Baret's Banter: Fix the Confusing Traffic Signal NOW!!!

The time is 9:50 AM. You’re heading southbound on McKnight Road, traveling in the left lane. You breathe a sigh of relief as you head downtown, knowing you are early enough to still continue on McKnight Road when you hit the intersection of Ross Park Mall Drive. If you had arrived just ten minutes later, you would have been forced to make a left turn, heading up to Ross Park Mall in the process.

Longtime residents know the drill. At 10:00 AM, on any day ending in “y” since November 1988, that lane becomes a left turn lane for the next twelve hours. The design makes perfect sense, as it eliminates congestion for both inbound rush hour traffic in the morning and Ross Park Mall shoppers throughout the day.

The next day, you go downtown again, this time at 10:20 AM. Not realizing how late you are, you wind up in the same lane as the day before. Unfortunately, you’re fifth in a line of cars and can’t exactly get out to switch lanes. Knowing the routine, you turn on your signal and prepare for a detour around the mall. As the green arrow illuminates, you watch as the first car makes a left. The second car follows suit, as does the third. Then, the clown in front of you goes straight on McKnight.

As you mutter a complaint about the “driver who couldn’t read any of the five signs leading up to the intersection” and drive around the perimeter of Ross Park Mall, a question develops in your head--were those signs even lit?

It gets worse the next day. You’re early again this time and are in the left lane, hoping to make a morning appointment with your dermatologist at Allegheny General Hospital. At the same intersection, some guy in front of you stalls traffic by attempting a left turn from that lane despite the oncoming northbound traffic. Everyone is honking their horns behind you and as your stress levels rise, you wonder if you should cancel your dermatologist appointment and see a psychologist instead. By the time he finally makes his turn, you’ve lost three minutes of your time and the line of cars behind you stretches nearly to Mick’s Chrysler-Jeep.

Once again, you toss out an insult to the guy in front of you. It didn’t matter to you that his truck had Minnesota plates, you simply figured he was another guy who had no idea how to read traffic signs. You think back to your question from the previous day about the signs being lit--and suddenly, it hits you. They weren’t. You forgive both drivers you yelled at and start screaming about the traffic signals instead.

There are several problems with the variable left turn system at McKnight Road and Ross Park Mall Drive, all of which need to be fixed to prevent drivers from disobeying traffic rules which they may be ignorant to.

1. Replacement or Refurbishments of Signs

There are five black signs with white LEDs indicating whether the lane in question will turn left between the intersection of Browns Lane and Ross Park Mall Drive. In a perfect world, these signs illuminate between 10:00 AM and 10:00 PM every day. The first two signs should display “Left Lane Must Turn Left” with a number of feet stated afterward. However, the signs have not worked in some time despite a replacement several years ago after the original signs had broken (and remained broken for several years).

The second round of signs light up with either a straight arrow and the word “only” or a left turn arrow and the word “only” depending on the time of day. These signs should always be lit. However, they tend to not display brightly at times and are often unreadable on sunny days. Like the first wave of signs, these were also replaced many years ago.

Finally, there’s a sign next to one of the signals. This is supposed to read “Left Turn Signal” when the lane turns left. It actually still does, but is so incredibly faint that one will need to look very closely at the sign to see if it’s lit. This is an original indicator which is far past its prime at nearly 25 years of age.

The traffic signals at this intersection were replaced three years ago. No changes or upgrades were made to the actual intersection; this was simply a replacement of old signal units with new ones. The metal signs (such as “No Turn on Red”) were also swapped out, but nothing was done with the indicators for the variable lane.

2. A Less Confusing Signal

The current signal is commonly known as a “doghouse” among signal enthusiasts and civil engineers. This has a single red head at the top, followed by double yellows and greens. One side has arrows, the other solid balls. There are dozens of these lights throughout the North Hills, used for left turns. (There are also some for right turns). Every doghouse with left arrows (except this one) is accompanied by a sign reading “Left Turn, Yield on Green”, indicating that a left turn is possible when the arrow is not illumined. Heading straight is also an option, as evidenced by the solid green ball. When these signals turn green, both the green arrow and green ball will light, allowing protected left turns for a short period of time. The green arrow soon is replaced by a yellow arrow, which goes out after a few seconds while the green ball continues to shine.

At this intersection, it’s either/or. The green ball flies solo late at night and early in the morning. The green arrow goes alone when the lane is set up for left turns. This is the only doghouse signal in the entire North Hills area (which I am aware of) in which these events are mutually exclusive.

For those familiar with the other 99% of doghouse signals, this may seem confusing. With the signs not working, one may even assume the green ball is simply burnt out--yet what explains the red section turning on as the other lanes of traffic continue to travel straight with green signals?

Doghouse signals were not all that common in 1988. There was not a single “Left Turn, Yield on Green” sign hanging in Ross at the time, with the only signals of this variety being used to signal right turns. The system worked better at the time, with almost everyone obedient to the green arrow meaning “left turn only”.

A better signal for today would be a six-light unit with a double-red section. This way, the left side (three arrows) would be used between 10:00 AM and 10:00 PM, with the right side (three balls) would function outside of those hours. It’s a shame there isn’t a programmable signal with just three heads (one would think this would be possible in the age of LED lighting, now used by new traffic signals, but amazingly, I have yet to see such a thing).

3. Better Signs

We try to simplify pretty much every other road sign. Instead of writing out “stop ahead”, we have a picture of a stop sign and an arrow to signal there’s going to be a stop sign in a few feet. There is a picture of a man holding a flag on construction signs so we don’t have to stop to read “flagger ahead” to indicate the presence of a guy waving an orange flag or turning a stop/slow sign.

On the approach to this intersection, we get treated to fine print which reads “Left Lane Must Turn Left: 1000 Feet Ahead” if the sign is actually working that particular day. We barely have enough time to read what’s on the sign at McDonald’s when passing the Browns Lane intersection, so why would we be able to read this print?

A great substitution could be used here. Illuminate a simple arrow with “only” underneath it, perhaps with the feet written below on a placard sign to show that the intersection is still a good distance away. This way, a motorist simply needs to look up at the arrow and know if they need to change lanes after a split second of observation. Someone new to the area won’t need to slow down and risk being rear-ended by a man in a van with a really big plan to shop until he drops at the mall just so they know what that particular lane does.

It is my hope that this mess is fixed to prevent accidents from sudden lane-changing, stressful traffic backups, or citations given to drivers who have no way of knowing what this signal represents. How it could have been neglected in the 2010 signal revamp is beyond me, but something here needs to change quickly, hopefully in time for Black Friday 2013.