"Not misplaced - but premature, perhaps" was the way one army officer described Canberra's newest pedestrian crossing at Russell in 1969.
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An article on the front of The Canberra Times on this day 51 years ago featured the crossing, which straddled a road to a parking area between the rear of Army 1 and the US-Australian Memorial at Russell Hill.
The pedestrian crossing ran from a soaking-wet lawn at one side of the road to a roughly 10-foot-high bank on the other, with no footpaths either side.
In the space of five minutes, The Canberra Times' reporter saw three pedestrians get drenched on the lawn among all the sprinklers.
An air force officer noted the crossing and, to avoid getting wet, stepped off the lawn two feet away from it to walk to his car further along the road.
A woman army officer walked along the side of the road to the crossing, proceeded upon it for four feet, then stepped off it to jaywalk.
A workman leaning against the new crossing signal-post greeted each with the information that "it's in the wrong place, mate".
A spokesperson for the National Capital Development Commission announced that a contract for footpaths was in progress.
The article concluded that the Traffic Co-ordinating Committee did not make a mistake in its traffic control plans, but lacked in its co-ordination.
