http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/askthecalifornian/41281 Q: Is it only me, or are the signals in town really screwed up? With all the talk of particulates in the air, no fireplace burn days, and how bad diesel trucks are for our air quality, why do I have to stop at a red light on Ming Avenue at the Marketplace when there are no cars pulling out onto Ming Avenue from the Marketplace? Why don&rsquo;t those low traffic intersections only trip when cars are there? And why don&rsquo;t we have green signals after a green arrow to turn left when it&rsquo;s clear as we have at South H Street and Wilson Road? Many other cities do. What is wrong with the City of Bakersfield traffic engineers? A: We took a look at the issue of traffic signals back in August. But we checked with Ryan Starbuck, the head of traffic for the city, and he said this shouldn&rsquo;t be a problem. Ming Avenue&rsquo;s lights are synchronized, but the lights shouldn&rsquo;t turn if there&rsquo;s no traffic coming out. He said it could be an issue with the traffic detector. &ldquo;It sounds like it&rsquo;s getting a false detection. We&rsquo;ll send a technician out there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something we can easily take care of.&rdquo; If you have concerns about a signal that&rsquo;s not working right, call the city&rsquo;s traffic department at 326-3000 or go to the Web site. Include, like this reader did, the location. But it also helps to include the time of day &mdash; the more precise, the better. As for the left-turn-yield-on-green, now-retired traffic engineer Steve Walker said this back in August: &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t work well on six-lane streets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Frankly, people don&rsquo;t know how to drive it.&rdquo; There are two intersections where the turn is allowed &mdash; H Street at Planz Road and H Street at Wilson Road. Those work, Walker said, because they&rsquo;re low-speed intersections. The city has installed them at other major intersections but saw the accident rate shoot way up. You can read our August story here. &nbsp; Q: Is it only me, or are the signals in town really screwed up? With all the talk of particulates in the air, no fireplace burn days, and how bad diesel trucks are for our air quality, why do I have to stop at a red light on Ming Avenue at the Marketplace when there are no cars pulling out onto Ming Avenue from the Marketplace? Why don&rsquo;t those low traffic intersections only trip when cars are there? And why don&rsquo;t we have green signals after a green arrow to turn left when it&rsquo;s clear as we have at South H Street and Wilson Road? Many other cities do. What is wrong with the City of Bakersfield traffic engineers? A: We took a look at the issue of traffic signals back in August. But we checked with Ryan Starbuck, the head of traffic for the city, and he said this shouldn&rsquo;t be a problem. Ming Avenue&rsquo;s lights are synchronized, but the lights shouldn&rsquo;t turn if there&rsquo;s no traffic coming out. He said it could be an issue with the traffic detector. &ldquo;It sounds like it&rsquo;s getting a false detection. We&rsquo;ll send a technician out there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something we can easily take care of.&rdquo; If you have concerns about a signal that&rsquo;s not working right, call the city&rsquo;s traffic department at 326-3000 or go to the Web site. Include, like this reader did, the location. But it also helps to include the time of day &mdash; the more precise, the better. As for the left-turn-yield-on-green, now-retired traffic engineer Steve Walker said this back in August: &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t work well on six-lane streets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Frankly, people don&rsquo;t know how to drive it.&rdquo; There are two intersections where the turn is allowed &mdash; H Street at Planz Road and H Street at Wilson Road. Those work, Walker said, because they&rsquo;re low-speed intersections. The city has installed them at other major intersections but saw the accident rate shoot way up. You can read our August story here. &nbsp; en-us Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:28:07 PST <p>&quot;As for the left-turn-yield-on-green, now-retired traffic engineer Steve Walker said this back in August:<br /> &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t work well on six-lane streets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Frankly, people don&rsquo;t know how to drive it.&rdquo;<br /> There are two intersections where the turn is allowed &mdash; H Street at Planz Road and H Street at Wilson Road. Those work, Walker said, because they&rsquo;re low-speed intersections.&quot;</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There's something I&nbsp;truly cannot understand... What is it about Bakersfield and they way people just pull right in front of traffic, <em>and then lose track of where the *^%( gas pedal is!!!</em>&nbsp; When I&nbsp;first ended up moving here, I&nbsp;really couldn't comprehend Bakersfield's love affair with the red turn arrow.. Theyre EVERYWHERE!!! I&nbsp;grew up in Orange County, spent a couple years on Long Island and have driven back and forth many times... Bako clearly takes the red arrow and concrete &quot;No Lefty, drive a mile out of your way and flip a U&quot; median cake.. &nbsp; Then it all became clear.... car after car would just pull right out of driveways... sidestreets... front lawns... right in front of other cars and just poke along as if there wasn't another sole in town...&nbsp; What Mr. Walker speaks here is the absolute truth for Bakersfield at least.... Possible depth / approaching object velocity perception problem here in the So SJV?&nbsp; </p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Instead of ending a plan to get traffic in this town moving, why not better educate our drivers??&nbsp;In Huntington Beach the city placed signs next to the &quot;doghouse&quot; style signals that state for left turns to yield when the light is in full green mode.. and if I'm not mistaken one of the intersections above has the same signs, but HB went further and added 2 fluorescent orange flags behind (to the sides of) the sign to make it more eye catching.. And even if that isn't enough, maybe we could drop a little note into TV&nbsp;spots via Brighthouse. Possibly into the spanish media as well (being that the signs are in english, this might account for a portion of the accident issue) Instead of babysitting the more inept drivers here, making us all suffer, EDUCATE and the accident factor should fade away, and we can all enjoy more time in our day NOT&nbsp;sitting at red turn arrows.