FINDLAY, Ohio — Surveillance cameras have been moved into the center of Main Street in downtown Findlay.
Those cameras were installed not to catch a crime, but to help solve a technical problem.
Part of Findlay's updated downtown revitalization plan was to help make Main Street through downtown Findlay more pedestrian-friendly. The plan meant more crosswalks being installed in the longer blocks between intersections.
However, an issue has come up: the automatic crossing lights that warn drivers to yield to the crossing pedestrians aren't working.
The issue came up less than two years after the city of Findlay installed pedestrian islands along Main Street to allow for those mid-block crosswalks to be installed. The crossing lights were supposed to be activated by a sensor at all four of the mid-block crossings when a pedestrian would approach the curb.
Now, the city has moved in their mobile surveillance cameras to record the four crossings over the next week or two, to have visual data and better understand what is going wrong.
"How often it's activating when no one is there. How often it's working appropriately. How often it's not activating when someone is there. To be able to go back to the contractor and the manufacturer and hopefully resolve and figure out what is going on and get it fixed," Findlay Mayor Christina Muryn said.
Mayor Muryn said she expects to work with the manufacturer of the crosswalk equipment, and to not need to spend any additional dollars to fix the malfunction.