Sooner Rider

This is from the 9/24/2012 online edition of the Wall Street Journal. The image shows a small blue light that indicates to cyclists that they have been detected by a stoplight sensor. It's a great idea because motorists wouldn't necessarily even see the blue light, much less know what it means. On the other hand, cyclists would know what it is and look for it.

Cyclists coming to a red light in the absence of waiting vehicles don't know whether they've triggered the sensor in the pavement that will turn the light green. In Portland, blue LED indicator lights installed at the start of this summer let cyclists know that the sensor has detected their presence and the signal

unterhausen

that's awesome. I'm pretty sure they intentionally tune the sensors to not pick up cyclists around here

B. Carfree

You may be saying that tongue-in-cheek, but my local city was doing exactly that. I had to enlist the aid of a former mayor, who was running for re-election after a four-year hiatus, to get one signal changed. It took four city staff and myself and these guys were rather upset at having to tune a sensor to detect a bike.

They explained that they preferred to leave a cyclist stranded in a left turn lane rather than risk having the sensor get tripped by a motor vehicle that was in the adjoining straight only lane, which would cause a momentary delay for oncoming motorists when the left turn signal tripped for a phantom vehicle.

I contacted a local state legislator who makes big claims about being pro-cycling. He did not feel there was any justification for requiring the jurisdictions that control the signals to tune them to detect bikes. I guess he doesn't ride much.

CB HI

Honolulu City and Hawaii State both refuse to tune the sensors for cyclist. They must consider us false detections.
The military bases on the other hand, all detect cyclist.

ro-monster

A few of the streets in downtown San Mateo, California actually have special bike sensors for the lights, with cute little bike markings on the pavement.

prathmann

Glad to see someone has developed that 'you've been detected' indicator light. I was once asked by one of the transportation guys here what signage they could put up to discourage cyclists from pushing the pedestrian buttons (they require a longer cycle time based on slow walkers making it across the street and therefore restrict traffic flow). My response was that unless cyclists got a clear indication that the sensor had actually detected them and the light would change that they'd continue to push the ped. button. He said he'd look into it but didn't know of any traffic light vendor that offered such a feature.

Notso_fastLane

Hell, a lot of the lights around here don't even detect motorcycles, forget about bicycles. In WA, if the light completes a cycle and doesn't change, or you wind up waiting more than one full minute with no change, you are allowed to proceed through the red when it's safe. I assume the same rule would apply to bicycles, but they generally can't clear an intersection as quickly as a motorcycle.

I just as soon keep pushing the crosswalk button and holding up traffic, if that's what it will take to either get them to tune the sensors, or install something like the have in Portland. I like that idea.