Lights of Confusion

For John, BLUF:  If they don't make sense, should we ignore them?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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If you are running down Andover Street, toward downtown Lowell, and cross over the Concord River, where the street magically becomes Church Street, you will soon come to a "Y", with Westbound traffic splitting to the right and becoming Green Street.  At the intersection of Green and George there are a set of traffic lights for the two lanes of traffic.

Here is the closeup, so you can see that BOTH lanes have both a straight ahead and a right turn arrow.

Does that make sense?  I could see the left lane with a straight ahead arrow and the right lane (Number 2 Lane) with a straight ahead and right turn arrow.  I could also see the left lane with a straight ahead arrow and right turn arrow and the right (Number 2) lane with just a right turn arrow.  I don't see the current setup.

Back when I first got to the City, Mr Brian J Martin was the City Manager.  At the time he lived on Fairmount Street, near where I lived.  I didn't know City Manager Martin from Adam's Odd Ox, but I did use his name.  I called the City about the light situation and said that I lived down the street and around the corner from the City Manager and some day he was going to be going down Green Street, in the right hand lane and I was going to be in the left lane.  At the traffic light at George Street I would make a right hand turn and bang the City Manager's fender, defending myself by pointing to the traffic lights.

That worked.  The traffic light in the left lane was changed.  But it was only a temporary victory.  Eventually it was changed back.  State highway and all that.

I will admit that I don't really expect anyone to try and make a right turn out of the left lane at this intersection, except perhaps in a moment of absentmindedness.  On the other hand, that is not a reason to not do away with non-sensical traffic signals.

Regards  —  Cliff