title: Pedestrian crossing

text: "Could you do something to help the pedestrian to recover the old margin of safety on our common streets and roads? It is heartrending to read of the fearful deaths taking place. If a pedestrian now has even one hesitation or failure the chance of escape from a dreadful death is now much less than when all vehicles were much slower. There is, too, in the motor traffic an evident desire not to slow down before the last moment. It is surely a scandal that on the common ways there should be undue apprehension in the minds of the weakest users of them. While the streets and roads are for all, of necessity the pedestrians, and the feeblest of these, should receive the supreme consideration."


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: "Pedestrians have a right to cross roads safely and, therefore, planners and engineers have a professional responsibility to plan, design, and install safe crossing facilities."


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some countries have specific criteria to provide pedestrian facilities; for example, they provide warrants, depending on local conditions, usually prioritized as follows from lowest to highest level of pedestrian support:


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In some countries, including the US, "unmarked crosswalks" are presumed to occur at intersections even if a crossing isn't marked, except at locations where pedestrian crossing is expressly prohibited.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The simplest marked crossings may just consist of some markings on the road surface. In the US these are known as "marked crosswalks." In the UK these are often called zebra crossings, referring to the alternate white and black stripes painted on the road surface. If the pedestrian has priority over vehicular traffic when using the crossing, then they have an incentive to use the crossing instead of crossing the road at other places. In some countries, pedestrians may not have priority, but may be committing an offence if they cross the road elsewhere, or "jaywalk." Special markings are often made on the road surface, both to direct pedestrians and to prevent motorists from stopping vehicles in the way of foot traffic. There are many varieties of signal and marking layouts around the world and even within single countries. In the United States, there are many inconsistencies, although the variations are usually minor. There are several distinct types in the United Kingdom, each with their own name.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some crossings have pedestrian traffic signals that allow pedestrians and road traffic to use the crossing alternately. On some traffic signals, pressing a call button is required to trigger the signal. Audible or tactile signals may also be included to assist people who have poor sight. In many cities, some or most signals are equipped with countdown timers to give notice to both drivers and pedestrians the time remaining on the crossing signal. In places where there is very high pedestrian traffic, Embedded pavement flashing-light systems are used to signal traffic of pedestrian presence, or exclusive traffic signal phases for pedestrians (also known as Barnes Dances) may be used, which stop vehicular traffic in all directions at the same time.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pedestrian refuges are uncontrolled crossings with two dropped kerbs and a central traffic island, protected by kerbs. The island allows pedestrians to cross the road one direction of traffic at a time, which can be quicker and safer (they decrease pedestrian accidents by around 40%) than a lack of crossing. Additionally, they can narrow the road, slowing down vehicles and preventing them from overtaking. However, they may not afford pedestrians priority, meaning pedestrians may have a longer wait than a controlled crossing. They can also create pinch points, which can be dangerous for cyclists.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Courtesy crossings are uncontrolled crossings with coloured surfacing or some other non-formal suggestion that pedestrians may cross. They aim to encourage concentrated pedestrian crossings and to encourage drivers to let pedestrians cross the roads out of courtesy, rather than obligation. The inclusion of stripes (e.g. in paving), the presence of narrowing and visual narrowings of the road positively affect courtesy.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Footbridges or pedestrian tunnels may be used in lieu of crosswalks at very busy intersections as well as at locations where limited-access roads and controlled-access highways must be crossed. They can also be beneficial in locations where the sidewalk or pedestrian path naturally ascends or descends to a different level than the intersection itself, and the natural "desire line" leads to a footbridge or tunnel, respectively. However, pedestrian bridges are ineffective in most locations; due to their expense, they are typically spaced far apart. Additionally, ramps, stairs, or elevators present additional obstacles, and pedestrians tend to use an at-grade pedestrian crossing instead. A variation on the bridge concept, often called a skyway or skywalk, is sometimes implemented in regions that experience inclement weather.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some intersections display red lights to vehicles in all directions for a period of time. Known as a pedestrian scramble, this type of vehicle all-way stop allows pedestrians to cross safely in any direction, including diagonally.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pedestrian refuges or small islands in the middle of a street may be added when a street is very wide, as these crossings can be too long for some individuals to cross in one cycle. These pedestrian refuges may consist of building new concrete traffic islands in the middle of the road; extending an existing island or median strip to the crosswalk to provide a refuge; or simply cutting through the existing island or median strip where the median is already continuous.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Another relatively widespread variation is the curb/kerb extension (also known as a bulb-out), which narrows the width of the street and is used in combination with crosswalk markings. They can also be used to slow down cars, potentially creating a safer crossing for pedestrians.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pedestrian cross striping machines are special equipment professionally used to paint zebra lines on the intersections or other busy road sections. Because of the characteristics of zebra crossings, parallel stripes that are wide but not long, the striping machine is often a small hand-guided road marking machine, which can easily be made to change direction. There are differences between the engineering regulations in different countries. The marking shoe of a pedestrian cross striping machine, which determines marking lines' width, is much wider than on other marking machines. A smaller marking shoe with wheels may be used to perform the road striping.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The section of road should be swept clean and kept dry. The painter first pulls a guiding line straight and fix the two ends on the ground. Then they spray or brush a primer layer on the asphalt or concrete surface. The thermoplastic paint in powder form is then melted into a molten liquid state for painting. Finally, the painter pulls or pushes the striping machine with the guide rod along the guiding line. As an alternative to thermoplastics, household paint or epoxy can be used to mark crosswalks.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some crosswalks, known as colourful crossings, include unique designs, many of which take the form of artwork. These works of art may serve many different purposes, such as attracting tourism or catching drivers' attention.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Cities and towns worldwide have held competitions to paint crosswalks, usually as a form of artwork. In Santiago, Chile, a 2013 work by Canadian artist Roadsworth features yellow-and-blue fish overlaid on the existing crosswalk. Other crossings worldwide also feature some of Roadsworth's work, including a crosswalk in Montreal where the zebra stripes are shaped like bullets, as well as "conveyor belt" crosswalk in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In Lompoc, California, several artists were commissioned to create an artwork as part of its "Creative Crossings" competition. Artist Marlee Bedford painted the first set of four crosswalks as part of the 2015 competition, and Linda Powers painted two more crosswalks in 2016 following that year's competition.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In Tbilisi, Georgia, some Tbilisi Academy of Arts students and government officials jointly created a crossing that is designed to look like it is in 3D. A message on the white bars of the crosswalk reads, "for your safety." 3D crosswalk designs have also been installed in China, with a "floating zebra crossing" implemented in a village in Luoyuan County to boost tourism; a multicolored 3-D crossing installed in Changsha, China to catch drivers' attention; and another multicolored crossing in Sichuan Province that serves the same purpose as the colored Changsha crosswalk.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Colored crosswalks might have themes that reflect the immediate area. For instance, Chengdu, China had a red-and-white zebra crossing with hearts painted on it, reflecting its location near a junction of two rivers. In Curitiba, Brazil, a crosswalk with its bars irregularly painted like a barcode served as an advertisement for a nearby shopping center, but was later painted over. A pedestrian scramble in the Chinatown section of Oakland, California, is painted with red-and-yellow colors to signify the colors of the flag of China.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Sometimes, different cities around the world may have similar art concepts for their crosswalks. Rainbow flag-colored crosswalks, which are usually painted to show support for the locality's LGBT cultures, have been installed in San Francisco; West Hollywood; Philadelphia; and Tel Aviv. Crosswalks painted like piano keyboards have been painted in Long Beach; Warsaw; and Chongqing.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The United States Federal Highway Administration prohibits crosswalk art due to concerns about safety and visibility, but U.S. cities have chosen to install their own designs. Seattle had 40 crosswalks with unique designs, including the rainbow flag in Capitol Hill and the Pan-African flag in the Central District.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Colourful crossings have been criticised for creating accessibility issues. For blind and visually impaired pedestrians, consistency in design is important to ensure a safe crossing. Visually impaired people with limited sight and neurodivergent people may experience pain or confusion in interpreting colourful crossings or distress from visual noise. These crossings may therefore discriminate against marginalised groups in accessing public spaces.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: For crosswalk safety, in the United States there is not much clarity regarding the need for a crosswalk to be marked or unmarked due to the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches, although each city might have its own rules.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In the United States, crosswalks are sometimes marked with white stripes, though many municipalities have slightly different methods, styles, or patterns for doing so. The designs used vary widely between jurisdictions, and often vary even between a city and its county (or local equivalents). There are two main methods for road markings in the United States, as mandated by the 2009 version of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). Most frequently, they are marked with two parallel white lines running from one side of the road to the other, with the width of the lines being typically wide. A third "stop line", which is about the same thickness and extends only across lanes going into the intersection, is usually also present. The stop line acts as the legally mandated stopping point for vehicles, and discourages drivers from stopping in the middle of the crosswalk. The other method involves the use of the more easily visible "continental stripes" (like the UK's zebra crossings), which are sets of multiple bars across the crosswalk itself that are perpendicular to the direction of crossing. These bars are typically wide and are set apart. Crosswalks can use a combination of two parallel white lines and continental stripes to create a "ladder" crosswalk, which is highly visible.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Marked crosswalks are usually placed at traffic intersections or crossroads, but are occasionally used at mid-block locations where pedestrian generators are present such as at transit stops, schools, retail, or housing destinations. In the United States, these "mid-block crossings" may include additional regulatory signage such as "PED XING" (for "pedestrian crossing"), flashing yellow beacons, stop or yield signs, or by actuated or automatic signals. Some more innovative crossing treatments include in-pavement flashers, yellow flashing warning lights installed in the roadway, or HAWK beacon—an overhead signal with a pair of red beacons above an amber beacon, when a pedestrian is detected or actuates the device it begins a sequence of amber flashing followed by a solid red, followed by a flashing red phase that allows motorists to proceed, only if the pedestrian(s) are clear of the travel way.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In the United States, crossing laws vary from state to state and sometimes at the local level. All states require vehicles to yield to a pedestrian who has entered a marked crosswalk. Legally speaking, in most states crosswalks exist at all intersections meeting at approximately right angles, whether they are marked or not. All states except Maine and Michigan require vehicles to yield to a pedestrian who has entered an unmarked crosswalk. To gain the right-of-way in some parts of Canada, however, the pedestrian holds out his hand in a position much like that used to shake hands, and steps off the curb. The province of Ontario enacted a law in 2016 that mandates that drivers and bicyclists come to a complete stop at pedestrian "crossovers"—ladder-style crosswalks that are sometimes designated with overhead signs or lights—as well as crosswalks with school crossing guards.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: At crossings controlled by signals, generally the poles at both ends of the crosswalk also have the pedestrian signal heads. For many years these bore white and Portland Orange legends, the latter without an apostrophe so that it fits easily on the sign. These colors were selected to provide adequate conspicuity and contrast against the backdrop of red, yellow, and green traffic lights.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pictograms of an "upraised hand" (symbolizing ) and a "walking person" (symbolizing ) were made optional in the 1971 version of the MUTCD; the 2000 MUTCD no longer allowed provided an option for word legends, and the Federal Highway Administration officially confirmed that the pictograms are required in the 2009 edition of the MUTCD.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Modern pedestrian signals can be incandescent, neon, fiber-optic, or LED, with the latter three displays typically utilizing less energy.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Regardless of whether pictograms or words are used, the MUTCD defines a steady "upraised hand" or signal as an indication that a pedestrian cannot enter the street in that signal's direction, while a steady "walking person" or indicates that pedestrians can start crossing the street toward that signal. The upraised hand or signals begin to flash during the pedestrian clearance interval when the transition to the "don't walk" phase of the signal is imminent. This normally occurs several seconds before the light turns yellow, usually going solid orange when the traffic light turns yellow or red; however, the display can be turned into a steady hand or "don't walk" sign while the vehicular light is yellow, or while the vehicular signal is still displaying a green light. In intersections with "leading pedestrian intervals," the upraised hand or "don't walk" sign will continue flashing as the vehicular lights turn red and the other crossing(s) in the intersection display a walking person or "walk" sign. The vehicular traffic is then stopped in all directions for a short period of time before cross traffic is allowed to proceed. The 2009 MUTCD states that the flashing walking person or "walk" signals do not have meaning. The "flashing walk" indication was formerly used to delineate "watch out for turning vehicles" and is still in use in Washington, D.C.; however, as of the 2003 MUTCD, this was replaced by an optional "animated eyes" indication within the pedestrian signal display, which was placed in the MUTCD following a study that recommended the usage of the "animated eyes" signal.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: A gridded "egg-crate visor" () is customarily placed in front of the lights to shield them from the sun and increase their visibility, but such visors can also be vulnerable to snow or ice accumulation on the screens, which in turn could block the pedestrian display. Pedestrian signals can also use a triangular-prism-shaped "cutaway visor" or "cap visor" (so named because the pitch of the visor, is shaped like a baseball cap), which mainly covers the top of the signal and the tops of the left and right sides; or a more rectangular-shaped "tunnel visor", which fully covers the left, right, and top sides of the pedestrian display.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In some cities in the US, other methods of pedestrian detection are being or have been tested, including infrared and microwave technology, as well as weight sensors built in at curbside. A 2000 study of these detectors in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Rochester found that the infrared and microwave technologies both helped reduce conflicts between pedestrians and turning vehicles, as well as pedestrians starting during the "don't walk" phase. Subsequent studies found that the efficacy of these sensors varied based on pedestrian traffic at the location where they were installed.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: On fully actuated signals, or semi-actuated traffic signals, pressing the button to cross a smaller side street will cause an "instant walk signal". In most states, drivers only have to wait until the pedestrian has finished crossing the half of the crosswalk that the driver is driving on, after which the driver may proceed. However, in some states (such as Utah), if the driver is in a school zone with the lights flashing, the driver must wait until the entire crosswalk is clear before he may proceed.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Massachusetts allows an unusual indication variation for pedestrian movement. At signalized intersections without separate pedestrian signal heads, the traffic signals may be programmed to turn red in all directions, followed by a steady display of yellow lights simultaneously with the red indications. During this red-plus-yellow indication, the intersection is closed to vehicular traffic and pedestrians are given an "exclusive pedestrian interval", or a pedestrian scramble phase, in which they can cross any leg of the intersection, usually in whatever direction they choose. This replaces the extra pedestrian signal, but is in violation of the 2009 MUTCD. This practice is obsolescent but it remains in the Commonwealth's driver's manual.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany and other European countries, 90% of pedestrian fatalities occur outside of pedestrian crossings. The highest rate is in the UK, which has fewer crossings than neighbouring European countries.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In the United Kingdom and certain parts of the Commonwealth of Nations, animal names are often used to distinguish several types of such crossings.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Zebra crossings are the only specific pedestrian crossing point that does not use light signals to control traffic movement. The other types of crossing use coloured pictogram lights, depending on the intended users of the crossing this will be a man, a bicycle or a horse.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In France, it is not mandatory that crosswalks exist. However, if there is one less than 50 meters (55 yards) away, pedestrians are obliged to use it.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some countries in Europe have used the word "pedestrian crossing" in some treaties, for instance in the sentence "A vehicle shall not overtake another vehicle which is approaching a pedestrian crossing marked on the carriageway or signposted as such, or which is stopped immediately before the crossing, otherwise than at a speed low enough to enable it to stop immediately if a pedestrian is on the crossing." from the convention on road traffic.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In Europe, the pedestrian crossing is also dealt with European agreement supplementing the 1968 Vienna Convention on 1 May 1971 (Consolidated version including 1993, 2001, and 2006 amendments):


