LED Lights Causing Traffic Problems in Winnipeg

DooKey

DooKey

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The City of Winnipeg is like a lot of us that want to use the latest technology and save some energy while we're at it. However, this time it was a really bad decision to go with LED traffic lights because they don't produce enough heat to melt the snow that piles up sometimes. So what was a money saver is now going to cost them more because city crews have to go out and manually clean all the converted traffic lights. This is one of those times where new tech isn't the right tech for the job.

Last year, new LED bulbs in Windsor, Ont., were blamed for a crash when a school bus ran a red light and broad-sided a car in an intersection. Six kids, a school staff member and the drivers of the car and bus were taken to hospital. Police said the bus driver claimed the red light was covered in snow.
 
raz-0 said:
Uhh why would you do this? This issue has been known for years, and you can buy LED bulbs/fixtures that have a separate heating element for cold weather that are still cheaper to run than incandescent.
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And cheaper than a settlement.

Though I'm not sure how litigious Canadians are. I can't imagine those kid's parents would just let this slide though.
 
Known about this effect of the LED lights for sometime here in the Great Plains.
 
I'm on the side of 'that's why you don't install warm weather lights in Canada'. The engineering department deserves a kick in the tail for failing to install the correct units.
 
I say offer up a year scholarship to the first college student to come up with a working solution / repair to this.

15 min later a kid will come up with a replacement glass lense with heating elements like a rear window defroster controlled by a thermostat to turn it on once it gets close to X degrees.
 
I live in Winnipeg... and yes our city is run by morons.

This hasn't caused large scale accidents... as most people are not stupid and know when the lights don't work its a 4 way stop. It has however slowed traffic. The traffic is always slow after our first major snow and people adjust. In a week or so things will be back to normal... and our city crews will keep the lights uncovered, our city material management office have cost us more then they have saved though and has always been run by morons. It doesn't help that this is also the time of year that the local construction companies all start the stupid little piddly street work jobs in the city that involve closing bits of lanes here and there. Forcing drivers to dodge lanes back and forth on major roads. They do that because with no fail every year the material management guys award 90% of the work to 1-2 companies and they put the little jobs off till the very end of the season, cause if they can't get them done before it snows so be it. I get that the lowest bidder should win a job... but our issue in Winnipeg has always been every company bids on every single job and every year there is always one company willing to go nice and low on the majority of the work even if they aren't really capable of doing it all.

We got a new mayor a few years ago that was supposed to improve things there and hasn't really done shit. All well I'm sure its the same in half the major cities in NA. lol
 
bigdogchris said:
Well in the US, at least where I live, when the lights are all out people just speed through the intersection without stopping ... from all 4 directions. Technology can be bad but people are dumb.
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Our weather is shitty enough here that most people are not complete morons when the snow is flying and they can't see shit.... still every year its the same. When the snow first hits driving anywhere your taking your life in your hands, it takes a few days for people to switch back into winter driving mode.
 
bigdogchris said:
Well in the US, at least where I live, when the lights are all out people just speed through the intersection without stopping ... from all 4 directions. Technology can be bad but people are dumb.
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Oh crap, so much this. Here in FL, I dread seeing an intersection blinking yellow or red. I will often try to find a detour around it if I know the area. I have seen fender benders from people slowing down to stop and the idiot behind SMACKing into them. This concept of treating it like a 4-way stop is foreign to many here. :confused:
 
ir0nw0lf said:
Oh crap, so much this. Here in FL, I dread seeing an intersection blinking yellow or red. I will often try to find a detour around it if I know the area. I have seen fender benders from people slowing down to stop and the idiot behind SMACKing into them. This concept of treating it like a 4-way stop is foreign to many here. :confused:
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Pretty sure driving in general is foreign to many Floridians.
 
Rahh said:
Pretty sure driving in general is foreign to many Floridians.
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Maybe down in Central/South FL... I seem to drive just fine up here in NW FL, zero speeding tickets/accidents ever. :greedy:
 
ChadD said:
When the snow first hits driving anywhere your taking your life in your hands, it takes a few days for people to switch back into winter driving mode.
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Heh, that was the crappy/good thing thing about working in Calgary. You get a week of +15 (C for our southern neighbors) from the Chinook and everyone forgets how to winter drive, then always a few crashes next snowfall :)
 
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Light was out on the way into town this morning during rush hour. Street is 40mph and six lanes wide intersected by 4 lanes wide. Traffic lights fully out. Everyone knew how to handle it. It was actually civilized. Go North Texas!
 
I've seen many traffic lights caked in snow, LED and Incandescent. It just so happens there are rules for lights you can't see.

KrS said:
And what do we do in Ontario if you can't see a control light at an intersection people. We treat it as a four way stop, we don't just barrel through the intersection.

Bad bus driver is bad.
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That's the rule. Now the problem with the rule is that there is a staggering number of drivers on the road that have no fucking clue how an all-way stop works.
 
