzalez has long worked for Colorado Springs’ traffic engineering division. Most of the time he maintains downtown traffic signals, fiber optics and communication radios.

But seven years ago, he developed a buzzer system to let blind folks know when traffic signals had changed, allowing them to safely cross the street.

His system is far cheaper than commercial units and has been hailed by advocates for the blind as a system that should be adopted statewide.

Gonzalez’s history made him the perfect guy to tackle the job. He began tinkering with electrical devices when he was just a boy and spent his teen years helping in his father’s electrical repair shop.

The father of four also has scarred retinas, and that has made him “sympathetic” to those who can’t see, Gonzalez said.

He developed his buzzer system after installing a couple commercial units years ago. As he was demonstrating one of those units to a blind person, a nearby bird mimicked the chirping sound of the system. That didn’t seem acceptable, Gonzalez said, nor did the price, up to $6,000 for a full intersection of buttons and buzzers, plus the labor for a two-day installation.

After some tinkering, Gonzalez developed a system of loud buzzers — steady for main intersections and intermittent for side streets — that are timed to last long enough for a blind person to cross a street.

He even developed tactile buttons that are installed much like pedestrian walk buttons. They vibrate, letting deaf and blind folks know when the signal has changed to walk.

His system — which he calls simple but effective — costs $400 for a full four-way intersection and takes just 10 minutes to install.

The traffic signal technician is soft-spoken and modest about his invention. But his boss, Jerry Marcum, sings his praises.

He said Gonzalez takes his job seriously, meeting with blind people to determine where they want the buzzers and whether the system should be modified for any special needs. After the system is installed, he walks the routes with the people who need them to make sure they know how to activate the buzzers.

“You want something special, he can usually make it,” Marcum said of Gonzalez.

He did just that for an older city resident, Rudy, who is blind and deaf and lives alone. The man used to stand at intersections with a sign, asking other pedestrians to tap him on the shoulder when the walk signal lit up.

Gonzalez installed a string of buzzers and tactile buttons at Bijou and Walnut streets and at Boulder and Institute streets that allows Rudy to walk to a bus stop near his home and travel to the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind.

So far, Gonzalez has installed more than 75 buzzer systems around town. His work has made dangerous, traumatic street crossings a thing of the past for many folks. It’s a meaningful, rewarding job, he said.

“It gives them freedom,” he said of his clients. “They feel safe walking.”