Roads: Traffic Signals

[reaperexpress]

They can use an angled white bar for turn priority.

That would make sense but it's against the law. That's the whole issue. We need the province to legalize angled white bars so the vertical bars can be used to represent just thru movements, not 'all movements'.

 

[nfitz]

That would make sense but it's against the law. That's the whole issue. We need the province to legalize angled white bars so the vertical bars can be used to represent a thru movement.

City/TTC just need to submit the request ... and draft language change for the regulation, to the province. It's not like it has to go through the legislature. Minister could issue it next week (well, MTO will delay ...)

 

[PL1]

City/TTC just need to submit the request ... and draft language change for the regulation, to the province. It's not like it has to go through the legislature. Minister could issue it next week (well, MTO will delay ...)

They just need to say that white bars will screw over cyclists and Ford will do it yesterday

 

[BrenWilson]

I'm still slightly confused at what the issue is. The current setup is a blanket priority signal. It would never be used in conjunction with 3 white light signal (were those to be made legal), so there would never be a need to replace the old ones just because different signal shapes are used.

If you needed to have specific restrictions on our current style to indicate that only certain movements are allowed (to enable say a bidirectional priority at an intersection) you just slap up a sign that says so.

 

[trafficexplorerON]

I'm still slightly confused at what the issue is. The current setup is a blanket priority signal. It would never be used in conjunction with 3 white light signal (were those to be made legal), so there would never be a need to replace the old ones just because different signal shapes are used.

If you needed to have specific restrictions on our current style to indicate that only certain movements are allowed (to enable say a bidirectional priority at an intersection) you just slap up a sign that says so.

I don't think more signs is what we need. Especially at places like King Street, where the signage clutter has already gone off the rails. And white bars do not currently mean turning vehicles yield.

I don't think so. The only real solution is a major HTA overhall to change the meaning of the vertical white bar to "go straight, yield if turning". At all other intersections where vertical white bars are used for turn priority, change them to diagonal bars.

Until then, you simply cannot display a white bar for opposite directions at the same time, and you cannot display a white bar where turning vehicles have conflict with any other active vehicle/pedestrian movements.

 

[BrenWilson]

I definitely would rather we just adopt the full white bar system, I'm not advocating for our current ones. I just don't think there would be any regulatory issue using the signals as-is for multiple directions. How you deal with that depends on the specific circumstances, but note the current signals are only for short interval use to clear single waiting vehicles. If you had two opposing vehicles that needed to complete conflicting movements (both turning into the same depot?), the controller would just need to cycle them individually.

 

[reaperexpress]

I definitely would rather we just adopt the full white bar system, I'm not advocating for our current ones. I just don't think there would be any regulatory issue using the signals as-is for multiple directions. How you deal with that depends on the specific circumstances, but note the current signals are only for short interval use to clear single waiting vehicles. If you had two opposing vehicles that needed to complete conflicting movements (both turning into the same depot?), the controller would just need to cycle them individually.

"Just cycling them individually" is not a minor ask. Consider routes like King Street that have a streetcar every two minutes. Not allowing eastbound and westbound streetcars to proceed at the same time would create a huge amount of delay for streetcars.

 

[Towered]

Anyone else notice that THREE more traffic lights have recently been installed on Yonge between College and Wellesley?

 

[drum118]

Not sure where this should go and don't see a thread for it

Blue Stop Signs Are Real — and They’re About to Confuse Canadian Drivers​

 

[PL1]

Not sure where this should go and don't see a thread for it

Blue Stop Signs Are Real — and They’re About to Confuse Canadian Drivers​

If blue STOP signs signal private land, I rather suspect they will be ignored even more than the red ones on streets are

 

[drum118]

If blue STOP signs signal private land, I rather suspect they will be ignored even more than the red ones on streets are

I have been saying for years that we do away with stop signs since most driver don;t obey it in the first place nor understand them. I was surprised back in 2012 when I visited Europe that I rarely saw a stop sign for various intersections let alone traffic lights. At least they obey them. Even yield signs are not understood.

 

[BrenWilson]

"Just cycling them individually" is not a minor ask. Consider routes like King Street that have a streetcar every two minutes. Not allowing eastbound and westbound streetcars to proceed at the same time would create a huge amount of delay for streetcars.

I feel like people really don't understand what these specific signals are for. In our current setup these are only to give priority to a transit vehicle that is waiting. That vehicle therefore needs to be at the front of a queue, or its own dedicated lane (and therefore no queue). On areas of king with mixed traffic the only use for these would be to hold all over movements while a streetcar makes a turn, less priority and more just a safe phase; on areas with dedicated lanes you'd also generally only use these for a turning movement, as there shouldn't be any conflicting movements for through streetcars you can just use a standard green.

They can be used for through movements when buses have a queue jump lane, to get ahead of waiting cars. There are some rare scenarios where you might warrant two opposing phases (a queue jump through lane facing a queue jump left turn lane), and there doesn't seem to be anything preventing that in the regulations/manual. On King, under our current regs, you would likely just use our signed transit signals, as is the practice on all LRT lines save Ion. You could use the transit priority signals if you wanted, and the controller would need to cycle opposing phases if there was a conflict (assuming the controller can detect switch positions on our two points?) - these conflicting movements would need to be done separately regardless so there's no added time; if there wasn't a conflict and the controller knows this (or its just not possible due to a lack of switches) there would be no reason to run them separately.

 

[BrenWilson]

Not sure where this should go and don't see a thread for it

Blue Stop Signs Are Real — and They’re About to Confuse Canadian Drivers​

Most private areas still use red. I don't really understand why anyone would use a different colour.

 

[Towered]

Most private areas still use red. I don't really understand why anyone would use a different colour.

Private stop signs, like in mall parking lots, I completely ignore.

 

[reaperexpress]

I feel like people really don't understand what these specific signals are for. In our current setup these are only to give priority to a transit vehicle that is waiting. That vehicle therefore needs to be at the front of a queue, or its own dedicated lane (and therefore no queue). On areas of king with mixed traffic the only use for these would be to hold all over movements while a streetcar makes a turn, less priority and more just a safe phase; on areas with dedicated lanes you'd also generally only use these for a turning movement, as there shouldn't be any conflicting movements for through streetcars you can just use a standard green.

They can be used for through movements when buses have a queue jump lane, to get ahead of waiting cars. There are some rare scenarios where you might warrant two opposing phases (a queue jump through lane facing a queue jump left turn lane), and there doesn't seem to be anything preventing that in the regulations/manual. On King, under our current regs, you would likely just use our signed transit signals, as is the practice on all LRT lines save Ion.

The whole point of this discussion is to allow white transit signals to be also used in situations where they cannot currently be used. For example on King Street to indicate a through movement for streetcars throughout the entire east-west green, avoiding the need to have confusing redundant signal heads.

You could use the transit priority signals if you wanted, and the controller would need to cycle opposing phases if there was a conflict (assuming the controller can detect switch positions on our two points?) - these conflicting movements would need to be done separately regardless so there's no added time; if there wasn't a conflict and the controller knows this (or its just not possible due to a lack of switches) there would be no reason to run them separately.

- A white bar transit phase on the TTC network does not give vehicles permission to travel straight. Under the HTA they could potentially change the meaning to permit straight-through movements, but first they would need to change all the existing transit bars to something else (e.g. a diagonal bar).
- Per the existing TTC and HTA definitions, the transit signal gives the driver permission to turn left or right with priority. So it cannot occur at the same time as the east-west crosswalks along King. Forcing the signals to serve separate phases for westbound streetcars, eastbound streetcars and east-west pedestrians would massively increase delay for streetcars and pedestrians.