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raz-0 said:
Uhh why would you do this? This issue has been known for years, and you can buy LED bulbs/fixtures that have a separate heating element for cold weather that are still cheaper to run than incandescent.
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This is exactly what Denver and the suburbs did years ago. This has been a known issue with a known fix for at least 6 years.
 
Pyro411 said:
I say offer up a year scholarship to the first college student to come up with a working solution / repair to this.

15 min later a kid will come up with a replacement glass lense with heating elements like a rear window defroster controlled by a thermostat to turn it on once it gets close to X degrees.
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I say put a layer of hydrophobic paint on the surface so the water or snow won't stick. No heating element required.



 
Derp, it is not the LEDs . . . it is the dumb people!
THere are quite a few technologies out there that completely fix the issue. Some are ALREADY IN stop lights. (as people pointed out above)

Completely a non-issue for anyone one with a CLUE. (these morons just pick the first cheap in place LED replacement and are now having buyer regret because they did not think.)
 
Same issue on new vehicle headlights. Had to scrape the ice off my 2017 Explorer headlights yesterday, because warming it up did nothing to melt it.
 
I have no sympathy. Clearly this is either a failure to provide/enforce requirements to the contractor (if it was contracted) or a failure to adequately test the installation before making them wide spread.
 
Just install 500watt LED's and be done with it, lol. (wonder if that massive heatsink will fit in my PC)
500watt-led2.jpg
 
I raised this with our City Council in Owen Sound, Ontario after we went to LED traffic lights. I got a shrug.
 
KrS said:
And what do we do in Ontario if you can't see a control light at an intersection people. We treat it as a four way stop, we don't just barrel through the intersection.

Bad bus driver is bad.
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Funny, I witnessed an accident in Vaughan, Ontario, just in April with exactly this scenario. Ontario drivers are no better, trust me. You're supposed to treat it as a four way stop, but plenty of people don't follow the rules.
 
waffle said:
Coming from someone who has priced these out (construction company), their biggest fault is that they didn't go with the one that has an "on-demand" heater built in. University of Michigan designed this about 6 years ago and they are available for sale... http://www.gelighting.com/LightingW...ting/led-traffic-signals/gtx-heated-shell.jsp
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As someone who has worked on bids for the City of Winnipeg... I imagine the supply companies that bid on these, saw those. Knew they where the right product.. but read the bid and realized 20 companies where going to bid the cheapest crap they could get because the bid wasn't specific at all. So neither did they. Someone at our city material management office needs a good thunk.
 
This is why black casings are being used to cause the outershell to heat up in the sun.
 
Zepher said:
Just install 500watt LED's and be done with it, lol. (wonder if that massive heatsink will fit in my PC)
View attachment 42231
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Watched that video yesterday. If you used those LEDs drivers would have to wear dark sunglasses and ear protection. That thing sounds like it has a Delta EHE fan in it! And they are only $500 each!
 
RedWagnum said:
Watched that video yesterday. If you used those LEDs drivers would have to wear dark sunglasses and ear protection. That thing sounds like it has a Delta EHE fan in it! And they are only $500 each!
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I stumbled upon his channel a few weeks ago, dude makes some neat stuff.
 
KrS said:
And what do we do in Ontario if you can't see a control light at an intersection people. We treat it as a four way stop, we don't just barrel through the intersection.

Bad bus driver is bad.
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Yup, red means stop but absence of red doesn't mean go.
 
Montu said:
The City of Winnipeg is like a lot of us that want to use the latest technology and save some energy while we're at it. However, this time it was a really bad decision to go with LED traffic lights because they don't produce enough heat to melt the snow that piles up sometimes. So what was a money saver is now going to cost them more because city crews have to go out and manually clean all the converted traffic lights. This is one of those times where new tech isn't the right tech for the job.

Last year, new LED bulbs in Windsor, Ont., were blamed for a crash when a school bus ran a red light and broad-sided a car in an intersection. Six kids, a school staff member and the drivers of the car and bus were taken to hospital. Police said the bus driver claimed the red light was covered in snow.
Click to expand...

We had this same problem here in the winter... like 20 years ago. I remember reading it in the paper(because it didn't have a geocities website)

Christ canada, you just now are getting LED bulbs.
 
Just mount lasers around the intersection and have them aimed at each of the lenses. Color 'em as needed to prevent confusion. Time them to turn on when the light is on.

Or, just mount a natural gas line with a pilot light.
 
c3k said:
Just mount lasers around the intersection and have them aimed at each of the lenses. Color 'em as needed to prevent confusion. Time them to turn on when the light is on.
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Good heavens! You can't do that! Think of the poor birds that might fly through the LASER beam and be blinded!! Or the pollen that may drift through the beam and be destroyed. Or the air molecules that may be heated up and contribute to global warming!!! OMG OMG OMG The sky is falling!!
 
Add some motorised swivel mounts and zap license plates of red light runners :)
 
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