In 2012 I was going through Stirling towards the east coast when I passed 441. I couldn't believe it; they downgraded the huge mast arms to wire hung span wire traffic signals. I don't know what became of them though and I couldn't give a peak while riding shotgun on the Turnpike northbound past there a week ago.
But a more recent issue if you will is I-75 and Griffin Road. I began noticing this one when going up to States competitions in April 2013. This is a new installation to add control to a Par-clo. Meanwhile, similar interchange configurations at Pines Blvd and Miramar Pkwy have the mast arms. Probably because we're more than 10 miles west of the coast here though, I still wonder why FDOT saw fit to install wire hungs. It's just like they're regressing. These deeplinks are direct from their District 4 site. What's peculiar about these is like some recent "upgrades" in the Tampa area, the span wires are hung on one instead of two wires. Tampa is seeing this a lot with SR 60/US 301, and US 92/Park Road; in Tampa and Plant City respectively. The "downgrade" to 441-Stirling also had one wire at the time.
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I'm also noticing that at this and many other intersections in Broward, they are starting to go with stainless unpainted steel which will look similar in the end to Miami's lights.
Meanwhile in Miami, I can never understand why US-41 at Galloway, 97th, 94th, and 107th Avenues are not getting upgraded. Just underwent a construction project and all the mast-arms that were added were done to replace existing mast arms. I heard the clause about mast arms prohibited at massive intersections but these are a. not that massive, b. within 10 miles of water, and c. I've seen larger intersections win up mast arms. (Example: 107th Avenue and 12th Street in Doral)...
Any input as to why all this? I'm kinda curious about these observations.
I'm thinking that that spanwire style is more forgiving of hurricanes.
Mike
Hurricane Wilma's destruction of span wire systems in Broward County is the reason for the newer installations of traffic lights with mast arms over the past 7+ years. The Hurricane destroyed a huge amount of swinging stock.
Wirespan installations are ugly. At least in Indiana they use 2 wire spans to hold the signal faces in the proper alignment and keep them from swaying in the wind. but they are still ugly compared to mast arm installations.
As a person living in a city with a large amount of wire spans, I don't have a problem with them, when done right. However, mast arms seem to be transitioning their way in, and I don't mind them getting rid of wire span.
I don't think wire span is going away anytime soon. I've even seen places (mostly in the South) where the wires are strung between conventional telegraph poles instead of the usual steel/aluminum ones. That, in and of itself, is very creative!
I am sure the cost of wire span signals is much lower than the mast arm installs. which may be why they are favored in some areas over others.
Kissimmee has two intersections near the Disney Area that were originally mast arms that got downgraded to span wire. Plus, the Orange Blossom Trail/ Taft- Vineland Road intersection in Orlando is currently being changed back to span wire as we speak.
The latter has to do with one signal pole being removed and temporarily replaced with a span wire between two telephone poles just like both Carolinas like to do. Instead of just ordering a new replacement pole, they just decided to say F it and go back to the old way despite up the street they're installing a new mast arm assembly at the FL Turnpike ramp to NB Orange Blossom Trail right now as well.
What pisses me off the most is the new Wal Mart at the intersection of OBT and Oakridge Road had those god awful signal mast arms that everybody hates (as many others were installed as part of the 1997 widening project of Orange Blossom Trail hand picked by the South Trail Development Board secretly) as the newest signal on Orange Blossom Trail between FL 528 and FL 414 in over 20 years. How that got through is beyond me as most would wish they would love to see a span wire there over those ugly mast arms that you would figure that engineers would not want to resurrect.
Florida has done a bunch of research into wind performance of span wire installations. I expect these new ones will stand up better in a hurricane.
From your pictures, it appears as though the poles are configured for mast arms, they just haven't come in yet. The strung lights are likely temporary in that case. I could be wrong, but it isn't uncommon in places where they have done extensive upgrades, anywhere I've been.
One reason might be that there's a plan to widen or reconfigure the intersection at some point, so the span-wire setup with the cheaper poles are only temporary. Of course, in practice, "temporary" can be a long time.
Back when Dade County (pre-"Miami-Dade" days) started using mast-arms in the mid-80s, almost all seemed to have horizontally-mounted signals. I wondered if that wasn't to reduce wind resistance. Before that, Miami preferred span-wires held up by those familiar, beveled, concrete "poles". Sometimes, the signals mounted in the east-west direction had these backplates with louvered openings, presumably block sunlight but reduce resistance from the prevailing winds.
I presume those newer span-wires use a "box" setup, either with the corners on the poles themselves, or each corner tethered to the pole by a diagonal wire. Never really liked the "X" configuration, or especially when there's a single diagonal wire with signal faces all around between only two poles; at least one direction gets the short end of the stick with signals that are too close to see clearly.
Yep. I think it's a permanent installation though in Griffin Road's case, since it's over 10 miles west of the coast line and on stainless steel strain poles.
Recently FDOT started to adapt a design by someone from West Palm for use, according to the media, in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Miami-Dade already has similar "pivots" in the wirehungs on streets like SW 8 ST and Rickenbacker Causeway. But the pics I'm about to show don't use that pivot and are from similar installations to the one I inquired about.
Kind of off of South Florida's realm, but I found pictures I took in my trip to Plant City-Tampa in February. The reason I bring it up in this thread is since the look and form is absolutely similar with the exception of the concrete poles. Also note FDOT changing the configuration as an "upgrade" in the second shot, at Park Rd and US 92. As for the wires (or wire, rather), I wonder how they hold up the lights.
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In another update (sorry, have to double post), Google Earth updated their imagery of Miami and lower Broward. This regards the 441 and Stirling intersection. Both that and the entrance to Hard Rock were downgraded to wire hungs, but the corner mast arm supports still stand. Frankly I wonder why they were taken out. You could check it out for yourself, you may have to see all the images since the new pics from March 2013 are not defaulted into Google Maps yet.