A year ago, MassHighway installed cameras on the lights at Route 9 and Oak Hill Road to monitor traffic.
There have been a couple of questions on the blog recently about who controls the timing of traffic lights in town (see the open thread here). To find out, I asked DPW Superintendent Karen Galligan.
Galligan said the DPW is responsible for most of the lights in town, with the notable exception of the ones on Route 9 which are controlled by MassHighway. If you thinking the timing of any of the lights is off, Galligan said the best thing to do is to contact the DPW. If the light is owned by the town, DPW will handle it directly, and if it’s owned by MassHighway, they’ll pass the feedback along to the right people.
Great, thanks Susan, I’ll write up a more cogent note and send over. Incidentally, the light at the intersection of Rte. 30 & Framingham Rd works ‘as it should’. E.g. this AM I approached the intersection (on Rte. 30 E) and there was a red light. Due to no traffic coming down Framingham Rd, the light immediately changed to yellow on Fram Rd, and gave me the green arrow (although I could have also taken the right on red). It also works well if you’re heading north on Fram Rd and get into the left turn lane, it will stop the southbound traffic (if volume warrants) fairly quickly.
The crossing light on Marlborough Road for St. Mark’s changes for no apparent reason and then has a long red delay for traffic driving in both directions. At one time the light had to be activated by students crossing, but now it seems to operate quite randomly.
Yep, others have reported the same thing, so I asked Karen Galligan about it. See my response in the comments here for more info: https://mysouthborough.com/2010/01/04/open-discussion-thread-ask-questions-share-opinions-8/comment-page-1/#comment-11989
My granddaughter asked why the green light is on the bottom? Smart observation from a 5 year old don’t you think?