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The convention on road sign also provide warning models for signs and symbol. In those countries, the "pedestrian crossing sign" is on a blue or black ground, with a white or yellow triangle where the symbol is displayed in black or dark blue.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In Europe, the minimum width recommended for pedestrian crossings is 2.5 m (or 8-foot) on roads on which the speed limit is lower than 60 km/h (or 37 mph), and 4 m (or 13-foot) on roads with a higher or no speed limit.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pictograms are standard on all traffic light controlled crossings. Like some other countries, a flashing red sequence is used prior to steady red to clear pedestrians. Moments after, in some instances, a flashing yellow sequence (for motorists) can begin indicating that the vehicles may proceed through the crossing if safe to do so; this is fairly uncommon however. In districts with heavier traffic warranting the use of a traffic light such as inner city areas, the equivalent of the US 'standard' configuration is used.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Reflector signposting is used at crossings in school zones; however, given that most school crossings in the country are staffed with a crossing guard, these signs only serve as a warning to motorists.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Call buttons are installed at traffic lights with a dedicated pedestrian signal, and are used to bring up the pedestrian "walk" indication in locations where they function correctly. In the majority of locations where call buttons are installed, pushing the button does not light up the pedestrian walk sign immediately. One Portland State University researcher notes of call buttons in the US, "Most [call] buttons don’t provide any feedback to the pedestrian that the traffic signal has received the input. It may appear at many locations that nothing happens." However, there are some locations where call buttons do provide confirmation feedback. At such locations, pedestrians are more likely to wait for the "walk" indications.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Reports suggest that many walk buttons in some areas, such as New York City and the United Kingdom, may actually be either placebo buttons or nonworking call buttons that used to function correctly. In the former case, these buttons are designed to give pedestrians an illusion of control while the crossing signal continues its operation as programmed. However, in instances of the latter case, such as New York City's, the buttons were simply deactivated when traffic signals were updated to automatically include pedestrian phases as part of every signal cycle. In such instances these buttons may be removed during future updates to the pedestrian signals. In the United Kingdom, pressing a button at a standalone pedestrian crossing that is unconnected to a junction will turn a traffic light red immediately, but this is not necessarily the case at a junction.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Sometimes, call buttons work only at some intersections, at certain times of day, or certain periods of the year, such as in New York City or in Boston, Massachusetts. In Boston, some busy intersections are programmed to give a pedestrian cycle during certain times of day (so pushing the button is not necessary) but at off-peak times a button push is required to get a pedestrian cycle. In neighboring Cambridge, a button press is always required if a button is available, though the city prefers to build signals where no button is present and the pedestrian cycle always happens between short car cycles. In both cases the light will not turn immediately, but will wait until the next available pedestrian slot in a pre-determined rotation.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some pedestrian signals integrate a countdown timer, showing how many seconds are remaining for the clearing phase. In the United States, San Francisco was the first major city to install countdown signals to replace older pedestrian modules, doing so on a trial basis starting in March 2001. The United States MUTCD added a countdown signal as an optional feature to its 2003 edition; if included, the countdown digits would be Portland Orange, the same color as the "Upraised Hand" indication. The MUTCD's 2009 edition changed countdown timers to a mandatory feature on pedestrian signals at all signalized intersections with pedestrian clearance intervals ("flashing upraised hand" phases) longer than seven seconds. With the MUTCD guideline allotting at least one second to cross , this indicates that countdown timers are supposed to be installed on roads wider than . The countdown is not supposed to be displayed during the pedestrian "walk" interval ("steady walking person" phase),


