In a post on Facebook, Officer Mark Johnson with the Ogden City Police Traffic Division provided a video explainer on the new signal, which is located near Mount Ogden Junior High.

“We’ve installed it just for the crosswalk here,” he said. “This is one of our big school crosswalks that we have every morning and it gets a lot of foot traffic. So we’ve implemented this new signal here to help mitigate cars running through the intersection when kids are trying to cross.

“So as you can see, what’s gonna happen now, as a kid comes up to the light, our crossing guard is gonna come up. She’s gonna hit that cross button there and the light’s gonna turn yellow. OK, it’s gonna turn yellow pretty quick. That does mean you need to slow down and stop for the crosswalk. Kids are getting ready to cross.

“Once the light turns red, it’ll stay red for about 30 seconds. During that time, the kids will be crossing the road, after which time the light will turn green. However, if for any reason the crossing guard in the crosswalk is still out there with her stop sign raised when that light turns green, you are still required to stay stopped and wait until the intersection is completely clear of all foot traffic before you can proceed through.

“If you do proceed through the intersection at any time when there are people in the crosswalk, whether that’s a kid or a crossing guard, you can receive a ticket for failing to yield to pedestrian traffic.

“Thank you, Ogden. We hope this helps you guys out and we hope you guys continue to drive safe.”

Lt. Glen Buss of the Ogden Police Department told the Standard-Examiner crosswalk violations necessitated the signal.

“We actually recently added two crossing guards, one on each side of the street, to help out with that, and then the state came in and put in that light,” he said.

Buss said one challenge with the intersection prior to this addition was that children would use the crosswalk during non-school hours when the crossing lights weren’t flashing, with vehicles moving at 40 miles per hour.

“I’ve been with the police department for almost 19 years and it has been a problem forever where we’ve had a lot of vehicles not yielding to pedestrians in that area,” he said.

Utah Department of Transportation spokesperson Mitch Shaw told the Standard-Examiner that because Harrison Boulevard is a state road, UDOT is responsible for managing it as well as the associated infrastructure, including the intersections.

“Short of an underpass or an overcrossing, that kind of light … is the safest way for people to cross the street,” Shaw said.

Contact Standard-Examiner editor Ryan Comer at rcomer@standard.net.