Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[ijmorlan]

Does anyone know what the rules are when there is a traffic light for a pedestrian crossing at an intersection, but the traffic light doesn't cross one of the roads at the intersection? I'm specifically thinking about the intersection at Albert and Seagram here.

Albert is North-South, and there is a traffic light across Albert that turns red after the pedestrian button is pushed. Immediately to the south of the light Seagram T-intersects Albert, I think with a stop sign. To the south of Seagram there is a stop line for northbound traffic on Albert.

When the light is green it's obvious what everyone should do. When the light is red:
1. Do cars turning from Albert northbound to Seagram need to stop? They are facing a red light and making a left turn, which suggests yes, but if the traffic light only controls the pedestrian crossing then it shouldn't affect them.
2. After stopping at the stop sign, do cars turning from Seagram to Albert northbound need to wait for the light to turn green, or can they turn once the crosswalk is clear?

When it’s green it is obvious as you say; it’s just like if the traffic light wasn’t there, except for pedestrians who presumably aren’s supposed to cross against the red hand. Not sure about pedestrians crossing Albert on the south side of Seagram.

When it’s red, your questions are interesting, and there is an additional question: can southbound cars on Albert turn right? Normally, right turn on red is permitted in Ontario.

To me, it is clear that there are 2 choices: Either the signal is associated with the intersection, or it is not.

If it is associated with the intersection, then right turn on red is permitted, because there is no sign to the contrary. The left turn you mention would normally be prohibited, but there is in my mind some doubt, because there is no green for Seagram.

If it is not associated with the intersection, then the right turn is prohibited, because it isn’t really a right turn on red: it would be running a red, followed by turning right at the next (unsignalized) intersection. But on the other hand in this case the left turn is clearly permitted, as the intersection itself is just a stop sign.

As to your question about cars on Seagram: the lights aren’t facing them, so definitely do not control them (not a lawyer). All they have to do is stop, and proceed when safe, yielding to all other vehicular and pedestrian traffic (not legal advice).

I don’t really like these sort-of signalized intersections. They lead to anomalous situations, which is bad for safety. Similar issues arise at Peppler and Erb. When turning left from Peppler to Erb, if the pedestrian/bike signal is green, car traffic on Erb is stopped; but pedestrians can still be crossing Peppler, so it’s not the same situation as if traffic on Peppler had a green.

Back to the original intersection, I think one idea would be to change the northbound signal to be straight-through arrows (green, yellow, red) positioned above the straight-through lane only, to make it clear that turning traffic is not controlled by the signal. Of course I probably just proposed breaking about 10 different points in the traffic manual…