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some municipalities have found that there are instances where pedestrian countdown signals may be less effective than standard hand/man or ""/"" signals. New York City started studying the pedestrian timers in an inconclusive 2006 study but only started rolling out pedestrian timers on a large scale in 2011 after the conclusion of a second study, which found that pedestrian countdown timers were ineffective at shorter crosswalks. Additionally, a 2000 study of pedestrian countdown timers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, at several intersections near Walt Disney World, found that pedestrians were more likely to cross the street during the pedestrian clearance interval (flashing upraised hand) if there is a timer present, compared to at intersections where there was no timer present. A study in Toronto found similar results to the Florida study, determining that countdown timers may actually cause more crashes than standard hand/man signals. However, other cities such as London found that countdown timers were effective, and New York City found that countdown signals worked mainly at longer crosswalks.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pedestrian countdown signals are also used elsewhere around the world, such as in Buenos Aires, India, Mexico, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates. In Mexico City, the walking man moves his feet during the countdown. In Taiwan, all the crossings feature animated men called xiaolüren ("little green man"), who will walk faster immediately before the traffic signal will change. There is also always a countdown timer.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In some countries, instead of "don't walk", a depiction of a red man or hand indicating when not to cross, the drawing of the person crossing appears with an "X" drawn over it.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Some countries around the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia duplicate the red light. Instead of one red light, there are two which both illuminate at the same time.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In many parts of eastern Germany, particularly the former German Democratic Republic, the design of the crossing man (Ampelmännchen) has a hat. There are also female "Ampelmännchen" in western Germany and the Netherlands. Other countries also use unusual "walk" and "don't walk" pedestrian indicators. In southwest Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, there are pedestrian signal lights that resemble Astro Boy. In Lisbon, some signals have a "don't walk" indicator that dances; these "dancing man" signals, created by Daimler AG, were created to encourage pedestrians to wait for the "walk" indicator, with the result that 81% more pedestrians stopped and waited for the "walk" light compared to at crosswalks with conventional signals.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In some areas, the signal timing technique of a Leading Pedestrian Interval (LPI) allows pedestrians exclusive access to a crosswalk, typically 3–7 seconds, before vehicular traffic is permitted. Depending on intersection volume and safety history, a normal right-turn-on-red (RTOR) might be explicitly prohibited during the LPI phase. LPI benefits include increased visibility and greater likelihood of vehicles yielding. LPI is among the tools being considered in the fatality-elimination toolkit of Vision Zero planners and advocates.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In certain circumstances, there are needs to install temporary pedestrian crossing signals. The reasons may include redirecting traffic due to roadworks, closing of the permanent crossing signals due to repairs or upgrades, and establishing new pedestrian crossings for the duration of large public events.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The temporary pedestrian crossings can be integrated into portable traffic signals that may be used during the roadworks, or it can be stand-alone just to stop vehicles to allow pedestrians to safely cross the road without directing vehicle movements. When using the temporary pedestrian crossings signals for roadworks, there should be consideration on signal cycle time. The pedestrian crossing cycles may add longer delay to the traffics which may require additional planning on road work traffic flows.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Depending on the duration and the nature of the temporary signals, the equipment can be installed in different way. One way is to use the permanent traffic signals mounted temporary poles such as poles in concrete-filled barrels. Another way is to use portable pedestrian crossing signals.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pedestrian controlled crossings are sometimes provided with enhanced features to assist disabled people.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Tactile cones near or under the control button may rotate or shake when the pedestrian signal is in the pedestrian "walk" phase. This is for pedestrians with visual impairments. A vibrating button is used in Australia, Germany, some parts of the United States, Greece, Ireland, and Hong Kong to assist hearing-impaired people. Alternatively, electrostatic, touch-sensitive buttons require no force to activate. To confirm that a request has been registered, the buttons usually emit a chirp or other sound. They also offer anti-vandalism benefits due to not including moving parts which are sometimes jammed on traditional push-button units.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Tactile surfacing patterns (or tactile pavings) may be laid flush within the adjacent footways (US: sidewalks), so that visually impaired pedestrians can locate the control box and cone device and know when they have reached the other side. In Britain, different colours of tactile paving indicate different types of crossings; yellow (referred to as buff coloured) is used at non-controlled (no signals) crossings, and red is used at controlled (signalised) locations.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Crosswalks have adaptations, mainly for people with visual impairments, through the addition of accessible pedestrian signals (APS) that may include speakers at the pushbutton, or under the signal display, for each crossing location. These types of signals have been shown to reduce conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles. However, without other indications such as tactile pavings or cones, these APS units may be hard for visually impaired people to locate.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In the United States, the standards in the 2009 MUTCD require APS units to have a pushbutton locator tone, audible and vibrotactile walk indications, a tactile arrow aligned with the direction of travel on the crosswalk, and to respond to ambient sound. The pushbutton locator tone is a beep or tick, repeating at once per second, to allow people who are blind to find the device. If APS units are installed in more than one crossing direction (e.g. if there are APS units at a curb for both the north–south and west–east crossing directions), different sounds or speech messages may be used for each direction. Under the MUTCD guideline, the walk indication may be a speech message if two or more units on the same curb are separated by less than . These speech messages usually follow the pattern "[Street name]. Walk sign is on to cross [Street Name]." Otherwise, the walk indication may be a "percussive tone," which usually consists of repeated, rapid sounds that can be clearly heard from the opposite curb and can oscillate between high and low volumes. In both cases, when the "don't walk" indication is flashing, the device will beep at every second until the "don't walk" indication becomes steady and the pedestrian countdown indication reaches "0", at which point the device will beep intermittently at lower volume. When activated, the APS units are mandated to be accompanied by a vibrating arrow on the APS during the walk signal.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The devices have been in existence since the mid-20th century, but were not popular until the 2000s because of concerns over noise. As of the 2009 MUTCD, APS are supposed to be set to be heard only 6 to 12 feet from the device to be easy to detect from a close distance but not so loud as to be intrusive to neighboring properties. Among American cities, San Francisco has one of the greatest numbers of APS-equipped intersections in the United States, with APS installed at 202 intersections . New York City has APS at 131 intersections , with 75 more intersections to be equipped every year after that.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: APS in other countries may consist of a short recorded message, as in Scotland, Hong Kong, Singapore and some parts of Canada (moderate to large urban centres). In Japan, various electronic melodies are played, often of traditional melancholic folk songs such as "Tōryanse" or "Sakura". In Croatia, Denmark and Sweden, beeps (or clicks) with long intervals in-between signifying "don't walk" mode and beeps with very short intervals signifying "walk" mode.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: On some pushbutton especially in Austria and Germany there is a symbolic relief showing the crossing situation for the visually impaired, so they can get an overview of the crossing.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The relief is read from the bottom up. It consists of different modules, which are put together according to the crosswalk. Each pedestrian crossing begins with the start symbol, consisting of an arrow and a broad line representing the curb. Subsequently, different modules for traffic lanes and islands follow. The relief is completed with a broad line.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Modules for traffic lanes consist of a dash in the middle and a symbol for the kind of lane right or left of the dash, depending on the direction from which the traffic crosses the crossing. If a crossing is possible from both directions, a symbol is located on both sides. If the pedestrian crossing is a zebra crossing, the middle line is dashed. A traffic light secured crossing has a solid line.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: A cycle path is represented by two points next to each other, a vehicle lane by a rectangle and tram rails by two lines lying one above the other.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Islands are represented as a rectangle, which has semicircles on the right and left side. If there is a pushbutton for pedestrians on the island, there is a dot in the middle of the rectangle. If the pedestrian walkway divides on an island, the rectangle may be open on the right or left side.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In Perth, Western Australia, an extended phase system called "Keywalk" was developed by the Main Roads Department of Western Australia in response to concerns from disability advocates about the widening of the Albany Highway in that city in the mid-1990s. The department felt that extending the walk phase permanently on cross streets would cause too much disruption to traffic flow on the highway and so the Keywalk system was developed to allow for those who needed an extended green light phase to cross the road safely. A small electronic key adjusted the green/walk and flashing red/complete crossing phases to allow more time for the key holder to complete the crossing of the highway safely. The system was first installed at the junction of Albany Highway and Cecil Avenue. It is unclear what became of this system.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: There are two types of crosswalk lights: those that illuminate the whole crosswalk area, and warning lights.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America currently provides engineering design standards for highway lighting. In the US, in conventional intersections, area lighting is typically provided by pole-mounted luminaires. These systems illuminate the crosswalk as well as surrounding areas, and do not always provide enough contrast between the pedestrian and his or her background.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: There have been many efforts to create lighting scenarios that offer better nighttime illumination in crosswalks. Some innovative concepts include:


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In areas with heavy snowfall, using in-pavement lighting can be problematic, since snow can obscure the lights, and snowplows can damage them.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In Finland, fences in the footpath approaching the crossing force pedestrians and bicycles to slow down to navigate a zigzag path, which also tends to force that user to look out for the train.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Pedestrian crossings across railways may be arranged differently elsewhere, such as in New South Wales, where they consist of:


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: In France, when a train is approaching, a red man is shown with the word STOP flashing in red (R25 signal).


