Roadscapes Wednesday: Signal Problems

By Nathan Young on August 23, 2012

Stuff like this gets my roadgeek senses tingling. I went back to downtown Anniston today and I still found the same problems with the traffic lights. But first I wanted to talk about an intersection in Anniston with some pedestrian signals that are broken and not working. The intersection of 10th Street and Wilmer Ave. has some ped signals but some of the signals are turning the wrong way and some of the visors are missing.

Half of the ped signals are turning the wrong way and missing its visor. Plus many of the light bulbs inside the signals are burned out and not working. Some of the “WALK” signals still light up but many of the “DONT WALK” signals do not work. I only found one “DONT WALK” signal that still works. As you can see the “DONT WALK” stencil is faded away and it looks like one big red light. Even worse the ped signals to cross Wilmer Ave. do not even work. It stays at “DONT WALK” all the time. If the city is not going to maintain and keep the ped signals working they might as well take them down. They could use the ped signals at other intersections in Anniston instead of seeing these ped signals waste away on a pole. Sad!

But I am not done. The next intersection is Quintard Ave. at 10th Street. I checked today and the ped signal to cross Quintard Ave. is still broken. Here is a video showing the major traffic backups at this light.

This button is broken!

This malfunction is causing major traffic backups and nothing has been done about it. I used a clock today and traffic on Qunitard Ave. at 10AM is only getting the green light for 35 seconds! A 6-lane boulevard with lots of traffic is only getting the green light for 35 seconds while the cross streets have a longer green light. Something is very wrong here and the city needs to check the lights on Quintard Ave.

Major traffic backups!

This traffic will have to stop at the next light because of the malfunctioning 10th Street light.

The city needs to get out and re-time some of these lights. I thought the traffic light synchronization was supposed to solve the traffic problems on Quintard Ave. Right now the traffic lights are out of sync. I also caught this at the 10th Street at Quintard Ave. light. I just hope this wire is not electrified.