Stoplights/traffic signals that don't detect bikes?

[marcm]

If there was a thread about this subject, I couldn't find it. So if I'm missing it, someone please point me in the right direction.

I've identified two traffic signals / stoplights here in downtown Rochester, NY, which are set to turn green only when an automobile is detected, and where a bike doesn't activate the sensor. In each case, I had to cross at the pedestrian crosswalk, then re-enter the roadway from another direction. (Or I could have pressed the button to cross, then returned to my original position on the roadway and waited for the light to turn green.)

Anyway, I contacted the Monroe County Department of Transportation about this, specifically the phone number for reporting problems with traffic signals. Eventually a guy answered the phone, and I reported that one of the traffic signals (the only one of this I knew of at the time) wasn't working properly -- it failed to detect my bicyle, a legal road vehicle. He explained that this was its normal operation, that the sensors underneath the road just aren't sensitive enough to detect the small amount of metal in a bike versus a car -- and if they adjust the sensitivity so a bike is detected, it gets all kinds of false positives, so they don't do that. Even motorcyclists occasionally have this problem, he said. He recommended that I use the button for the pedestrian crosswalk, then return to my original position at the intersection until the light turns green, and proceed through the intersection then.

It's a minor inconvenience for me, and both of these intersections are ones I can easily avoid by alternate routes. But I've heard/read that bikers "should" or are legally required to be accomodated by such traffic signals as these, and that I should insist on being accomodated as a cyclist at these intersections, since I'm a legal road user with the same rights as any other.

Does anyone know of technology that has been used successfully against this problem in other cities/towns, and whether it is practical to accomodate cyclists at this type of intersection? Or any advice/opinions whether I should pursue this matter further, or just accept things the way they are?

(There may be other intersections like this; I only noticed these two because there were no cars approaching the intersection from my direction. At one or both of these intersections, and others, cars have come up from behind, and I always pull forward far enough to be sure that they activate the sensor, in case the green light requires it.)

[Az B]

If it's safe, just run it. If it's not safe, go for the button. If you're worried about tickets, write the DOT a letter, carry a copy and any replies they send you. If a cop stops you, show him the letter.

I've been riding bicycles and motorcycles for several decades, and have never gotten a ticket for running a red that wouldn't change.

Az

[Bikes-N-Drums]

Does anyone know of technology that has been used successfully against this problem in other cities/towns

Don't some lights run on timers?

I feel your pain though. It's especially annoying on a recumbent.

[marcm]

Don't some lights run on timers?
Yes -- most do, I believe. The lights that run on sensors, instead of timers, do so because they don't get enough traffic to justify a regular timed cycle. Therefore it becomes a problem for bikers, because there often aren't any cars around to activate the sensors. But the cross-streets (perpendicular to the sensor-activated light) in these cases are major streets, which they don't want to delay by using timed cycles on the low-traffic intersecting streets.

If it's safe, just run it. If it's not safe, go for the button.

Az, that's a good idea. In at least one case, there was too much cross-traffic to safely run the red. But when that's practical, I wouldn't have a problem with doing it. I haven't been riding long enough to be sure, but I may be one of the few bikers around here who actually yields to the traffic signal (and generally follows the rules of the road) anyway. And I've never heard of a biker getting a ticket (though I wish they'd enforce the traffic laws for bikers, so people would get the message and ride more sensibly, rather than ignoring the law as apparently most do now).

[atbman]

Either your contact was talking rubbish, or the technology they're using is decades out of date.

I'm a former cycling officer in my city and our highways dept. turned up the sensor sensitivity if cyclists reported that lights didn't change for them. Never had any "false positives" reported.

Please feel free to pass on to your mayor my sympathy for US technological backwardness if you think it would do any good - or even irritate him.

[cudak888]

Have you tried angling your frame 45 degrees or so sideways to help trigger the field?

Take care,

-Kurt

[tomg]

there are many signal lites here that don't p/u my presence. traffic is so heavy through, that i go into the intersection (after the lite turns green, of course) and wait for it to turn red so i can f/t with my left turn. it gets old, but works!
i've got to try the 45 degree method (above) and plan on contacting dot to report specific problem locations.