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: When a footpath crosses a railway in the United Kingdom, there will most often be gates or stiles protecting the crossing from wildlife and livestock. In situations where there is little visibility along the railway, or the footpath is especially busy, there will also be a small set of lights with an explanatory sign. When a train approaches, the signal light will change to red and an alarm will sound until the train has cleared the crossing.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: The safety of unsignalled pedestrian or zebra crossings is somewhat contested in traffic engineering circles.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: Research undertaken in New Zealand showed that a zebra crossing without other safety features on average "increases" pedestrian crashes by 28% compared to a location without crossings. However, if combined with (placed on top of) a speed table, zebra crossings were found to reduce pedestrian crashes by 80%.


title: Pedestrian crossing

text: A five-year U.S. study of 1,000 marked crosswalks and 1,000 unmarked comparison sites found that on most roads, the difference in safety performance of marked and unmarked crossings is not statistically significant, unless additional safety features are used. On multilane roads carrying over 12,000 vehicles per day, a marked crosswalk is likely to have worse safety performance than an otherwise similar unmarked location, unless safety features such as raised median refuges or pedestrian beacons are also installed. On multilane roads carrying over 15,000 vehicles per day, a marked crosswalk is likely to have worse safety performance than an unmarked location, even if raised median refuges are provided. The marking pattern had no significant effect on safety. This study only included locations where vehicle traffic was not controlled by a signal or stop sign.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Nouri Kamil Muhammad-Hasan al-Maliki (; born 20 June 1950), also known as Jawad al-Maliki (), is secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party and was the prime minister of Iraq from 2006 to 2014 and the vice president of Iraq from 2014 to 2015 and 2016 to 2018. Al-Maliki began his political career as a Shia dissident under Saddam Hussein's in the late 1970s and rose to prominence after he fled a death sentence into exile for 24 years. During his time abroad, he became a senior leader of the Islamic Dawa Party, coordinated the activities of anti-Saddam guerrillas and built relationships with Iranian and Syrian officials whose help he sought in overthrowing Saddam. Al-Maliki worked closely with United States and coalition forces in Iraq following their departure by the end of 2011.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Al-Maliki was Iraq's first full-term post-war prime minister. He was appointed by U.S. Armed Forces Coalition leader Michael Douglas Barbero. He and his government succeeded the Iraqi Transitional Government. His first Cabinet was approved by the National Assembly and sworn in on 20 May 2006. His second Cabinet, in which he also held the positions of acting Interior Minister, acting Defense Minister, and acting National Security Minister, was approved on 21 December 2010. In the wake of a string of defeats during the Northern Iraq Offensive, United States officials said that al-Maliki should give up his premiership. On 14 August 2014, he announced his resignation as Prime Minister of Iraq. During his eight years in power from 2006 to 2014, allegations of corruption were widespread, with hundreds of billions of dollars allegedly vanishing from government coffers. In September 2014, al-Maliki was elected as one of three Vice Presidents, an office he held despite attempts to abolish the post.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Nouri al-Maliki was born in the village of Janaja in Abu Gharaq, a central Iraqi town situated between Karbala and Al Hillah. He is a member of the Al-Ali Tribe, an offshoot of the Bani Malik tribe. He attended school in Al Hindiyah (Hindiya). Al-Maliki received his high school degree from Hindiya city and moved to Baghdad with his family. Al-Maliki lived for a time in Al Hillah, where he worked in the education department. His grandfather, Muhammad Hasan Abi al-Mahasin, was a poet and cleric who was the representative of the Revolutionary Council (Al-Majlis Al-Milli) of the Iraqi revolution against the British in 1920, and was Iraq's Minister of Education under King Faisal I.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 16 July 1979, al-Maliki fled Iraq after he was discovered to be a member of the outlawed Islamic Dawa Party. According to a brief biography on the Islamic Dawa Party's website, he left Iraq via Jordan in October, and soon moved to Syria, adopting the pseudonym "Jawad". He left Syria for Iran in 1982, where he lived in Tehran until 1990, before returning to Damascus where he remained until U.S.-led coalition forces invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam's regime in 2003. While living in Syria, he worked as a political officer for Dawa, developing close ties with Hezbollah and particularly with the Iranian government, supporting Iran's effort to topple Saddam's regime.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: While living in Damascus, al-Maliki edited the party newspaper "Al-Mawqif" and rose to head the party's Damascus branch. In 1990, he joined the Joint Action Committee and served as one of its rotating chairman. The committee was a Damascus-based opposition coalition for a number of Hussein's opponents. The Dawa Party participated in the Iraqi National Congress between 1992 and 1995, withdrawing because of disagreements over who should head it.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Upon his return to his native Iraq after the fall of Saddam in April 2003, al-Maliki became the deputy leader of the Supreme National Debaathification Commission of the Iraqi Interim Government, formed to purge former Baath Party officials from the military and government. He was elected to the transitional National Assembly in January 2005. He was a member of the committee that drafted the new constitution that was passed in October 2005.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In the December 2005 Iraqi parliamentary election, the United Iraqi Alliance won the plurality of seats, and nominated Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be Iraq's first full-term post-war prime minister. In April 2006, amid mounting criticism of ineffective leadership and favoritism by Kurdish and Sunni Arab politicians in parliament, al-Jaafari was forced from power. On 22 April 2006, following close U.S. involvement in the selection of a new prime minister, al-Maliki's name arose from the four that had been interviewed by the CIA on their connections to Iran (the others including Hussein al-Shahristani and Ali al-Adeeb).


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: United States Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said that "[Maliki's] reputation is as someone who is independent of Iran." Khalilzad also maintained that Iran "pressured everyone for Jaafari to stay". However, al-Maliki was the preferred candidate of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, and it was Soleimani who brokered the deal between senior Shiite and Kurdish leaders that led to his election as Prime Minister.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 20 May 2006, al-Maliki presented his Cabinet to Parliament, minus permanent ministers of Defense and of Interior. He announced that he would temporarily handle the Interior Ministry himself, and Salam al-Zobaie would temporarily act as Defense Minister. "We pray to God almighty to give us strength so we can meet the ambitious goals of our people who have suffered a lot", al-Maliki told the members of the assembly.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: During his first term, al-Maliki vowed to crack down on insurgents who he called "organized armed groups who are acting outside the state and outside the law". He had been criticized for taking too long to name permanent interior and defense ministers, which he did on 8 June 2006, just as al-Maliki and the Americans announced the killing of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Meanwhile, al-Maliki criticized coalition armed forces as reports of allegedly deliberate killings of Iraqi civilians (at Haditha and elsewhere) became known. He has been quoted as saying, "[t]his is a phenomenon that has become common among many of the multinational forces. No respect for citizens, smashing civilian cars and killing on a suspicion or a hunch. It's unacceptable." According to Ambassador Khalilzad, al-Maliki had been misquoted, but it was unclear in what way.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: The international Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to al-Maliki in June 2006, complaining of a "disturbing pattern of restrictions on the press" and of the "imprisonment, intimidation, and censorship of journalists".


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: His relationship with the press was often contentious. On 24 August 2006, for example, he banned television channels from broadcasting images of bloodshed in the country and warned of legal action against those violating the order. Major General Rashid Flayah, head of a national police division added "...We are building the country with Kalashnikovs and you should help in building it with the use of your pen".


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Early in his term, al-Maliki was criticized by some for alleged reluctance to tackle Shiite militias. In October 2006, he complained about an American raid against a Shiite militia leader because he said it had been conducted without his approval.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Al-Maliki's job was complicated by the balance of power within parliament, with his position relying on the support of two Shiite blocs, that of Muqtada al-Sadr and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, that his Dawa party has often been at odds with. Progress was also frequently blocked by Sunni Arab politicians who alleged that the dominant Shiite parties were pursuing sectarian advantage. Al-Maliki had some success in finding compromise.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 30 December 2006, al-Maliki signed the death warrant of Saddam Hussein and declined a stay of execution, saying there would be "no review or delay" in the event. Citing the wishes of relatives of Hussein's victims, he said, "Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him." Hussein's execution was carried out on 30 December 2006 (notably, the first Muslim day of the feast of Eid ul-Adha).


