A longer than normal amber light in the city’s downtown is raising a few eyebrows this week.
On Monday, our camera caught a nearly nine second amber light at the intersection of Fort Street and York Avenue heading northbound.
Watch:
A City of Winnipeg spokesperson couldn’t immediately say if the light was in fact malfunctioning or not, but did note amber lights should be held for no more than four seconds.
Earlier this year, the group Wise Up Winnipeg presented a report to the Executive Policy Committee on adding an extra second — not five — to amber lights to increase safety. The group claimed the added duration would also save motorists from getting dinged by the city’s multiple red light cameras unnecessarily.
The intersection in question where this amber light is wrongly timed includes a red light camera, but facing east on York.
Todd Dube of Wise Up Winnipeg says that intersection isn’t the only one in the city where this problem has occurred.
“What you filmed is simply that the mechanical timing-disk is getting jammed in the controller,” Dube said. “The ones at Sargent at Balmoral and Kennedy at St. Mary’s have problems with that too.”
Dube says if the malfunction had been occurring in the direction the red light camera faces, it would have already been fixed.
“Their (City of Winnipeg) contractor ACS would have reported a signal problem that was resulting in zero violations. What you really filmed was the safest intersection in Winnipeg — for however long it’s been malfunctioning. Most of those short 50 km/h intersections are adequate at 4.0 seconds however they should be 4.5 or 5.0 in winter conditions.”
ChrisD.ca video/WpgCameraMan
