BERWICK, N.S. – Motorists travelling through downtown Berwick late at night, and in the early mornings, will no longer have to worry about getting caught with long waits at one particular set of traffic lights.
The Town of Berwick has implemented changes to traffic lights at the intersection of Commercial Street and Union Street, where all lights will now flash red from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily.
Town superintendent Tom Harding says this change will effectively turn the lights into a four-way stop, with red lights meaning traffic must come to a full stop from any direction when approaching the intersection.
“You stop, look both ways, and if no one’s coming and it’s safe, then you go – as simple as that,” he says.
Harding says this idea was tabled by Berwick’s chief administrative officer Michael Payne, who’d received complaints from drivers passing through the intersection when no other traffic was present.
Harding says the lights, which are operated by pressure sensors beneath the pavement, were not changing, and led cars to sit idle for up to five minutes at the intersection despite being the only car present.
“We have a lot of folks working for Michelin, or other shift work jobs, who want to stop in town for coffee or gas. And there is other traffic – snow plows, for example – that comes through at those odd times,” says Harding.
“We spoke with people and determined it would be nicer for these drivers to just come to a stop and go again.”
Harding says the town determined this wait was the result of a faulty sensor, but that replacing it would costly and inefficient, as it would require that the entire intersection be ripped up. Harding says the red lights were thus seen as a simpler solution, and one that had already proven effective in Kentville, where lights have flashed red “for years” at multiple intersections.
Harding says the town feels the new system will not create confusion for drivers since another intersection change at Commercial Street and Main Street December 2017 was also “a change people quickly got used to, and now love.”
“Some people don’t like change, but once they’re used to it, and see how this helps with traffic flow and makes everything better for the travelling public, it makes sense to them,” says Harding.
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