Traffic Lights Go Nuts on Gratiot/Randolph/Broadway

[royce]

On several occasions I've traveled down Gratiot on a Friday or Saturday night, only to notice that the traffic lights beginning at Gratiot and Russell and continuing down Gratiot/Randolph just passed Monroe go into a red light, yellow light flashing mode that makes crossing the numerous intersections very dangerous. It is especially dangerous at the intersection of Randolph and Monroe, as people drive into Greektown. Now, the same lights just hours before were working perfectly. What is going on? This has been going on since at least May of this year.

Now that the weather is warmer and more people are coming downtown on the weekends, you would think that the City would have corrected this problem. It just bothers the hell out of me when the City has an opportunity to impress visitors, especially downtown, and it fails to have traffic lights working correctly or even have street lights working at all. A one-time visitor might not take note of this, but as a citizen of Detroit I have, and it's disappointing to me to think that the City can't get some basic city services to work correctly.

[michigansheik]

i believe the gratiot traffic lights are not maintained by the city of detroit but by mdot. give mdot a call.
i agree the flashing lights are not as safe as sequencing.

[wolverine]

It must be the heat. I've noticed lights going out all over the place. At least they are flashing as opposed to showing nothing at all. When they are out completely, people blow through them at night, possibly not knowing there was ever a signal there.

[Gannon]

I suspect it is because of ignorance of the law rather than knowing the lights are there...this city is full of people who are not aware of the 4-way stop default at a broken traffic light. God help those at one where two multi-lane roads intersect. Chaos!!

Of course, some of us treat stoplights as 4-way stops late at night anyways...so perhaps I'm merely used to it. Heh-heh.

Cheers

[DetroitPlanner]

Gratiot and Randolph are part of the MDOT trunkine system.

I doubt that heat is causing problems. The new lights are all LED based and rarely overheat. The same systems here are made for places like Airizona and Nevada, so they should be made for the heat. The nice thing about LED based lights is two-fold. They use considerably less energy and require considerably less maintenance.

[Hamtragedy]

"It just bothers the hell out of me when the City has an opportunity to impress visitors, especially downtown, and it fails to have traffic lights working correctly or even have street lights working at all"

I have been saying this for years. I almost got arrested once at Riverdays for moving several traffic barriers which were lying in the middle of a major crosswalk on an island in the middle of Jefferson. They were obstructing pedestrians, which were obstructing car traffic. People were tripping over them, wheelchairs and strollers were fighting them. The police were unresponsive for hours, until someone [[me) decided to move them.

Just one reason I no longer care as much as I used to: Detroit doesn't get it, and it shows no sign of ever getting it.