By: Sharon Aron Baron
Tamarac resident Ryan Harper believed the traffic signal in the east-west direction of the intersection of Nob Hill Road and Southgate Boulevard gave him very little time to make his way across, so he filmed the quick-changing light and sent it to us.
Tamarac Talk sent it over to Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter’s office to see if they could find out some answers.
Ken Pauli, Chief of Staff to Commissioner Ritter got right on the job and sent the video to Scott Brunner Director of Traffic Engineering.
Brunner needed to determine the time of the video. Harper said it was around 10:30 p.m.
Based on the time, Brunner told Pauli that the video was consistent with a minimum green time of six seconds, if only one vehicle is present late at night.
He said that Southgate is the minor street, so the signal remains green for Nob Hill as the major street until a vehicle is detected on Southgate.
“If only one vehicle is detected, and no other vehicles approach within a few seconds,” said Brunner, “then Southgate is given 6 seconds green, plus yellow and all red time.”
“Having said all that, we are converting our minimum greens to 10 seconds to assist bicyclists in crossing the street,” said Brunner.
This means that all these quick six second green lights around Broward County will now be changed to a minimum of ten seconds thanks to Ryan Harper.
See any traffic light issues? Contact your county commissioner.