Houston Traffic Signals, Poles and Aesthetics

[DaTrain]

Houston does suffer an amount of setbacks in aesthetics in certain things from concerete to powerlines. Now I want to bring something up that may be another minor aesthetic setback: traffic signals. No, I have nothing against this because the stoplights are needed, but specifically the poles play a source in aesthetics. I personally don't like the thought of the obvious: stoplight poles "goosenecking" over streets in certain urban segments. The suburban parts do need em tho due to poor visibility from a NIMBY perspective. So I would suggest the cobra style signal poles be removed and be replaced with more signal lights sticking from a single short pole, like they do on half the intersections in Downtown; more can be installed in Midtown (Main already has em), Museum District, wherever.

And to combat potential visibility problems, the single pole lights can have a second set of lights attached to the back of the existing stop lights on the same pole, just like the ones they have at one intersection on Elgin Street and another on Wheeler (I forgot the cross streets) - and have one light at each side of the street. At least not all of H-Town followed the niche of have cobra stoplight poles.

Drop your thoughts.

[musicman]

Houston does suffer an amount of setbacks in aesthetics in certain things from concerete to powerlines. Now I want to bring something up that may be another minor aesthetic setback: traffic signals. No, I have nothing against this because the stoplights are needed, but specifically the poles play a source in aesthetics. I personally don't like the thought of the obvious: stoplight poles "goosenecking" over streets in certain urban segments. The suburban parts do need em tho due to poor visibility from a NIMBY perspective. So I would suggest the cobra style signal poles be removed and be replaced with more signal lights sticking from a single short pole, like they do on half the intersections in Downtown; more can be installed in Midtown (Main already has em), Museum District, wherever.

And to combat potential visibility problems, the single pole lights can have a second set of lights attached to the back of the existing stop lights on the same pole, just like the ones they have at one intersection on Elgin Street and another on Wheeler (I forgot the cross streets) - and have one light at each side of the street. At least not all of H-Town followed the niche of have cobra stoplight poles.

Drop your thoughts.

In the old days, that's how streets lights were originally built. over time, it was determined that for better visibility, it was better to place the light in front of each lane and not to the side. Since Main is only one lane, I guess engineers figured a single pole would suffice.

[ricco67]

In addition to what musicman said, you will notice that some even have lights posted on the certain corners which may seem not to make sense.

The reasoning for this is when big trucks go through, they have a tendency block the view of the light when it turns red or yellow and was a cause of some accidents. So some engineers determined that having a light a bit off to the side would help drivers determine what the actual color was.

[dalparadise]

It's a width of the street thing. Wide streets need signals that go across.

I don't mind cantilevered poles -- especially not ones that are painted and have a design to them. I hate when they just hang a wire across a large intersection and dangle the signals from it.