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 2 January 2007, the "Wall Street Journal" published an interview with al-Maliki in which he said he wished he could end his term before it expires in 2009.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In 2007, unnamed U.S. military officers alleged al-Maliki was replacing Iraqi commanders who had cracked down on Shiite militias with party loyalists. An al-Maliki spokesman denied the allegation.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In May 2007, the Islamic Dawa Party removed Jaafari and elected al-Maliki as Secretary-General of the Dawa Party.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In July 2008, al-Maliki, who earlier in the year fought off a recall effort in parliament, convinced Sunni politicians to end a year-long boycott of the chamber and appointed some of them to cabinet positions. Analysts said the return of the Sunnis was made possible by the security gains under al-Maliki and by apparent progress in negotiations with the United States over American military withdrawal.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: By late 2008, al-Maliki started to stop transparency efforts by firing inspector generals. He also started using sections of the armed forces against his political rivals.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: By October–November 2008, the al-Malki government had witnessed improvements in the security situation in many parts of the country. In Baghdad, a peace deal signed between Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the government had eased tensions, though sporadic sectarian incidents continued, as did occasional fighting between U.S. forces and Shiite militiamen, particularly in Sadr City.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Maliki in May 2009 talked about the need to make a secure and sustainable environment for investment in order for successful reconstruction and has enacted new investment laws to try to achieve this. He also acknowledged Iraq's unfortunate reliance on oil to finance reconstruction thus far, although the revenue began to be spent on other possible revenue sources including agriculture and energy.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 22 December 2010, al-Maliki's second government, including all main blocs in the new parliament, was unanimously approved by parliament, 9 months after the 2010 parliamentary election. On 5 February 2011, a spokesperson for al-Maliki said he would not run for a third term in 2014 limiting himself in the name of democracy in a nod to the Arab Spring.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 19 December 2011, Sunni politician and Vice President of Iraq, Tariq al-Hashemi, was accused of orchestrating bombing attacks and a hit squad killing Shiite politicians, and his arrest was warranted. This led to his Sunni/Shia Iraqiyya party (with 91 seats the largest party in parliament) boycotting parliament, which lasted until late January 2012. Hashemi was in September 2012 "in absentia" sentenced to death but had already fled to Turkey, which declared it will not extradite him to Iraq. This affair fueled Sunni Muslim and Kurdish resentment against Maliki who critics said was monopolizing power.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Al-Maliki lead Iraq through an increase in anti-Sunni violence, including the bloody crack-down on the 2012–2013 Sunni protests, which has been interpreted as leading to the rise of ISIS. The military under the al-Maliki administration was known for its corruption and was plagued with ghost soldiers, a corruption scheme with soldiers names on the pay rolls but not actually in service. When ISIS increased its activity in the first part of the 2013–2017 War in Iraq, Maliki lead Iraq through major defeats, including the June 2014 northern Iraq offensive which saw the catastrophic collapse of the Iraqi army in that region and the fall of Mosul, where an army of 1,500 ISIS militants won over 60,000 Iraqi soldiers.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: A former commander of the Iraqi ground forces, Ali Ghaidan, accused al-Maliki of being the one who issued the order to withdraw from the city of Mosul. By late June, the Iraqi government had lost control of its borders with both Jordan and Syria. al-Maliki called for a national state of emergency on 10 June following the attack on Mosul, which had been seized overnight. However, despite the security crisis, Iraq's parliament did not allow Maliki to declare a state of emergency; many Sunni Arab and Kurdish legislators boycotted the session because they opposed expanding the prime minister's powers.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: By August 2014 al-Maliki was still holding on to power tenaciously despite Iraq's President Fuad Masum nominating Haidar al-Abadi to take over. Al-Maliki referred the matter to the federal court claiming the president's nomination was a "constitutional violation." He said: "The insistence on this until the end is to protect the state." On 14 August 2014, however, in the face of growing calls from world leaders and members of his own party the embattled prime minister Al-Maliki announced he was stepping down.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Maliki's critics assert that he did his utmost to limit the power of both Kurds and Sunnis between 2006 and 2014. Their view is that Maliki worked to further centralise governance and amass greater controls and power—from militarily to legislative—for his party. Instead of strengthening and securing Iraq, Maliki's actions have led to a rise in both Kurdish nationalism and Sunni insurgency, which has resulted in civil war and the effective failure of the Iraqi state.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: The reign of al-Maliki has been described as sectarian by both Sunni Iraqis and western analysts; something which helped fuel a Sunni uprising in the country in 2014. During the Northern Iraq offensive, beginning in June 2014, ISIS vowed to take power away from al-Maliki, who called upon Kurdish forces to help keep Iraq out of the hands of ISIS, as well as air support from American drones in order to eliminate dangerous jihadist elements in the country, which was refused by the United States, as "administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike [jihadist havens]."


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: The announcement of al-Maliki's resignation on 14 August 2014 and the leadership transition to Haider al-Abadi caused a major realignment of Sunni Arab public opinion away from armed opposition groups and to the Iraqi government, since many Iraqi Sunni Arabs were optimistic that the new government would address their grievances and deliver more public goods and services to them than the government led by al-Maliki.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In an interview published by the German magazine "Der Spiegel" in June 2008, al-Maliki said that a schedule for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country of "about 16 months ... would be the right time-frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes". In the interview, he said the U.S. government has been reluctant to agree to a timetable "because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat. But that isn't the case at all ... it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on Al Qaeda and the militias." He said U.S. negotiators were coming around to his point of view.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin were two of several U.S. politicians who called for him to be removed from office in 2007. Senator Clinton urged Iraq's parliament to select a "less divisive and more unifying figure" and implied she felt al-Maliki was too concerned about Iraq's Shiite majority and not enough with national reconciliation. "During his trip to Iraq last week, Senator Levin ... confirmed that the Iraqi government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders", she said.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Al-Maliki hit back and said the Democratic senators were acting as if Iraq were "their property" and that they should "come to their senses" and "respect democracy". After 17 Iraqis were shot and killed by Blackwater USA security guards al-Maliki called on the U.S. embassy to stop working with the company and said: "What happened was a crime. It has left a deep grudge and anger, both inside the government and among the Iraqi people."


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Maliki's friendly gestures towards Iran have sometimes created tension between his government and the United States but he has also been willing to consider steps opposed by Tehran, particularly while carrying out negotiations with the United States on a joint-security pact. A June 2008 news report noted that al-Maliki's visit to Tehran seemed to be "aimed at getting Iran to tone down its opposition and ease criticism within Iraq". Al-Maliki said an agreement reached with the U.S. won't preclude good relations with neighbors like Iran.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In August 2007, CNN reported that the firm of Barbour, Griffith & Rogers had "begun a public campaign to undermine the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki". The network described BGR as a "powerhouse Republican lobbying firm with close ties to the White House". CNN also mentioned that Ayad Allawi is both al-Maliki's rival and BGR's client, although it did not assert that Allawi had hired BGR to undermine al-Maliki.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In late 2014, Vice President Al-Maliki accused the United States of using ISIL as a pretext to maintain its military presence in Iraq. He stated that "the Americans began this sedition in Syria and then expanded its dimensions into Iraq and it seems that they intend to further stretch this problem to other countries in their future plans."


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: The King said he had "no confidence whatsoever in (Iraqi PM) Maliki, and the Ambassador (Fraker) is well aware of my views." The King affirmed that he had refused former President Bush's entreaties that he meet with al-Maliki. The King said he had met al-Maliki early in al-Maliki's term of office, and the Iraqi had given him a written list of commitments for reconciliation in Iraq, but had failed to follow through on any of them. For this reason, the King said, al-Maliki had little credibility. "I don't trust this man," the King stated, "He's an Iranian agent." The King said he had told both Bush and former Vice president Cheney "how can I meet with someone I don't trust?" Al-Maliki has "opened the door for Iranian influence in Iraq" since taking power, the King said, and he was "not hopeful at all" for al-Maliki, "or I would have met with him."


