MONROE - No, it's not an early Christmas decoration; traffic lights are just blinking red in all four directions at 8th Street and 4th Avenue West.
The traffic lights have been problematic since mid-October. New controls installed last week worked only briefly, Tom Boll, supervisor of Monroe Street Department, said Wednesday, Nov. 19.
"We thought that would fix the problem," Boll said. "But now it's probably wiring in the poles at the bottom or in the signal heads."
Boll said his department will be working to rectify the problem as weather permits.
Weather could be a contributing factor to the problem. Boll didn't know exactly how old the traffic lights at that intersection are, but he estimated they were 40 years old.
Moisture gets inside the lights, according to Boll, and when there's enough, it can cause electricity to jump the circuit, throwing off the whole timed, synchronized flow of traffic through the intersection.
The light automatically reset to flashing yellow on 8th Street and flashing red on West 4th Avenue, but city police and the street department have found that drivers do not slow down for flashing yellow lights and reconfigured all four lights to flashing red, creating a four-way stop intersection.
The traffic lights have been problematic since mid-October. New controls installed last week worked only briefly, Tom Boll, supervisor of Monroe Street Department, said Wednesday, Nov. 19.
"We thought that would fix the problem," Boll said. "But now it's probably wiring in the poles at the bottom or in the signal heads."
Boll said his department will be working to rectify the problem as weather permits.
Weather could be a contributing factor to the problem. Boll didn't know exactly how old the traffic lights at that intersection are, but he estimated they were 40 years old.
Moisture gets inside the lights, according to Boll, and when there's enough, it can cause electricity to jump the circuit, throwing off the whole timed, synchronized flow of traffic through the intersection.
The light automatically reset to flashing yellow on 8th Street and flashing red on West 4th Avenue, but city police and the street department have found that drivers do not slow down for flashing yellow lights and reconfigured all four lights to flashing red, creating a four-way stop intersection.