Lighting Up Downtown

Alert “06880” reader and careful driver Jo Shields got a friendly wave a few minutes ago, from a worker installing new “smart” traffic lights at the Main Street/Avery Place/Parker Harding intersection.

traffic-lights-downtown-jo-shields

Next up: smart lights at the Main Street/Myrtle Avenue/Kings Highway North intersection, a few yards away.

Soon, traffic will flow flawlessly down that important block.

11 responses to “Lighting Up Downtown

  1. Sally Campbell Palmer

    Great! Now if we could get some working bulbs in a lot of the Post Rd street lights. Probably the state’s territory, unfortunately.

  2. Now the only thing left for this forgotten stretch of Main Street is to have the Christmas lights extended too when the time comes so that we don’t feel like the step children of Main Street

  3. Bobbie Herman

    What makes them “Smart?”

  4. Mary (Cookman) Schmerker Staples 1958

    Watch out. They may not be as smart as they think., who ever they is…..
    It will be interesting to hear a follow up.

  5. Jaime Bairaktaris

    We have these lights at an intersection on my work route in a neighboring town. From how it has been explained to me, all lights are red but as soon as a vehicle approaches the intersection/sensor – that lane’s light will then turn green. This is to avoid you sitting at a red light when there’s clearly no other vehicles, keeping the intersection clean. During heavy traffic, it will act more like a traditional light. Definitely a wonderful system

    • That system already exists in a number of busy Westport intersections; one of the more notable examples being Wilton Rd./Newtown Turnpike (Three Bears). The only big difference is the placement of sensors. They used to be installed underneath the road, rather than on the lights themselves.

  6. “Soon, traffic will flow flawlessly down that important block.”….Mmmmmk. 🤔

  7. The newly installed light at the intersection of Myrtle Avenue and the Post Road is “smart”. Last week the Westport Police characterized the backups on Myrtle due to the smart light as “unprecedented”.