Forest Rock left turn signal will stay as it is
March 10th, 2010 by travis bakerThe in basket: Mary Corbin writes about the left turn signal on southbound Highway 305 in Poulsbo, that allows turns toward Central Market at Forest Rock Lane.
It used to be that after a green arrow allowed left turns, others who wanted to make the turn could do so if they stopped and waited for on-coming traffic to clear, she said.
“Now, since the new road opposite the Central Market store (Seventh Avenue) was constructed, there has been a major change in that turn signal,” she said. “The green arrow is very short, allowing only four or five cars to turn. Then the arrow turns red, and no one is allowed to turn toward Central Market, even (when) there are no cars approaching from the other direction.
“Sometimes the oncoming path is clear for a long time, and still we all just sit there waiting for the light cycle to finish and we get the green arrow again.
”Last Saturday was exceptionally irritating,” she wrote. “That light went through several cycles allowing all forward moving traffic to head along Highway 305, but the turn arrow for Central Market turned green only once out of four cycles. We sat there for at least FIVE MINUTES (at that point I stopped counting). Finally some cars simply went through the red turn signal, since there was no oncoming traffic.
She wondered why the state didn’t go back to the old way.
The in basket: Not going to happen, says the Olympic Region signal shop, which changed the left turn into what is called a “protected” turn, meaning it can only be made on a green arrow light, when oncoming traffic has a red light.
They did it during the widening of the highway, in the interests of “consistency” in that traffic corridor, they said.
Don Anders, head of the signal shop says that hasn’t changed.
“The more consistent we can operate a corridor the better driver expectancy is met,” he said. ”This leads to less confusion and better overall traffic movement. When the fourth leg of the intersection at Forest Rock opened it was best we changed this operation to match the corridor.”
He also said they have no record of the signal malfunctioning on the Saturday Mary describes.
Tags: Forest Rock, Highway 305, left turn, Poulsbo, signal
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
March 24th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Hi Travis,
My husband and I really enjoy your Road Warrior column. We were the ones who wrote to you a year ago regarding the alignment of lanes from Forest Rock Lane onto Hwy 305 which were changed to straight/left and right only lanes and now traffic entering Hwy 305 from Central Market flows much smoother.
We are writing today regarding your March 24th article about southbound left-turns from Hwy 305 towards Central Market. We agree with Mary Corbin’s assessment about the unnecessarily long delays. We suggest that a blinking left-turn yellow light such as is being used in Silverdale at numerous locations would solve the problem.
We’re annoyed by the fact that Don Anders (head of the Olympic Region signal shop) believes that people can’t adapt to changing conditions. They seem to be doing just fine in Silverdale.
Patty and Tom Tompkins