&nbsp; Maybe someday we can even make left turns out of our neighborhoods as well!!!</p> <p>BTW&nbsp;there's 3 intersections with the &quot;doghouse&quot;&nbsp;or passive/protective left turn signals.. the 2 above and Baker &amp;&nbsp;Truxtun on the east side.. (At least last time I&nbsp;was over there... maybe that one's gone now as well..) </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>As for signal timing, the signals downtown along Chester Ave are usually set pretty well.. Can we have the same person set the signals for Calloway/Old River, Coffee/Gosford, Stockdale/Brundage (whats with the double named streets in this town BTW???)&nbsp;Hageman, Wilson &amp;&nbsp;Ming? (I'm sure there's more ;)</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/askthecalifornian/41281/#c_372762 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/askthecalifornian/41281/#c_372762 <p>&quot;As for the left-turn-yield-on-green, now-retired traffic engineer Steve Walker said this back in August:<br /> &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t work well on six-lane streets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Frankly, people don&rsquo;t know how to drive it.&rdquo;<br /> There are two intersections where the turn is allowed &mdash; H Street at Planz Road and H Street at Wilson Road. Those work, Walker said, because they&rsquo;re low-speed intersections.&quot;</p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There's something I&nbsp;truly cannot understand... What is it about Bakersfield and they way people just pull right in front of traffic, <em>and then lose track of where the *^%( gas pedal is!!!</em>&nbsp; When I&nbsp;first ended up moving here, I&nbsp;really couldn't comprehend Bakersfield's love affair with the red turn arrow.. Theyre EVERYWHERE!!! I&nbsp;grew up in Orange County, spent a couple years on Long Island and have driven back and forth many times... Bako clearly takes the red arrow and concrete &quot;No Lefty, drive a mile out of your way and flip a U&quot; median cake.. &nbsp; Then it all became clear.... car after car would just pull right out of driveways... sidestreets... front lawns... right in front of other cars and just poke along as if there wasn't another sole in town...&nbsp; What Mr. Walker speaks here is the absolute truth for Bakersfield at least.... Possible depth / approaching object velocity perception problem here in the So SJV?&nbsp; </p> <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Instead of ending a plan to get traffic in this town moving, why not better educate our drivers??&nbsp;In Huntington Beach the city placed signs next to the &quot;doghouse&quot; style signals that state for left turns to yield when the light is in full green mode.. and if I'm not mistaken one of the intersections above has the same signs, but HB went further and added 2 fluorescent orange flags behind (to the sides of) the sign to make it more eye catching.. And even if that isn't enough, maybe we could drop a little note into TV&nbsp;spots via Brighthouse. Possibly into the spanish media as well (being that the signs are in english, this might account for a portion of the accident issue) Instead of babysitting the more inept drivers here, making us all suffer, EDUCATE and the accident factor should fade away, and we can all enjoy more time in our day NOT&nbsp;sitting at red turn arrows.&nbsp; Maybe someday we can even make left turns out of our neighborhoods as well!!!</p> <p>BTW&nbsp;there's 3 intersections with the &quot;doghouse&quot;&nbsp;or passive/protective left turn signals.. the 2 above and Baker &amp;&nbsp;Truxtun on the east side.. (At least last time I&nbsp;was over there... maybe that one's gone now as well..) </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>As for signal timing, the signals downtown along Chester Ave are usually set pretty well.. Can we have the same person set the signals for Calloway/Old River, Coffee/Gosford, Stockdale/Brundage (whats with the double named streets in this town BTW???)&nbsp;Hageman, Wilson &amp;&nbsp;Ming? (I'm sure there's more ;)</p> <p>Trippers are sometimes inconvenient.&nbsp; I've had green lights go back to yellow almost immediately when a car pulls up to a tripper.&nbsp; Airport drive is terrible for that.&nbsp; The other day I&nbsp;hit every single light red all the way to the freeway.&nbsp; Not red when I got there, but turned red as I&nbsp;approached so I had to sit out every...single..cycle.</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/askthecalifornian/41281/#c_372770 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/askthecalifornian/41281/#c_372770 <p>Trippers are sometimes inconvenient.&nbsp; I've had green lights go back to yellow almost immediately when a car pulls up to a tripper.&nbsp; Airport drive is terrible for that.&nbsp; The other day I&nbsp;hit every single light red all the way to the freeway.&nbsp; Not red when I got there, but turned red as I&nbsp;approached so I had to sit out every...single..cycle.</p> <p>Try tripping any light on a bicycle.&nbsp; It's not always as easy as you think.&nbsp; I ride along Riverlakes Dr and all&nbsp;3 lights on that road (at&nbsp;Olive Dr, Hageman Rd, and Coffee&nbsp;Rd)&nbsp;are difficult to trip.&nbsp; I often find myself having to turn around-a dangerous feat-and reposition myself in the lane.&nbsp; Bakersfield needs better signals and maybe more roundabouts.&nbsp; And what's with putting a light in at Verdugo Ln and Noreiga Rd, but not at Hageman and Jewetta, which has a lot more traffic???</p> http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/askthecalifornian/41281/#c_390786 http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/askthecalifornian/41281/#c_390786 <p>Try tripping any light on a bicycle.&nbsp; It's not always as easy as you think.&nbsp; I ride along Riverlakes Dr and all&nbsp;3 lights on that road (at&nbsp;Olive Dr, Hageman Rd, and Coffee&nbsp;Rd)&nbsp;are difficult to trip.&nbsp; I often find myself having to turn around-a dangerous feat-and reposition myself in the lane.&nbsp; Bakersfield needs better signals and maybe more roundabouts.&nbsp; And what's with putting a light in at Verdugo Ln and Noreiga Rd, but not at Hageman and Jewetta, which has a lot more traffic???</p>