Next time you are traveling along or trying to cross Hiawatha, take a look at the little lights in the middle of the intersection. They are part of the emergency signal override system used by fire and police vehicles. When activated, they either are solid white or flashing white, depending on whether the emergency vehicle is traveling the same direction or crossing your path (don't remember which is which.) This helps avoid crashes between vehicles both traveling under sirens.
You will notice that these are activated before the train gets near the intersection and stay on after the train has passed. I don't know much about the system. I think it's a 3M product called Opticon. I don't know whether the system can tell what type of vehicle is activating it or whether it can control the signals in a different way depending on which type of vehicle it is. So, it may be that they tried the easiest way of preempting the signals and it isn't appropriate. I recently came across the minutes of a Hiawatha lrt community advisory committee meeting where Jennifer Lovaasen, the met council communicator, told the committee that the average delay for cars crossing Hiawatha at 46th would be 9 seconds. Wonder if that average went over the entire 24 hours, including the hours that lrt would not be running. It's been said that the left turns from Hiawatha EAST have been shut down when the override is on, which is hard to figure, given the way that the emergency override usually works. A fire truck was coming from behind me last night in Saint Paul and the left trun arrow stayed on and I was able to get out of the way. I doubt that the lrt really affects the timing of the signals along the route in the same way that the master traffic computer does for the city. There are a couple of ways that signals are usually affected by lrt around the country. One is preemption, which means that the train gets a green without considering whether the cross traffic and one is preference, which means that the train will get an earlier green or the red will be prolonged. The difference from here is that these are timed to the train's actual crossing, not to the approach to the station. Most systems where the lrt affects the intersection signals try to smooth the transition back into normal synch with the rest of the signals by changing the lengths of the various parts of the cycle at the intersection, maybe shortening some and lengthening others. Visit www.EffectiveTransit.org The Independent Unsubsidized Voice of Citizens for Effective Transit in the Twin Cities (no lrt) * lrt isn't a potato chip, you can stop at just one * Bruce Gaarder Highland Park Saint Paul MN [EMAIL PROTECTED] REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
