Saturday, November 26, 2005

What Light Through Yonder Willows Breaks?

This is old Route 66, which they recently remade into a five-traffic lanes with paved shoulders monster. If you look at the far right in the top picture you can see one of the new traffic lights. You might have to click to enlarge the photo, there is a green arrow pointing at it. What is it doing there, way off by itself? The vertical red line is the edge of the right-most traffic lane.

The picture above shows a somewhat closer view. I had to wait to Fall to take these pictures, otherwise the light was pretty much hidden by road-side brush. Once again, the vertical red line is the edge of the southbound traffic lane (I'm parked on the paved shoulder). A signal at the height of that beacon in the boonies would normally be on the post that holds the thru-signals and left-turn signals above the roadway.

Here is an even closer picture. The traffic light is perpendicular to the roadway, it is not at an angle. I think that thing below the light is the control box for the signals.
But Jim, you might say, the light is clearly intended for right-turn traffic. But no, so wrong you would be. As you can see in the picture above, the light points straight, it is not at an angle. In addition, when you are stopped at the white line on the pavement, the light is actually behind you.
I took the last photo at night. The vertical yellow line is the edge of the traffic lane. You can see how far out into the grass the signal is, it is not even close to the shoulder.

8 comments:

stan said...

Does the road make a left turn to arrive at that point? Is there a blind corner of any sort? That's the only reason I could see for having the light there, for drivers who would be unable to see the normal light, that one would tell them whether they should slow down or maintain their 85 mph speed around a blind corner.

Jim said...

Stan -- nope, straight road, flat prairie -- here is the Google map -- I actually took a picture in the summer but you could not see the light at all during the day -- Rooty and I went by today, that big thing below it is some kind of electrical cabinet, way too big to just be a signal box

157

Jim said...

ps. your "10:37 AM" comment showed up at about 5:00 PM Central Time???????

stan said...

Must be the fumes.

stan said...

And I don't even know what I meant by that. *faints*

Jim said...

it used to be that late night TV was all car ads and, in St. Louis, Becky The Carpet Lady -- now it's one room deodorizer after another --

when you faint, do your roommates step over you??

stan said...

Yes, but first they check my pockets for money.

Jim said...

why would they bother :)