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 13 June 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush paid a visit to Baghdad to meet with al-Maliki and President of Iraq Jalal Talabani, as a token of support for the new government. During this visit, they announced the Iraqi Leaders Initiative, in which students from Iraq would go to the United States to build a personal connection between the two countries. On 25 June, al-Maliki presented a national reconciliation plan to the Iraqi parliament. The peace plan sets out to remove powerful militias from the streets, open a dialogue with rebels, and review the status of purged members of the once dominant Ba'ath party. Some viewed this as a bold step towards rebuilding Iraq and reaching out to Sunnis.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: By July 2006, when al-Maliki visited the United States, violence had continued and even escalated, leading many to conclude that the reconciliation plan was not working or was moving too slowly. On 26 July 2006, al-Maliki addressed a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. Several New York Democrats boycotted the speech after Al-Maliki condemned Israel's attack on Lebanon. Howard Dean, the DNC chairman, accused Al-Maliki of being an "anti-Semite" and said the United States shouldn't spend so much on Iraq and then hand it over to people like al-Maliki.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: In September 2006, Al-Maliki made his first official visit to neighbouring Iran, whose alleged influence on Iraq is a matter of concern for Washington, D.C. He discussed with Iranian officials, including president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the "principle of no interference in internal affairs" during his visit on 11 and 12 September 2006, i.e., political and security issues. His visit closely followed an incident in which Iran detained Iraqi soldiers it accused of having illegally crossed the border.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Ibrahim Shaker, Iraqi defence ministry spokesman, said the five soldiers, one officer and one translator involved had simply been doing "their duty". During his visit al-Maliki called the Islamic Republic of Iran "a good friend and brother." A press conference given by al-Maliki and U.S. President George Bush on 14 December 2008, was disrupted when Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at Bush.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 26 January 2013 al-Maliki's opponents passed a law which prohibited al-Maliki from running for a third term but an Iraqi court later rejected it.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 8 September 2014, during approval of the new government led by Haider al-Abadi, al-Maliki was named one of the three vice presidents, a prestigious albeit largely ceremonial post.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 11 August 2015, the Parliament approved a reform package by Prime Minister al-Abadi that foresaw, among other measures, the elimination of the three vice president posts. However, following a lawsuit opened by fellow Vice President Usama al-Nujayfi, al-Maliki declared in September 2015 that he was still holding his office because the removal of the post was not in line with the Iraqi Constitution. Osama al-Nujaifi filed a complaint against the decision in November 2015, considering it to be against the Constitution. On 10 October 2016, the three posts of Vice Presidents were restored by the Supreme Court of Iraq which termed their abolition as unconstitutional.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: Al-Maliki is married to Faleeha Khalil, with whom he has four daughters and one son. His son Ahmed was head of Al-Maliki's security, and two of his sons-in-law also worked in his office.


title: Nouri al-Maliki

text: On 26 April 2006, al-Maliki stopped using the pseudonym Jawad which he had used since moving to Syria in the early 1980s. However, the pseudo- or code name ("Kunya") "Abu Esraa" (father of Esraa – his eldest daughter) is still occasionally heard on Iraqi satellite media, because it is very common in Arab culture (and in Iraqi culture in particular) to call someone by his eldest child's name, especially among his close friends and followers.


title: Text editor

text: A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to change files such as configuration files, documentation files and programming language source code.


title: Text editor

text: There are important differences between plain text (created and edited by text editors) and rich text (such as that created by word processors or desktop publishing software).


title: Text editor

text: Plain text exclusively consists of character representation. Each character is represented by a fixed-length sequence of one, two, or four bytes, or as a variable-length sequence of one to four bytes, in accordance to specific character encoding conventions, such as ASCII, ISO/IEC 2022, Shift JIS, UTF-8, or UTF-16. These conventions define many printable characters, but also non-printing characters that control the flow of the text, such as space, line break, and page break. Plain text contains no other information about the text itself, not even the character encoding convention employed. Plain text is stored in text files, although text files do not exclusively store plain text. Since the early days of computers, plain text was (once by necessity and now by convention) generally displayed using a monospace font, such that horizontal alignment and columnar formatting were sometimes done using whitespace characters.


title: Text editor

text: Rich text, on the other hand, may contain metadata, character formatting data (e.g. typeface, size, weight and style), paragraph formatting data (e.g. indentation, alignment, letter and word distribution, and space between lines or other paragraphs), and page specification data (e.g. size, margin and reading direction). Rich text can be very complex. Rich text can be saved in binary format (e.g. DOC), text files adhering to a markup language (e.g. RTF or HTML), or in a hybrid form of both (e.g. Office Open XML).


title: Text editor

text: Text editors are intended to open and save text files containing either plain text or anything that can be interpreted as plain text, including the markup for rich text or the markup for something else (e.g. SVG).


title: Text editor

text: Before text editors existed, computer text was punched into cards with keypunch machines. Physical boxes of these thin cardboard cards were then inserted into a card reader. Magnetic tape, drum and disk card image files created from such card decks often had no line-separation characters at all, and assumed fixed-length 80- or 90-character records. An alternative to cards was Punched tape. It could be created by some teleprinters (such as the Teletype), which used special characters to indicate ends of records. Some early operating systems included batch text editors, either integrated with language processors or as separate utility programs; one early example was the ability to edit SQUOZE source files for SCAT in SHARE Operating System.


title: Text editor

text: The first interactive text editors were "line editors" oriented to teleprinter- or typewriter-style terminals without displays. Commands (often a single keystroke) effected edits to a file at an imaginary insertion point called the "cursor". Edits were verified by typing a command to print a small section of the file, and periodically by printing the entire file. In some line editors, the cursor could be moved by commands that specified the line number in the file, text strings (context) for which to search, and eventually regular expressions. Line editors were major improvements over keypunching. Some line editors could be used by keypunch; editing commands could be taken from a deck of cards and applied to a specified file. Some common line editors supported a "verify" mode in which change commands displayed the altered lines.


title: Text editor

text: When computer terminals with video screens became available, screen-based text editors (sometimes called just "screen editors") became common. One of the earliest full-screen editors was O26, which was written for the operator console of the CDC 6000 series computers in 1967. Another early full-screen editor was vi. Written in the 1970s, it is still a standard editor on Unix and Linux operating systems. Also written in the 1970s was the UCSD Pascal Screen Oriented Editor, which was optimized both for indented source code and general text. Emacs, one of the first free and open-source software projects, is another early full-screen or real-time editor, one that was ported to many systems. A full-screen editor's ease-of-use and speed (compared to the line-based editors) motivated many early purchases of video terminals.


title: Text editor

text: The core data structure in a text editor is the one that manages the string (sequence of characters) or list of records that represents the current state of the file being edited.


title: Text editor

text: the desire for text editors that could more quickly insert text, delete text, and undo/redo previous edits led to the development of more complicated sequence data structures.


title: Text editor

text: A typical text editor uses a gap buffer, a linked list of lines (as in PaperClip), a piece table, or a rope, as its sequence data structure.


title: Text editor

text: Some text editors are small and simple, while others offer broad and complex functions. For example, Unix and Unix-like operating systems have the pico editor (or a variant), but many also include the vi and Emacs editors. Microsoft Windows systems come with the simple Notepad, though many people—especially programmers—prefer other with more features. Under Apple Macintosh's classic Mac OS there was the native TeachText later replaced by SimpleText in 1994, which was replaced in Mac OS X by TextEdit, which combines features of a text editor with those typical of a word processor such as rulers, margins and multiple font selection. These features are not available simultaneously, but must be switched by user command, or through the program automatically determining the file type.


title: Text editor

text: Most word processors can read and write files in plain text format, allowing them to open files saved from text editors. Saving these files from a word processor, however, requires ensuring the file is written in plain text format, and that any text encoding or BOM settings won't obscure the file for its intended use. Non-WYSIWYG word processors, such as WordStar, are more easily pressed into service as text editors, and in fact were commonly used as such during the 1980s. The default file format of these word processors often resembles a markup language, with the basic format being plain text and visual formatting achieved using non-printing control characters or escape sequences. Later word processors like Microsoft Word store their files in a binary format and are almost never used to edit plain text files.


title: Text editor

text: Some text editors can edit unusually large files such as log files or an entire database placed in a single file. Simpler text editors may just read files into the computer's main memory. With larger files, this may be a slow process, and the entire file may not fit. Some text editors do not let the user start editing until this read-in is complete. Editing performance also often suffers in nonspecialized editors, with the editor taking seconds or even minutes to respond to keystrokes or navigation commands. Specialized editors have optimizations such as only storing the visible portion of large files in memory, improving editing performance.


title: Text editor

text: Some editors are programmable, meaning, e.g., they can be customized for specific uses. With a programmable editor it is easy to automate repetitive tasks or, add new functionality or even implement a new application within the framework of the editor. One common motive for customizing is to make a text editor use the commands of another text editor with which the user is more familiar, or to duplicate missing functionality the user has come to depend on. Software developers often use editor customizations tailored to the programming language or development environment they are working in. The programmability of some text editors is limited to enhancing the core editing functionality of the program, but Emacs can be extended far beyond editing text files—for web browsing, reading email, online chat, managing files or playing games and is often thought of as a Lisp execution environment with a Text User Interface. Emacs can even be programmed to emulate Vi, its rival in the traditional editor wars of Unix culture.


title: Text editor

text: An important group of programmable editors uses REXX as a scripting language. These "orthodox editors" contain a "command line" into which commands and macros can be typed and text lines into which line commands and macros can be typed. Most such editors are derivatives of ISPF/PDF EDIT or of XEDIT, IBM's flagship editor for VM/SP through z/VM. Among them are THE, KEDIT, X2, Uni-edit, and SEDIT.


title: Text editor

text: A text editor written or customized for a specific use can determine what the user is editing and assist the user, often by completing programming terms and showing tooltips with relevant documentation. Many text editors for software developers include source code syntax highlighting and automatic indentation to make programs easier to read and write. Programming editors often let the user select the name of an include file, function or variable, then jump to its definition. Some also allow for easy navigation back to the original section of code by storing the initial cursor location or by displaying the requested definition in a popup window or temporary buffer. Some editors implement this ability themselves, but often an auxiliary utility like ctags is used to locate the definitions.


title: Text editor

text: Programmable editors can usually be enhanced to perform any or all of these functions, but simpler editors focus on just one, or, like gPHPedit, are targeted at a single programming language.


