When I hear of a movement being termed "dangerous" or "unsafe" the proper thing in my view is to ban the movement. Danger eliminated, problem solved. For the relatively few people that want to do a southbound left turn (SBLT) onto Ethan Allen Parkway, versus the number of people that are helped by a continuous northbound right turn (NBRT), numbers say that the SBLT should be banned. Which would be unfortunate because it can be done safely at times. If there were not a lot of people being helped by the NBRT this would not be an issue. We could add a SBLT arrow at a cost of several thousand dollars, and additional delay to the hundreds going northbound. We could eliminate the NBRT, which would eliminate the yellow trap, but again at the cost of delay northbound. Or, based on the relatively few people that do the SBLT, we could ban it completely, or only during rush hour. There is no one perfect solution. The best we can do is something that keeps complaints to a minimum, an inverse bell curve if you will. Help a few versus causing possibly hundreds of complaints? No getting around this being based on numbers.

Please call customer service at (802)863-9094 and provide contact information for this request. Traffic requests cannot be processed anonymously. This see click fix will be closed in one week if contact information is not received.

This issue was recategorized from Traffic Calming to Traffic Signal Problems.

Traffic Signal Engineer assigned this issue to Traffic Signal Engineer

As of Friday afternoon the northbound right turn (NBRT) arrows go yellow, then red with North Avenue signals. After the all-red period, the NBRT drops back to a flashing yellow arrow, concurrent with Ethan Allen Parkway. During any change North Avenue first clears to all-red. This eliminates the yellow trap condition. Southbound left turning (SBLT) traffic may still have to contend with oncoming NBRT traffic as the signals go yellow, but there is a brief all-red time during which everyone is supposed to stop. A SBLT car waiting within the intersection to turn now has an opportunity to clear it. The Department of Public Works has resolved this request. Thanks for helping to keep Burlington a great place to live and work.