Description

I am not sure if this traffic light is controlled by a sensor or not, but it stays red for ridiculous lengths of time when attempting to turn left from 104 Ave eastbound to 108 St northbound. It has already happened twice where I have attempted to turn left at this light but ended up giving up and turning right as the light refused to change after several minutes. Another time, the girl at the front of the long line of cars ran out of her car and hit the pedestrian button just to get the light to change. Obviously, she was also sitting there and getting frustrated with the traffic light. The longest I have sat is eight minutes (which may not sound like the end of the world, but it feels very long when you're stopped waiting for a light to change). Considering that this has occurred more than once and that drivers are jumping out of their cars to get the light to change, there is clearly a problem with the length of time that the light stays red. I suspect the light may be controlled by a sensor that is very difficult to activate, but I cannot be sure of that. In fact, the day I got stuck at the light for eight minutes before giving up, the light changed immediately after I started moving forward to turn right (I didn't realize this until reviewing footage captured on my dashcam). This leads me to conclude that there is either a sensor that is difficult to activate and that I happened to trigger the light just as I moved forward (even though I was already at the stop line and did not want to creep into the intersection for obvious reasons), or the light is not timed well and normally stays red for long periods of time. Either way, a traffic light staying red for eight minutes while a line of cars is waiting to turn left is definitely a problem and I feel that it should be looked into.