New traffic light function?

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Today at the light in front of Mr. Crepe, the light started flashing red, then green, then red, then green... about 15 seconds later, I noticed a firetruck coming up from behind.  I don't recall ever seeing that behavior from any traffic light anywhere.

Is that a new "emergency vehicle coming, clear through the intersection" message?  And when did that light start having that function? 

Comments

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

That would be a malfunction.

The approved behavior for emergency vehicle priority is to go all-red, with a green for the direction the emergency vehicle is coming from, possibly including a strobe on top.

In other words, you don't have to treat it any differently than a normal red or green light.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Yeah what you describe is what I knew as normal behavior. But that is a pain-in-the-butt place to move aside, so I was thinking it might be a clever way of telling folks to clear the intersection and pull over ASAP, since usual behavior is to just drive on and clog the works by Diesel/Burren.

Hopefully someone else will have reported it so it can get looked at.

I'll try to remember to call it in on Monday when town hall is open.

[ams16.livejournal.com]

You can call 311 at anytime. I think the call answerers just put a note in the computer for the staff of the city.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

My experience on weekends has been ... variable. While I have had some fine experiences calling in after hours, I also have had a woman spend 20 minutes needing to assert she was only an answering service and not responsible if the city did not respond in a timely manner, and that I needed to call back Monday morning if I wanted.... not worth my time to ever call in on weekends after that.

Also, none of the three traffic light outages I reported to 311 over the years have been fixed any faster than a month, which makes me feel 311 is not the right answer for that...

[alphacygni]

Yesterday (Friday) afternoon around 1pm, the entire spider intersection was blinking red and there were many emergency and maintenance vehicles about. I assume the whole thing is having ongoing issues, or was being revamped. Either one could lead to strange behavior, we just need to figure out whether it's intentional strange or unintentional strange. I've never seen the behavior you describe, before. Then again, I'd never seen the blinking green that we have around these parts either, and it utterly confused me the first time I saw it on Beacon Street.

That said, if they have revamped the signals of the spider, I think it could hardly be made worse.

[aedifica]

So what does the blinking green mean? I'm still in the "utterly confused by it" phase.

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

Luckily, someone has (hopefully) researched this.

From wikipedia: In Massachusetts, specifically in Cambridge and Somerville, the main street will have a flashing green signal, while cross streets have a signal that have a red on top, yellow in the middle and flashing red in the bottom position. When a pedestrian activates the signal, the cross street changes from flashing red in the lowest position to yellow to red (topmost position).

Or: cross street has a flashing (non-green) and is subject to change by pedestrian control.

I have no idea if it is actually in the motor vehicle code, or just custom.

In other places it can mean many things. In Quebec in the 90s it was not codified, and varied town-to-town, with several towns near Montreal having conflicting meanings...

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Sloppy "research".

It's not restricted to Cambridge and Somerville. There's at least one in Somerville (on Alewife Brook Parkway), but none in Cambridge, and plenty in the rest of the state.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

A weird made-up traffic light indication that nobody understands is pointless and dangerous. That's why it's not allowed.