'The reason is safety'

COEUR d’ALENE — Late-night driving on U.S. 95 through Coeur d’Alene is changing.

Previously, signals through the corridor used to flash yellow or red during late night hours to allow drivers already on the highway more mobility while traffic volumes were low. That pattern has been replaced by a light activation system designed to improve safety and prioritize northbound and southbound traffic flow.

“There are a variety of factors that influenced this change,” said Damon Allen, district engineer for the Idaho Transportation Department. “The primary driving factor behind this change is safety.”

In recent years, local law enforcement agencies have reported an uptick in late night near-miss crashes at signalized intersections with more drivers entering U.S. 95 from side streets failing to yield.

“If you look at the data, moving away from any sort of nighttime flash pattern is trending nationwide, and the reason is safety,” Allen said.

According to ITD Engineer Manager Lee Bernardi, who oversees the traffic section, problems arose from drivers on side streets not realizing that northbound and southbound traffic on U.S. 95 had a flashing yellow light, rather than a flashing red.

“As drivers, we’re conditioned to treat flashing red lights one way, and flashing yellow lights entirely differently," Bernardi said. "Maintaining complex intersections that combine these two conflicting behaviors, coupled with the amount of growth this area has seen in recent years, it’s logical to transition to a solution that eliminates assumptions on the part of motorists.”

In addition, updating to a nighttime activation system will keep the corridor uniform with the functionality of other signals throughout the area managed by local highway districts and cities, officials said.

“It makes sense for drivers to have the same expectations on all primary roadways in the area regardless of jurisdiction or time of day, and eliminating the nighttime flash on U.S. 95 through Coeur d’Alene does exactly that,” Allen said.

The good news for drivers is that, despite this recent change, there should be a relatively low impact to their late-night mobility, the release said.

Thanks to recent radar and detection equipment upgrades at every intersection along U.S. 95 between Interstate 90 and Lancaster Road, each signal can operate independently of timing cycles and relies simply on a "see it and serve it" strategy.

Each night, when the signals change over to the activation schedule, northbound and southbound lights are designed to rest on green, prioritizing the primary flow of traffic. Typically, the only time the flow of U.S. 95 should be interrupted is when the signals detect either turning or cross-street traffic waiting at an intersection.

The lights will quickly transition to serve those waiting vehicles and then get right back to green, rather than having to wait through a timing cycle for each lane. Likewise, cross street traffic should notice a decrease in wait times to get through an intersection, the release said.

“Our primary goal is to keep traffic moving,” said Allen.