I’m originally from Florida, and in the last year moved to Central California. While in Florida, I noted that usually the traffic lights are mounted horizontally, on black poles that extend from poles on the sides of the street. Some older traffic lights were mounted on wires hanging over the road, in a verticle fashion.
Here’s my question… how common is the horizontal as opposed to verticle setup? In this area of California, it seems that lights are ALWAYS mounted vertically, and often on eye or near-eye level posts on the side of the road.
Also, do they still build new traffic lights on the suspended from a wire system?
In New Mexico, almost all traffic lights are mounted horizontally (red on left, green on right, turn arrows to far left) as opposed to vertically (red on top, green on bottom, turn arrows to far left or right). Traffic signals mounted horizontally have a much lower profile than those mounted vertically.
Many new traffic signals in Central Florida are suspended from wires strong from cast concrete Sonotube poles.
In Austin, almost all lights that I can think of are mounted horizontally on posts over the road. Rarely, they’ll be mounted vertically on posts to the side of the road, but only in areas of low visibility and such.
In New Jersey, pretty much all posts are mounted vertically. Same situation in California as you now know. Hmm…I’ve been to the panhandle of Florida but don’t remember noticing the stop light orientations. Perahps because I wasn’t driving.
The overwhelming majority of U.S. states use the vertical arrangement.
This site ( http://freespace.virgin.net/john.cletheroe/usa_can/driving/lights.htm ) says “As far as I know [the horizontal] design is only used in
New Mexico and Texas.” I could have told him to add Florida to the list, but I’d be surprised if any other states normally use horizontal mounting.
In NE Fla. most lights are vertical - except in Gainesville, which demands horizontal, but they’re wierd down there. Some exceptions are just ‘beyond’ overpasses, where a vertical signal may not be visible. Also, all new installations in Florida that are within 20 miles of either coast (Atlantic Ocean / Gulf of Mexico) must be “mast arms” - those (mostly) black horizontal metal poles coming off a vertical metal pole. In hurricanes (even weak ones) nearly all the “span wire” signals blow away, while mast arms survive much higher winds. Beyond 20 miles, its optional, but the trend is to mast arms, even tho’ they are significantly more expensive and have a 6 month order time.
[sub]I work for a large state agency that is heavily involved in transportation.[/sub]
Only ever seen horizontal ones in Thailand. The Aussie ones are always vertical.
On a side note, traffic lights suspended on wires seem to me to be a strictly US thing. I immediately think of hurricane film footage with the lights swinging wildly. Am I correct here, or are there other places with suspended lights?
Quebec uses the horizontal light setup. They actually have TWO red lights, on either side of the yellow and green, both turn arrows on the appropriate side. I have always found them to be very visible, and since they are above the road, and not to the side, they aren’t usually blocked by traffic (thats something that annoys me alot a some intersections in Ontario, where lights are vertical and sometimes on the side of the road, and other times suspended above).
OH, and also, the lights have particular shapes to help you tell what they are, especially for colour blind drivers. I have only seen this in Quebec, as far as I can remember. Red is a square, Yellow is a diamond (well, a square standing on its point) and Green is a circle.
The horizontal light arrangement is widespread in Wisconsin and Illinois, usually in conjunction with vertical lights. Typically, you’ll see the vertical lights mounted to a post on the right side of the road before the intersection, with an additional set of horizontal lights on a boom extending over the opposite side of the intersection.
As a California resident, I can say that most of the traffic lights I’ve seen are verticle. However, in a few cities and in the “historical” portion of other cities, the traffic lights are horizontal. I think it was done in order to give an old town feel to the area.
Since the Canadians and the Aussies have joined in, we might as well go ahead and make it worldwide. Every traffic light I’ve seen in Japan has been horizontal.
As I recall, Newark has plenty of horizontal lights, (been a while, though). Princeton has horizontal lights. I figure that Newark’s horizontal lighting is a sort of urban area kind of thing, but Princeton???
I asked this same question in Florida traffic lights, further down in the thread. The only two responses I got were from Texas, and both acted like every state in the union had horizontal traffic lights. I’m glad we straightened that out.
In NYC and Long Island (and actually, almost everywhere else I’ve been in NY), light orientation is vertical except where the lights would be obscured by overpasses, RR bridges, etc.
They put up both wire suspended and mast arm mounted lights, with the only defining trait being bigger intersections usually get the wire suspended ones (although I’ve seen mast arms replace wire-suspended, and then again I’ve seen wire-suspended replace mast arms - they seem to love to muck around reconfiguring (perfectly functionally) traffic lights on a daily basis around here…
In Michigan, the large majority is vertical lights hanging from wires. Of course, in my hometown, I can think of spots with vertical lights attached to booms and one spot with a vertical on the side of the road attached to a light pole. And then, traveling a few miles down the highway to a different city, you can find a whole downtown area with horizontal lights on booms.
When I was little, I always got scared when we drove under the ones hanging from wires if it was stormy out. Those things swing all over the place, and once in a while there is a story in the newspaper of one falling.
I’m used to driving in Albuquerque, where almost all major intersections will have both horizontal and vertical lights. Horizontal streching over the street and verticals in the median and/or the right side and even sometimes the left side. Fully controlled lefts generally have their own signals in the median, and protected lefts generally to the far left horizontally or bottom vertically. The smaller intersections seem to tend to have horizontals. Of course, most of these are mounted on actual poles as well, with the only exception I can even come up with off the top of my head anymore being the Wyoming and Menaul intersection (which is a pretty big intersection).
Here in Nebraska, traffic lights are mounted horizontally all over the state, except for Omaha, intersections with wire span assemblies, the I-80/US 81 interchange in York, including downtown, a couple of intersections in Seward, one in Kearney and one in North Platte.
In CT the vast majority of lights are vertical and hang suspended on wires over the middle of the street. There are some vertical lights on posts at the side of road – most often in conjunction with overhead. I can’t recall ever seeing a horizontal light here.