After months of speculations, the much anticipated blue light phone went into operation near Greenbelt Metro’s north entrance, near Lackawanna and 53rd ave intersection. The single emergency phone started working from last Thursday night. Residents expected to have this phone in August last year.
Though the downtown and the UMD campus have a bunch of such emergency phones, this will probably the first of this kind of phones in north College Park area.
Blue light phones are illuminated with a bright blue light, which should make them easier to find. In case of emergencies, callers should be able to contact the Police directly by activating these phones (by pressing the big red button). An emergency dispatcher should be notified of the caller’s exact location.
- Lackawanna St. Streetscape Site Furniture
The installation of the phone is part of the Lackawanna streetscape project that has recently stirred much controversies due to the excessive street lights.
The design of the blue-light telephone had a slight deviation from what was originally shown in the Lackawanna Street’s streetsacpe design document. A picture of the site furniture in the design document shows that the phone would be powered by solar power; however the installed phone seems to be powered by Pepco’s land lines.
The blue light phone is manufactured by a Chicago based company called Talk-a-Phone .