Traffic engineering search-and-replace

A few months ago, Norman changed its traffic signals.  At left turns, instead of a steady green light for "yield", we now have flashing yellow arrows. The first couple of times, the flashing yellow arrow was a surprise, but then I got used to it.  It is better to distinguish between a green for go and a green for yield.  Hurray for change.

Yesterday, I found myself waiting for a light at a T-intersection. The light changed ... and I saw that we had a flashing yellow arrow for the left lane (to turn left) and a flashing yellow arrow for the right lane (to turn right).  But wait a second, who are we yielding to?  After all, at a T-intersection, there is no traffic coming from the other side ...

Is this a simple case of search-and-replace where they changed all turn lane signals to flashing arrows without thinking through the scenarios?

4 comments:

  1. What intersection is that? Pretty crazy!

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  3. I noted the same thing. It doesn't make any sense to have a blinking right arrow in general. It could be notating that you should yield to pedestrians, but you should ALWAYS yield to pedestrians, and there are very few pedestrians crossing Jenkins at that location. Very strange.

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