Thank you for contacting us with your question. I did some research and found that while the E/W Left turn heads are installed they currently are not turned on due to the low volume of left turners and through vehicles. (due to the fact Ocotillo does not go through yet) This was a decision by a previous Gilbert traffic engineer. It was felt at the time that that vehicles were able to easily make the permissive left turn on the green ball due to the large number of gaps in traffic. This allowed the additional time to go to other movements ie. N/S. Do you feel the situation here has changed? Any feedback is appreciated so we can observe traffic at the time you are experiencing difficulties etc.

Just be clear however you are correct currently the left turn arrows will never come on due to programming/wiring at this location. I hope this helps explain the current situation....Mike

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Hi Mike, sometimes there will be 3 or 4 cars facing EB waiting to turn left to head NB, but the cars coming WB also making a right to head NB make it difficult to gauge if they will turn into the closest lane to them, or make a 3 lane turn, so I find myself sitting in the middle of the intersection or guessing what the other driver will do, hoping we both turn NB and stay in our closest NB lanes. It can hold up the traffic behind the EB vehicle that’s turning NB and possibly not make the light. It seems a protected arrow would help alleviate this enough so to write to you.

Secondary issue is that the sensor for a light change in general is very long/delayed, you can be sitting at the light for what seems like an eternity before the light will go red to green, even in the middle of the night when there’s absolutely no traffic and makes you want to look both ways and proceed on red.

Thanks!

JJ,
Thanks for the additional information. I will get with the traffic engineering group at our staff meeting tomorrow to talk this one over.

Mike

Hey Mike, I was heading westbound today, stopped at the red light. Light turned green for me and I proceeded westbound into the intersection. The car across from me turned right in front of me, but no way he could have gotten an arrow. The behavior at the intersection is odd, any progress on turning the turn signals on so we can have protected turns and people don’t assume behavior of the light that’s not there?

Thanks for bringing this up again it was kind of off my radar a bit. We did talk about it last year as a group and I didn't feel that anyone was completely against it. I will bring it up again today to the people involved with making/approving the change and see if we can do this sooner than later. No promises yet but I will bring it up and try to get it moving again, I think they will need it anyhow for the trucks at some point if they get the ok/funds to start the bridge.. Mike (480)503-6626

Due to the amount of time that passed this issue has been closed.
Thanks for reporting this issue to Gilbert 311!