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  1. #1

    Default Earliest modern Metro Detroit traffic lights

    I would like to know this-when did the 12-12-12 traffic and symbolized pedestrian lights both start popping up in Metro Detroit [[as well as within the city itself)?

    I'm thinking early 1990's, but am I wrong?

  2. #2

    Default

    Hand/Man ped signals became more common in the early 1990s. Detroit still had mostly worded 9" peds through the late 90s. 12" signals in the city also started becoming maintstream around 1995. Some intersections did employ enlarged red indications or enlarged arrow indications as early as the 1970s.

  3. #3

    Default

    For anyone else unaware what is meant by a "12-12-12 traffic light", here is an amazingly thorough illustrated guide of how to designate the sizes of traffic lights:

    http://huntsvillerailfan.tumblr.com/reference1

    [[A 12-12-12 light is a stack of a red, yellow, and green light where each lens 12" in diameter.)

  4. #4

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Detroit Signal View Post
    Hand/Man ped signals became more common in the early 1990s. Detroit still had mostly worded 9" peds through the late 90s. 12" signals in the city also started becoming maintstream around 1995. Some intersections did employ enlarged red indications or enlarged arrow indications as early as the 1970s.
    I recall seeing the first symbolized pedestrian lights sometime in either 1990, 1991 or 1992-can't remember.

    I also still remember back when every signal on Livernois had the enlarged red lens. There is still an intersection along Jefferson in Ecorse and one further south in Riverview that still has an enlarged green arrow.

  5. #5

    Default

    6 Mile and Livernois
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  6. #6

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Detroit Signal View Post
    12" signals in the city also started becoming maintstream around 1995.
    Wait...found this taken in 1992.

  7. #7

    Default

    And I officially found at least two intersections, both on Woodward, that had 12-inch lights prior to 1992. Since at least 1987, the intersection with 16 Mile and the intersection with South Boulevard in Pontiac [[in 1987, the road continuing north was Saginaw Street, it was renamed Woodward in the 1990's) have had 12-inch lights. [[Source: a 1987 documentary posted in another thread)

  8. #8

    Default

    I remember some signals being replaced in the early 1970s when I started to drive. On the main highways that had higher speed limits and greater distances between signals like Telegraph Rd., the older signals were replaced by the ones with 12" lenses for better visibility at a distance.

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