title: Mariehamn

text: Mariehamn ( , ; ; ) is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in the city. It is mostly surrounded by Jomala, the second largest municipality in Åland in terms of population; to the east it is bordered by Lemland. Like all of Åland, Mariehamn is unilingually Swedish-speaking and around of the inhabitants speak it as their native language.


title: Mariehamn

text: The theme of the coat of arms of Mariehamn refers to the city's main livelihood, a maritime transport, and the city's parks, which are typically lined with linden trees. The coat of arms was designed by Nils Byman and confirmed in 1951.


title: Mariehamn

text: Due to its central location in the Baltic Sea, Mariehamn has become a major summer resort town for global tourism; as many as 1.5 million tourists visit there annually.


title: Mariehamn

text: The town was named after the Russian empress Maria Alexandrovna (1824–1880), literally meaning "Marie's Port". Mariehamn was founded in 1861, around the village of Övernäs, in what was at the time part of the municipality of Jomala. The city has since expanded and incorporated more of Jomala territory. Mariehamn was built according to a very regular scheme which is well-preserved. One of the oldest streets is "Södragatan" where many wooden houses dating from the 19th century can be seen.


title: Mariehamn

text: On November 8, 1963, a devastating plane crash occurred in Mariehamn, in which 22 out of 25 people lost their lives, which made it the second-deadliest aviation accident in the history of Finland.


title: Mariehamn

text: The city is located on a peninsula. It has two important harbours, one located on the western shore and one on the eastern shore, which are ice-free for nearly the whole year, and have no tides. The Western Harbour is an important international harbour with daily traffic to Sweden, Estonia and mainland Finland. A powerful incentive for Baltic ferries to stop at Mariehamn is that, with respect to indirect taxation, Åland is not part of the EU customs zone and so duty-free goods can be sold aboard.


title: Mariehamn

text: Åland and Mariehamn have a reputable heritage in shipping. The Flying P-Liner "Pommern" museum ship (part of the Åland Maritime Museum) is anchored in the Western Harbour. The Eastern Harbour features one of the largest marinas in Scandinavia. The famous Dutch steamer "Jan Nieveen" (now called "F.P. von Knorring", after Åland teacher and vicar Frans Peter von Knorring) can also be found here.


title: Mariehamn

text: At three of Åland's four highways, Mariehamn serves as a starting point for Main Road 1 to Eckerö, Main Road 2 to Sund and Main Road 3 to Lumparland.


title: Mariehamn

text: The city is an important centre for Åland media; both of the local newspapers (Ålandstidningen and Nya Åland), several radio stations and the local TV channels (TV Åland and Åland24) operate out of the city. The islanders are traditionally fond of reading, and had public libraries before 1920. A printing works was established in the town in 1891. The municipal library, which was built in 1989, is one of the most interesting modern buildings.


title: Mariehamn

text: Mariehamn features several buildings drawn by Finnish architect Lars Sonck, who moved to Åland as a child. Buildings drawn by him include the church of Mariehamn (1927), the main building of the Åland Maritime College (1927) and the town hall (1939). Hilda Hongell also designed several buildings, although only a few are still standing.


title: Mariehamn

text: Mariehamn has a transitional climate between humid continental climate (Dfb) with certain maritime (Cfb) influence as a result of the strong maritime moderation from being an island in the Baltic Sea. This causes summers to be cooler than both the Swedish and Finnish mainlands, with winters being similar in cold to the adjacent coastal part of Sweden but milder than Finland's mainland. The lowest temperature at Mariehamn airport was in February 1979, and the highest temperature on record was in July 2022.


title: National Weather Service

text: The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the purposes of protection, safety, and general information. It is a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) branch of the Department of Commerce, and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, within the Washington metropolitan area. The agency was known as the United States Weather Bureau from 1890 until it adopted its current name in 1970.


title: National Weather Service

text: The NWS performs its primary task through a collection of national and regional centers, and 122 local Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs). As the NWS is an agency of the U.S. federal government, most of its products are in the public domain and available free of charge.


title: National Weather Service

text: Calls for the creation of a government weather bureau began as early as 1844, when the electrical telegraph was introduced. In 1869, Cleveland Abbe began developing probabilistic forecasts using daily weather data sent via telegraph by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Western Union, which he convinced to back the collection of such information. Meanwhile, Increase A. Lapham of Wisconsin lobbied Congress to create such a service, having witnessed the destructive power of storms in the Great Lakes region. Representative Halbert E. Paine introduced a bill to provide the funding, and in 1870, the Weather Bureau of the United States was established through a joint resolution of Congress signed by President Ulysses S. Grant with a mission to "provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories... and for giving notice on the northern (Great) Lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms." The agency was placed under the Secretary of War as Congress felt "military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations." Within the Department of War, it was assigned to the U.S. Army Signal Service under Brigadier General Albert J. Myer. General Myer gave the National Weather Service its first name: The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce.


title: National Weather Service

text: Abbe was appointed as the Bureau's first chief meteorologist. In his earlier role as the civilian assistant to the chief of the Signal Service, Abbe urged the Department of War to research weather conditions to provide a scientific basis behind the forecasts; he would continue to urge the study of meteorology as a science after becoming Weather Bureau chief. While a debate went on between the Signal Service and Congress over whether the forecasting of weather conditions should be handled by civilian agencies or the Signal Service's existing forecast office, a Congressional committee was formed to oversee the matter, recommending that the office's operations be transferred to the Department of War following a two-year investigation.


title: National Weather Service

text: The agency first became a civilian enterprise in 1890, when it became part of the Department of Agriculture. Under the oversight of that branch, the Bureau began issuing flood warnings and fire weather forecasts, and issued the first daily national surface weather maps; it also established a network to distribute warnings for tropical cyclones as well as a data exchange service that relayed European weather analysis to the Bureau and vice versa. The first Weather Bureau radiosonde was launched in Massachusetts in 1937, which prompted a switch from routine aircraft observation to radiosondes within two years. The Bureau prohibited the word "tornado" from being used in any of its weather products out of concern for inciting panic (a move contradicted in its intentions by the high death tolls in past tornado outbreaks due to the lack of advanced warning) until 1938, when it began disseminating tornado warnings exclusively to emergency management personnel.


title: National Weather Service

text: The Bureau would later be moved to the Department of Commerce in 1940. In 1941, Margaret Smagorinsky (née Knoepfel) was hired as the Weather Bureau's first female statistician. On July 12, 1950, Bureau chief Francis W. Reichelderfer officially lifted the agency's ban on public tornado alerts in a Circular Letter, noting to all first order stations that "Weather Bureau employees should avoid statements that can be interpreted as a negation of the Bureau's willingness or ability to make tornado forecasts", and that a "good probability of verification" exist when issuing such forecasts due to the difficulty in accurately predicting tornadic activity. However, it would not be until it faced criticism for continuing to refuse to provide public tornado warnings and preventing the release of the USAF Severe Weather Warning Center's tornado forecasts (pioneered in 1948 by Air Force Capt. Robert C. Miller and Major Ernest Fawbush) beyond military personnel that the Bureau issued its first experimental public tornado forecasts in March 1952. In 1957, the Bureau began using radars for short-term forecasting of local storms and hydrological events, using modified versions of those used by Navy aircraft to create the WSR-57 (Weather Surveillance Radar, 1957), with a network of WSR systems being deployed nationwide through the early 1960s; some of the radars were upgraded to WSR-74 models beginning in 1974.


title: National Weather Service

text: The Weather Bureau became part of the Environmental Science Services Administration when that agency was formed in August 1966. The Environmental Science Services Administration was renamed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on October 1, 1970, with the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act. At this time, the Weather Bureau became the National Weather Service. NEXRAD (Next Generation Radar), a system of Doppler radars deployed to improve the detection and warning time of severe local storms, replaced the WSR-57 and WSR-74 systems between 1988 and 1997.


title: National Weather Service

text: The NWS, through a variety of sub-organizations, issues different forecasts to users, including the general public. Although, throughout history, text forecasts have been the means of product dissemination, the NWS has been using more forecast products of a digital, gridded, image or other modern format. Each of the 122 Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) send their graphical forecasts to a national server to be compiled in the National Digital Forecast Database (NDFD). The NDFD is a collection of common weather observations used by organizations and the public, including precipitation amount, temperature, and cloud cover among other parameters. In addition to viewing gridded weather data via the internet, users can download and use the individual grids using a "GRIB2 decoder" which can output data as shapefiles, netCDF, GrADS, float files, and comma separated variable files. Specific points in the digital database can be accessed using an XML SOAP service.


title: National Weather Service

text: The National Weather Service issues many products relating to wildfires daily. For example, a Fire Weather Forecast, which have a forecast period covering up to seven days, is issued by local WFOs daily, with updates as needed. The forecasts contain weather information relevant to fire control and smoke management for the next 12 to 48 hours, such as wind direction and speed, and precipitation. The appropriate crews use this information to plan for staffing and equipment levels, the ability to conduct scheduled controlled burns, and assess the daily fire danger. Once per day, NWS meteorologists issue a coded fire weather forecast for specific United States Forest Service observation sites that are then input into the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS). This computer model outputs the daily fire danger that is then conveyed to the public in one of five ratings: low, moderate, high, very high, or extreme.


