Overkill in use of restricted turning lights.

[Daniel]

So lets say you're in a hurry to get to work or where ever your going and it's the fourth or fifth turning light you've just missed, and since the fine ol' folks at your city road/urban planning committee know a thing or two about efficiency, it's a fully restricted turning light, so you have to wait the entire light cycle just to get your chance to go again even though you can see far enough ahead and the traffic is light enough for you to make a safe turn. I'm looking for the worst cities and jurisdictions when it comes to planting these time consuming, gas burning nightmares. If not the whole city, intersections where they're anything but necessary. I'll start with Washtenaw County/Ann Arbor, MI. For a city that boasts about being "green", they seem to have more fully restricted turning lights than anywhere else in Michigan, and the bulk of them are at intersections where the FYA would be a far better fit or arrows are barely needed at all.

[agentsteel53]

San Diego has a lot of protected lefts without the option for permissive, but I don't think they're as badly overkill as in other places - mainly because there are some pretty unintuitive signal phase sequences, so unless you drive the road all the time, you don't know exactly whom you're supposed to be yielding to.

[Daniel]

San Diego has a lot of protected lefts without the option for permissive, but I don't think they're as badly overkill as in other places - mainly because there are some pretty unintuitive signal phase sequences, so unless you drive the road all the time, you don't know exactly whom you're supposed to be yielding to.

Ann Arbor's signals are pretty darn straight forward. They're almost always left turn phase, than green phase, and then the same for cross traffic. Although it's fairly unique as most of the other counties in Michigan use flashing red turning lights (or FYA in newer installations) and the Michigan Left system for really busy areas. Ironically, almost all the signals in the heart of downtown Ann Arbor have no arrows at all, which leads to irritating congestion at rush hour. Ann Arbor is also notorious for No Turn on Reds at seemingly random intersections, some even have right turn only lanes and left turn lights for cross traffic, but guess what? No right arrow. Me, personally, I think some of it is on purpose. It gives more bait for people to do illegal maneuvers (especially late at night) and thus more chances for cops to catch and ticket them. Either way, Wayne County has a far better road system. Permissive turns, more lanes, higher speed limits, big readable signs ahead of roads, just all around better.