An Big Bad American Wolf in a City !

cool

Those appear to be Eagle Alusig pedestrian signals. Great find!

Thanks. But I don't know how much longer they're going to be up. They are redoing the bridge near them, and at the other side of the road there I saw new traffic light equipment going up, with modern countdown pedestrian signals as part of them.

The best thing you can do is to get into contact with the city's Public Works Department and tell them that you have an interest in saving them for historical preservation purposes. It usually depends on who ever picks up the phone and makes the call to let them go. (Usually the contractor replacing the signals or the head of Public Works Department makes the final decision.) Some cities are very uptight on letting signal equipment go and would rather just have them scrapped than to deal with random people calling them up for them.

Signal equipment can be very tough to obtain and you will need to figure out various (legal) ways to acquire them. Not only that, but you will need to be persistent and keep calling them up to ask them if they know that they will be coming down soon and that you are still interested in saving them. If you are not persistent and do not remind them, you just might find them long gone and replaced without any notice given to you beforehand.

The worst thing they can say is 'no' and as a last resort, you can offer to buy them for the scrap price. If this is the case, find out what the base scrap prices are locally or nationally. Most signal equipment is cast aluminum (Like the Eagle Alusig ones in your photo) or polycarbonate, but older ones can be made out of cast iron. Even then, they could still decline the offer and just toss them out anyway - the type of logic I can never understand. :\ If this happens, you can try contacting the mayor - this has worked for me in one situation:

I once got chewed-out on the phone by a lady that worked in the Public Works division of a major city close to me when I tried to explain to her that I collect signal equipment for historical purposes. When that obviously didn't work, I emailed the mayor of the same city and she had a different opinion on the matter. She thought that I had an interesting hobby and forwarded my information to the head of Public Works. After several emails and phone calls later, I gained access to the retired signal yard and picked up several pieces of equipment for free. I still talk to some of the people that I have met at the yard but I haven't pick up anything from there since 2011.

If you need any more tips or help on how to acquire them, feel free to ask!

The old signals seen in that pic have since been deactivated. I don't know if I want to try and obtain them. They already have new pedestrian signals active on that traffic island, using polycarbonate 16" pedestrian signals with LED countdown signal units from GE.

Do you know how long ago they were replaced? They could still have them stored in a yard before they decide their fate. Most of the stuff that was in the yard I went to have been held in the pile for nearly a decade and they were being used for spare parts.