Traffic Signal Tourism: The Cities with the Most Curious Pedestrian Lights in the World

Transforming the unexpressive pedestrian traffic signals into cultural references has become trendy in recent years. Germany is the country that has embraced this trend the most, but there are more places around the world where crossing the street adds a touch of fun.

In August 2019, the second largest city in Denmark, Aarhus, located on the eastern coast of the Jutland Peninsula, added a Viking touch to its traffic lights. It installed Viking-shaped lights on 17 of them to symbolize Aarhus' close connection to the Viking kingdoms in the past.

A Viking past that is evident even in the layout of its streets, which have remained intact for over 1,000 years. Tourists wishing to see one of these Viking traffic signals can find them along Nørre Allé, near the city library and at the Dokk1 harbor.

The town of Hamelin (Hameln in German), in the state of Lower Saxony, Germany, is well-known for the famous legend of the hypnotist Pied Piper of rats, immortalized by the Brothers Grimm in their tale. The municipality embraces the famous piper and has also immortalized him in the form of a traffic signal on Kastanienwall since July 2019.

Ibáñez gifted us unforgettable characters, such as Rompetechos, El botones Sacarino, Pepe Gotera, and Otilio... and of course, Mortadelo and Filemón! Now, the famous duo from T.I.A. will be giving way to pedestrians at a traffic signal in Barcelona. It all started a few weeks ago with a proposal from a professor from Tafalla, who shares a surname with the cartoonist: Francisco Javier Ibáñez. He posted on his Twitter the proposal he presented, along with a photo of what the traffic signal would look like with Mortadelo allowing pedestrians to cross in green and Filemón, in red, asking them not to cross. The initiative has been taken up by the Barcelona City Council, and locations are being sought for the new signal.

It was in 2018 when the German town of Friedberg, about 45 minutes north of Frankfurt, wanted to groove to the rock and roll rhythm of Elvis Presley. Since then, the King of Rock has been moving to the rhythm of the lights of three traffic signals in the city where he was stationed as a soldier from October 1958 to March 1960, although he lived in nearby Bad Nauheim. The Elvis that allows passage is green and adopts his most iconic dance pose: with his heels raised and hips swinging. The Elvis that prohibits pedestrian passage is red and shows him standing with a microphone in hand. It was in Friedberg where Elvis met his future wife, Priscilla.

After the financial crisis of 2008 that deeply affected Iceland, the authorities in the city of Akureyri, in the northern part of the country at the foot of Eyjafjörður fjord, decided to think positively and spread some joy to their citizens through traffic signals. To do this, they transformed the red stop circle for pedestrians into a heart.

Fredericia, a city founded by Frederick III in the east of the Jutland Peninsula, celebrates every July 6th the victory of Danish troops over the rebels from Schleswig-Holstein who besieged the city in the famous Battle of Fredericia in 1849. The soldier Landsoldaten has commemorated this moment since 1858 in the form of a statue and since 2008 also does so in the form of pedestrian traffic light.

These fun little figures that can be found on various traffic signals in the German town of Mainz are well-known throughout the country. They appeared on German public TV ZDF in the 1960s to signal advertising breaks, and since then they have been sold as toys, shown in books... It's no surprise they ended up in the traffic signals of the city where they were born in 2013, when the 50th anniversary of their creation was celebrated. Their name, Mainzelmännchen, refers to Mainz, the city where ZDF's headquarters are located, and Heizelmännchen, a kind of gnome that legend places around the city of Cologne. Specifically, of the six Mainzelmännchen that exist, the one that lights up at the traffic signals is the one called Det, which can be found near the ZDF headquarters, at the university, and at various railway stations.

The cartoonist Dick Bruna was born and died in Utrecht, the city where one of his most famous creations gives directions to pedestrians from a traffic signal. This is Miffy (Nijntje in Dutch), the bunny he created in 1955 and which even has a museum in Utrecht. One of the traffic signals featuring her can be found in front of the large department store De Bijenkorf Utrecht.

The figure we can see in many traffic signals in Berlin regulating pedestrian traffic, the Ampelmann, is an old heritage of the German Democratic Republic. It was designed in the 1960s by psychologist Karl Peglau at the request of the East German Ministry of Traffic to reduce the risk of traffic accidents, which was on the rise at that time.

The Ampelmann, with his figure and hat, reflected the real silhouette of a man more accurately and served as a clearer signal for pedestrians. In the years following the reunification of Germany in the 1990s, the traffic light men from the east became cult figures and even on the 56th anniversary of their creation, in October 2017, they starred in a Google Doodle.