Difficult to understand icons

Why is this graphic for moving Pedestrians and Vehicles from the Richmond Folk Festival so hard to understand? Why did I look at it and not know which way to go?
Why did i have to read it at all? And even after I read it, i was still not certain which way to go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently the designer took inspiration from the difficult to understand elevator icons below. Every time I see these elevator icons, the door of the elevator closes before I can decide which is the correct icon-associated button for closing the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture is from a nice post by Noah Guyot here.

And another more detailed post by Pete Sheerin here.