[ken cummings]

you might try a degaussing coil to simulate the magnetic mass of a car.

[donnamb]

In Portland, many intersections have bicycle-activated sensors. They have a mark like this painted over them:
http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/images/actumrk.gif

If your city will not do that, there are ways for you to find them better and trigger them faster.

http://www.bikeplan.com/signal.html

http://www.instructables.com/ex/i/E79EBE7C10E11029BC4A001143E7E506/?ALLSTEPS

[Daily Commute]

about some signals to my city's bicycle coordinator, he gave me a personal lesson on how to position myself to make them work.

The key is be right above one of the wires in just the right place:

In a single rectangle sensor, you need to be on the wire on one side or the other, as close to the middle (from top to bottom) as possible;
In the case of two rectangles that share the middle line, you need to be in the middle of the middle line;
In the case of diamonds, you should place your bike parallel to and directly above one of the lines of the diamond.

This won't always work, especially if the coils have no visible cut lines on the pavement (or if the pavement has been cut multiple times so you can't tell which one is thae active loop), but I can usually get the signals to work.

If I know a signal won't work, and there are no cars behind me to trigger the light, I treat it as a yield sign. You could also argue that it's a malfunctioning light, which drivers are supposed to treat as four-way stop signs.

Here's (http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/actuator.htm) a great article on the subject from John Allen (http://www.bikexprt.com/bicycle/index.htm) (author of Street Smarts (http://www.bikexprt.com/streetsmarts/index.htm)).

Here's (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=45161) an old but good thread on the subject (I found the John Allen links in that thread).

[John Wilke]

You've only found two ?? Button or run it, depends on the location. I doubt the cop will give you much grief unless you're grossly unsafe in your approach.

jw

[chennai]

Does anyone know of technology that has been used successfully against this problem in other cities/towns, and whether it is practical to accomodate cyclists at this type of intersection? Or any advice/opinions whether I should pursue this matter further, or just accept things the way they are?

(There may be other intersections like this; I only noticed these two because there were no cars approaching the intersection from my direction. At one or both of these intersections, and others, cars have come up from behind, and I always pull forward far enough to be sure that they activate the sensor, in case the green light requires it.)

Many other cities tune these sorts of lights to detect bicycles. Seattle is an example. A city official in Denver once explained to me that they didn't adjust Denver's lights because they would get lots more calls to adjust lights. He also said that he wanted cyclists to signal as pedestrians because pedestrians get more time to cross and bikes needed the extra time.

It is generally not a matter of additional or changed signal equipment, though how the loop is arranged has an effect.

The failure to adjust sensors to detect bicycles also comes into play when the sensor is used to extend the light to accomodate a line of cars. If you are at the end of a line of traffic in one of those spots you may end up waiting another cycle, even if cars are present to trigger the light initially.

Denver has recently experimented with rest on red lights - lights that do not change (i.e. don't cycle at all) but remain red until a car is detected. There's one on a street with a marked bike lane - the lane doesn't have a detector at all. Apparently the city either expects cyclists to blow through the light or didn't think about cyclists at all.

Moreover, if cyclists don't know whether the lights are "working" for them or not, they don't know whether to wait or run them. (I know some cyclists simply run every or most lights, but that's not the way things should work for too many reasons to mention here.)

The "it's all about me" advice to run (or treat a light as malfunctioning and therefore like a stoplight) misses your point. It doesn't solve the problem at busy intersections or those with bad sight lines. More importantly, it doesn't solve the problem for all cyclists.

As far as whether you should pursue the matter, it depends on whether you think you can win. The traffic department doesn't think it's a problem. Can you go around it to someone with more clout?

You may be surprised at the support or lack thereof that you get from fellow cyclists. In Denver, the old timer cyclists don't think its a problem - some haven't noticed, some run them, some don't want to annoy anyone by complaining, some get where they are going just fine (thank you very much), and know in their hearts that Denver is a great place to bicycle, so they don't want to hear about problems.