Signal head visibility is important so that motorists can travel through an intersection safely. Often, we are trimming branches back, so motorists have full visibility of traffic signal heads. However, there are situations where we don’t want a signal head to be visible until a motorist gets closer to the intersection. Louvers were added for southbound D Street traffic at Bayview Street so the green traffic signal ball wouldn’t be visible until after drivers pass the crosswalk at Taylor Street. The traffic engineering division wanted to make sure people were focused on looking for pedestrians in the crosswalk at Taylor Street before turning their attention to Bayview Street. The green balls have louvers on them. There are also louvers at Second Street/Grand Avenue because we don’t want drivers looking at the signal for Second Street before they cross Third Street as they travel south on Grand Avenue.
D Street southbound to Bayview:
Green ball on mast arm (hanging over the street) appears dark
D Street, about 20 feet closer to the signal:
Green ball on mast arm is now visible
