Traffic Lights

The end of the Lowell Connector is notorious for people running into the wall where the road "Tees" at the traffic light.  One solution, a while ago, was to put a Red Traffic Light up with a white strobe embedded.  That seemed to work, but then the strobe burned out.

When I noticed the strobe burned out I started calling around, first to the City and then to the State, to see if someone would replace the Red Light with a new one with a Strobe.  Frankly, it felt like I was getting shuffled around.  The solution to my problem came from Joanne, the night manager at the Outback (she has since moved on to the benefit of some other restaurant).  Joanne, who knew I was tracking this, found, on line, that the Federal Standards had changed and the Red Light with Strobe was out, to be replaced by the Red Traffic Light without strobe.  This was confirmed by the State Engineer for our area.

For those who love links, here is a link to a discussion of the issue.  And here is the Fed Manual&mdash:"Strobes shall not be used within or adjacent to any signal indication."

So, why is it that on Thursday evening, as I was returning from the School Committee meeting at the Greater Lowell Technical High School, coming up on the Heritage Farms Icecream Stand, along VFW Highway I found two red lights with strobes?

Put another way, have we fixed the problem at the end of the Lowell Connector and are using our spares on the VFW Highway?  (Hint:  The pile of bricks I saw on Gorham Street near the end of the Lowell Connector suggest we haven't yet fixed the problem in that location.)

What we lack is a consistent story.  Anyone have a clue?

Regards  —  Cliff

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