Description

The light at Lave Ave. SE feels slightly off with the light at 101st St. SE/Sunrise Dr. Also possibly slightly off from Starkey Rd light. The "Platoon"/group of cars released from 101st or from Ulmerton are forced to stop at Lake Ave SE red light. For the East bound side, it is backing traffic all the way past Madison and Washington Ave creating a dangerous situation for motorists coming out from/into Madison as well as U-turns as the left lane is the first to back up then center then right leaving you inches away sometimes from someone doing 30+mph and cannot see around vehicles. The light at Lake Ave SE seems perfectly fine in operation just seems about maybe a few secs off to allow some of that group of cars to go through to the traffic backed up is not as lengthy even at non-rush hour times or earlier to allow the Lake Ave SE traffic to get across before they get there. On the West bound side, it seems basically the same way as the East bound side where if you need to be the 1st or second car at Starkey Rd heading West and have to speed just to make that light which many people do speed. The other possible correction may also be to reverse the order of operations of the light sequence at Lake Ave SE. Currently if you were heading West from Starkey Rd, you would see the light change to Red and stop, the Lake Ave SE traffic goes, then when the light changes to green for West bound side (cannot remember if East bound traffic does as well) the East bound side is half way from 101st to Lake Ave. If you turn left on Madison, or U-turn for gas stations, etc., then you will wait for that traffic to slowly come to the stop at the red light behind you (possibly west bound turn lane?), then backs up so you cant get across or are let across 1-2 lanes out of 3 and wait in the middle of the road, then once you finally do the 1-4 people behind you try to also quickly get across more than likely ignoring pedestrians. If the East bound was still green because their left turn is going now at the end instead of the beginning of their green light, it might help enough to let a few more vehicles through to allow safe crossings for everyone since it will be behind the Platoon or Pack of cars. Then Lake Ave has the same amount for their traffic as well as pedestrians at that light just instead of changing at 3:04pm and 30 secs it changes at 3:04pm and 15 secs or 45secs or something like that. *Side note - since it doesn't have to deal with safety is that the East bound traffic backing up so far back makes it difficult for vehicles pulling out of the side streets, gas stations/businesses, as well as the big construction? trucks that come from 95th St N. I've seen them wait something like 1-4 mins waiting on traffic then the back end of traffic from everyone pulling out from the side streets, then can finally go. Overall Ulmerton never gets back up West bound from 101st to impede much neither does East bound from Starky Rd.(have not witnessed morning rush traffic however). I understand there are several different priorities involved in Traffic Signal timing and the complexity of numerous varibles at each intersection, so just wanted to see if someone could just take a look to see if anything could be done.