Traffic light intentionally timed to keep you waiting
DEAR READERS >> Sometimes drivers, including me, don’t understand that timing of traffic lights. Here’s a column from February of 2013 helps explain one of them.
HI, JOHNNIE >> Can you find out what the rationale is behind the light at Third Avenue and Terry Street only allowing a single direction to go at a time? So often there are three directions piling up while the green light has long been emptied of traffic. It’s frustrating enough that I try to bypass it whenever possible via Second Avenue.
— Idling @ Terry
HI, IDLING @ TERRY >> When you are facing east, sitting at the Terry Street traffic light, you can see the reason for your idling.
Look ahead and you see the lighted intersections where Third Avenue crosses Coffman Street and Main Street. City traffic planners have coordinated the light at Terry with the lights at Coffman and Main. That means intentionally keeping cars longer at Terry so that traffic does not back up too much at Coffman and at Main. The timing of the lights is coordinated for westbound traffic, too, city traffic engineer Bob Ball responded to me via email.
“During off-peak times when traffic is lighter these signals are not coordinated and this signal changes more quickly,” Ball said.
He said that another benefit of the signal timing is that it creates an efficient route from downtown to Ken Pratt Parkway via the Terry/pratt Parkway bridge, as well as between downtown and Hover Road/street via Pratt Street and Boston Avenue, which reduces cut through traffic along Third Avenue.”
“So while this signal timing might not be the most efficient for this individual intersection, it helps create more efficient travel for the entire roadway system in this area,” he wrote.
HI, JOHNNIE >> Can you tell me who to contact or what to do when you come across an injured domesticated animal with no identification, early in the morning, and alongside a country road? I won’t see an animal suffer, but wonder who will pay the bills if I take it to an animal hospital?
— Animal Lover
HI, ANIMAL LOVER >> I recommend that you call the non-emergency number for the county dispatch office. They can send out the appropriate animal control unit. (That’s “dispatch” as in dispatching calls.)
In Boulder County, that number is 303-441-4444. In Weld County, the non-emergency telephone number is 970-356-4015.