title: National Weather Service

text: The local Weather Forecast Offices of the NWS also, under a prescribed set of criteria, issue Fire Weather Watches and Red Flag Warnings as needed, in addition to issuing the daily fire weather forecasts for the local service area. These products alert the public and other agencies to conditions which create the potential for extreme fires. On the national level, the NWS Storm Prediction Center issues fire weather analyses for days one and two of the forecast period that provide supportive information to the local WFO forecasts regarding particular critical elements of fire weather conditions. These include large-scale areas that may experience critical fire weather conditions including the occurrence of "dry thunderstorms," which usually occur in the western U.S., and are not accompanied by any rain due to it evaporating before reaching the surface.


title: National Weather Service

text: State and federal forestry officials sometimes request a forecast from a WFO for a specific location called a "spot forecast," which are used to determine whether it will be safe to ignite a prescribed burn and how to situate crews during the controlling phase. Officials send in a request, usually during the early morning, containing the position coordinates of the proposed burn, the ignition time, and other pertinent information. The WFO composes a short-term fire weather forecast for the location and sends it back to the officials, usually within an hour of receiving the request.


title: National Weather Service

text: The NWS assists officials at the scene of large wildfires or other disasters, including HAZMAT incidents, by providing on-site support through Incident Meteorologists (IMET). IMETs are NWS forecasters specially trained to work with Incident Management Teams during severe wildfire outbreaks or other disasters requiring on-site weather support. IMETs travel quickly to the incident site and then assemble a mobile weather center capable of providing continuous meteorological support for the duration of the incident. The kit includes a cell phone, a laptop computer, and communications equipment, used for gathering and displaying weather data such as satellite imagery or numerical forecast model output. Remote weather stations are also used to gather specific data for the point of interest, and often receive direct support from the local WFO during such crises. IMETs, approximately 70 to 80 of which are employed nationally, can be deployed anywhere a disaster strikes and must be capable of working long hours for weeks at a time in remote locations under rough conditions.


title: National Weather Service

text: The National Weather Service is divided into 122 local branches, known as Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs), to issue products specific to those areas. Each WFO maintains a specific area of responsibility spanning multiple counties, parishes or other jurisdictions within the Continental United States – which, in some areas, cover multiple states – or individual possessions; the local offices handle responsibility of composing and disseminating forecasts and weather alerts to areas within their region of service. Some of the products that are only issued by the WFOs are severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings, flood, flash flood, and winter weather watches and warnings, some aviation products, and local forecast grids. The forecasts issued by a WFO are available on their individual pages within the Weather.gov website, which can be accessed through either forecast landing pages (which identify the office that disseminates the weather data) or via the alert map featured on the main page of the National Weather Service website.


title: National Weather Service

text: The NWS supports the aviation community through the production of several forecasts. Each area's WFO has responsibility for the issuance of Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts (TAFs) for airports in their jurisdiction. TAFs are concise, coded 24-hour forecasts (30-hour forecasts for certain airports) for a specific airport, which are issued every six hours with amendments as needed. As opposed to a public weather forecast, a TAF only addresses weather elements critical to aviation; these include wind, visibility, cloud cover and wind shear.


title: National Weather Service

text: Twenty-one NWS Center Weather Service Units (CWSU) are collocated with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC). Their main responsibility is to provide up-to-the-minute weather information and briefings to the Traffic Management Units and control room supervisors. Special emphasis is given to weather conditions that could be hazardous to aviation or impede the flow of air traffic in the National Airspace System. Besides scheduled and unscheduled briefings for decision-makers in the ARTCC and other FAA facilities, CWSU meteorologists also issue two unscheduled products. The Center Weather Advisory (CWA) is an aviation weather warning for thunderstorms, icing, turbulence, and low cloud ceilings and visibilities. The Meteorological Impact Statement (MIS) is a two- to 12-hour forecast that outlines weather conditions expected to impact ARTCC operations.


title: National Weather Service

text: The Aviation Weather Center (AWC), located in Kansas City, Missouri, is a central aviation support facility operated by the National Weather Service, which issues two primary products:


title: National Weather Service

text: The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) in Norman, Oklahoma issues severe thunderstorm and tornado watches in cooperation with local WFOs which are responsible for delineating jurisdictions affected by the issued watch, and SPC also issues mesoscale discussions focused upon possible convective activity. SPC compiles reports of severe hail, wind, or tornadoes issued by local WFOs each day when thunderstorms producing such phenomena occur in a given area, and formats the data into text and graphical products. It also provides forecasts on convective activity through day eight of the forecast period (most prominently, the threat of severe thunderstorms, the risk of which is assessed through a tiered system conveyed among six categories – general thunderstorms, marginal, slight, enhanced, moderate, or high – based mainly on the expected number of storm reports and regional coverage of thunderstorm activity over a given forecast day), and is responsible for issuing fire weather outlooks, which support local WFOs in the determination of the need for Red Flag Warnings.


title: National Weather Service

text: The Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland provides guidance for future precipitation amounts and areas where excessive rainfall is likely, while local NWS offices are responsible for issuing Flood Watches, Flash Flood Watches, Flood Warnings, Flash Flood Warnings, and Flood Advisories for their local County Warning Area, as well as the official rainfall forecast for areas within their warning area of responsibility. These products can and do emphasize different hydrologic issues depending on geographic area, land use, time of year, as well as other meteorological and non-meteorological factors (for example, during the early spring or late winter a Flood Warning can be issued for an ice jam that occurs on a river, while in the summer a Flood Warning will most likely be issued for excessive rainfall).


title: National Weather Service

text: In recent years, the NWS has enhanced its dissemination of hydrologic information through the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service (AHPS). The AHPS allows anyone to view near real-time observation and forecast data for rivers, lakes and streams. The service also enables the NWS to provide long-range probabilistic information which can be used for long-range planning decisions.


title: National Weather Service

text: Daily river forecasts are issued by the thirteen River Forecast Centers (RFCs) using hydrologic models based on rainfall, soil characteristics, precipitation forecasts, and several other variables. The first such center was founded on September 23, 1946. Some RFCs, especially those in mountainous regions, also provide seasonal snow pack and peak flow forecasts. These forecasts are used by a wide range of users, including those in agriculture, hydroelectric dam operation, and water supply resources.


title: National Weather Service

text: The National Weather Service Ocean Prediction Center (OPC) in College Park, Maryland issues marine products for areas that are within the national waters of the United States. NWS national centers or Weather Forecast Offices issue several marine products:


title: National Weather Service

text: The National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC), respectively based in Miami, Florida and Honolulu, Hawaii, are responsible for monitoring tropical weather in the Atlantic, and central and eastern Pacific Oceans. In addition to releasing routine outlooks and discussions, the guidance center initiates advisories and discussions on individual tropical cyclones, as needed. If a tropical cyclone threatens the United States or its territories, individual WFOs begin issuing statements detailing the expected effects within their local area of responsibility. The NHC and CPHC issue products including tropical cyclone advisories, forecasts, and formation predictions, and warnings for the areas in the Atlantic and parts of the Pacific.


title: National Weather Service

text: The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) in College Park, Maryland is responsible for all of the NWS's climate-related forecasts. Their mission is to "serve the public by assessing and forecasting the impacts of short-term climate variability, emphasizing enhanced risks of weather-related extreme events, for use in mitigating losses and maximizing economic gains." Their products cover time scales from a week to seasons, extending into the future as far as technically feasible, and cover the land, the ocean and the atmosphere, extending into the stratosphere. Most of the products issued by the center cover the Contiguous U.S. and Alaska.


title: National Weather Service

text: Additionally, Weather Forecast Offices issue daily and monthly climate reports for official climate stations within their area of responsibility. These generally include recorded highs, lows and other information (including historical temperature extremes, fifty-year temperature and precipitation averages, and degree days). This information is considered preliminary until certified by the National Climatic Data Center.


title: National Weather Service

text: The primary network of surface weather observation stations in the United States is composed of Automated Surface Observing Systems (ASOS). The ASOS program is a joint effort of the National Weather Service (NWS), automatic weather station(AWS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Department of Defense (DOD). ASOS stations are designed to support weather forecast activities and aviation operations and, at the same time, support the needs of the meteorological, hydrological, and climatological research communities. ASOS was especially designed for the safety of the aviation community, therefore the sites are almost always located near airport runways. The system transmits routine hourly observations along with special observations when conditions exceed aviation weather thresholds (e.g. conditions change from visual meteorological conditions to instrument meteorological conditions). The basic weather elements observed are: sky condition, visibility, present weather, obstructions to vision, pressure, temperature, dew point, wind direction and speed, precipitation accumulation, and selected significant remarks. The coded observations are issued as METARs and look similar to this:


title: National Weather Service

text: Getting more information on the atmosphere, more frequently, and from more locations is the key to improving forecasts and warnings. Due to the large installation and operating costs associated with ASOS, the stations are widely spaced. Therefore, the Cooperative Observer Program (COOP), a network of approximately 11,000 mostly volunteer weather observers, provides much of the meteorological and climatological data to the country. The program, which was established in 1890 under the Organic Act, currently has a twofold mission: