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What, exactly, is inside a modern traffic light?

October 18, 2010 2:03 pm

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Whilst wandering about the Newtown Pentacle one fine summer day, your humble narrator encountered a maintenance crew from Weisbach performing some sort of upkeep on a traffic signal light. This is one of the newer ones, the kind which have two switch boxes attached, of the sort that has populating Northern Blvd. for the last few years.

from hoovers.com

Specialty contractor Welsbach Electric provides outdoor electrical construction, installation, and maintenance services for utilities and public and private clients in New York City and Long Island. The company builds and installs roadway traffic signals, power stations, stadium lighting systems, underground transmission circuits, and other specialized systems. It maintains a fleet of more than 300 aerial and handling vehicles. Welsbach Electric was founded more than a century ago; it was acquired by construction group EMCOR in 1971.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Normally hidden within the steel enclosure, the intricate works and electronica were exposed for the technician’s egress, and I took the opportunity to crack out a few shots of its innards. Byzantine, complex, and strangely advanced machinery seems to govern the actions of the traffic signal- a 4 way device which handles the busy corner of 44th street and Northern Blvd. near Major Auto World.

from nyc.gov

(a) Traffic control signals. Whenever traffic is controlled by traffic control signalsexhibiting different colored lights successively, the following colors shall indicate andapply to operators of vehicles and to pedestrians, except as superseded by pedestriancontrol signals, as follows:

(1) Green alone.

(2) Steady yellow alone, dark period, or red-green combined when shownfollowing the green signal:

(3) Steady red alone:

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Holy Moley! What’s going on inside this thing? This looks like the extensive rack of electronic doodads used here at Newtown Pentacle HQ for photo retouching!

also from nyc.gov

Citywide Congested Corridors Study

Northern Boulevard from Queens Plaza to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (2.2 miles)This corridor runs east-west route in northern Queens and provides a major connection to the Queensboro Bridge. The corridor has direct access to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in the east, a location that has undergone a massive reconstruction, and to the Manhattan CBD by way of the Queensboro Bridge in the west. The reconstruction of the BQE has resulted in a change in traffic patterns at the intersection, especially for motorists wishing to access the expressway toward Brooklyn.

Northern Boulevard is a wide corridor with significant auto-related and large, stand-alone commercial retail stores. There are light pedestrian volumes and some residential land uses. The corridor is also a through truck route. There are three subway stops along this portion of Northern Boulevard where the R, V and G trains can be accessed and an N/W station one block away on 39th Ave. The Q101 and Q66 bus routes operate along a portion of the study corridor.

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Posted by Mitch Waxman

Categories: Astoria, Photowalks

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One Response to “What, exactly, is inside a modern traffic light?”

  1. […] So, mystery solved. If you want to see what’s inside of a modern NYC traffic light, I can help you out there too. […]

    By What is Inside Those N.Y.C. Drinking Water Sampling Stations? | Brownstoner Queens on December 12, 2013 at 11:00 am

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