reaperexpress
Senior Member
This is what we should be doing. Other jurisdictions allow the left turns to occur at the end of the light cycle. All our separated ROWs should have straight through movements followed by the signal conflicting turns.
The default order of signal phases has absolutely zero effect on the delay experienced by transit. It's the same green time, just at a different part of the cycle. To avoid getting caught delayed by left turn phases, streetcars need the ability to move the left-turn phase on-demand using Phase Rotation or Phase Insertion, which I described in this post in the Traffic Signals thread. Toronto's priority system is capable of doing both, but Transportation Services hardly ever approves either one. There is currently only 1 intersection in Toronto where phase insertion is enabled to allow streetcars to avoid delays from the left turn signals: Spadina & Lakeshore. The signal can serve streetcars both before and after the left turn phase, depending on when the streetcar shows up. Unfortunately that's the only priority feature enabled there (streetcars are not allowed to extend the green for Spadina or shorten the green for Lakeshore) so streetcar delays are still very high at the intersection.