Yellow and red flashing lights can be commonplace to some drivers, especially during late-night hours. But what about a light that flashes red and yellow all day, every day?

  • Light at Masterson Street and US 1 in Melbourne has always flashed
  • Melbourne's Paul Gray says flashing light makes it dangerous to turn

Some Melbourne-area drivers are fed up with what they say are unnecessary dangers. Paul Gray writes in to us this week:

“There is an intersection in Melbourne that has traffic lights installed, but they have been in flash mode for the last several years. The intersection of Masterson Street and U.S. 1 is a potentially dangerous place especially during rush hour, when drivers are trying to turn onto U.S. 1. I personally have witnessed several near misses here. Can this light be turned on to be fully functional?” Gray wrote in.

Gray is just one of many residents who use the intersection of U.S. 1 and Masterson Boulevard in Melbourne daily.

“I’ve lived here in the Melbourne area since 2004 just after the hurricanes,” Gray said. “And I remember driving back and forth, this light is flashing all the time. It doesn't work at all.”

When you are driving on U.S. 1 on a non-peak hour, you might not think much of it. You simply have to drive through some flashing yellow lights. However, if you are turning left onto the road from Masterson, it's a different story entirely. The lights are constantly flash red.

“It’s kind of strange seeing a stop light flashing like that without a stop sign there,” Gray said.

Gray says you're taking your life into your own hands if you try and make a left turn onto U.S. 1.

“The evening rush hour is the worst. That’s when people are trying to rush home. And they are not really paying too much attention to the traffic laws. And then someone gets in here and tries to make a left turn, they can’t! Because there is so much traffic,” Gray said.

And it's times like that when drivers get desperate and take chances.

“I’ve seen a lot of near-misses here because of people trying to get through a tiny hole of traffic,” Gray said.

These unsafe conditions have residents like Gray avoiding the area by taking much slower back roads. In Gray's mind, there are only a couple of solutions to make this a much safer location.

“I’d like to see them either activate the light or just take it down completely if they are not going to use it,” Gray said.

Anything is better than the sense of dread that local drivers have simply making a left out a residential community.

“I hope I don’t get hit,” he said.

Although the City of Melbourne maintains the traffic lights in that area, it would be a Florida Department of Transportation decision whether or not to activate the signal. Here is what FDOT had to say:

“We spoke to our traffic operations team about the intersection and we’re told that the overhead flashing beacon was installed in 1991 to enhance visibility and awareness of the intersection. The traffic volumes on Masterson at that time and at our last count were well below thresholds required for a full traffic signal. We will perform a study to determine whether conditions have changed enough to consider changes to traffic control at this intersection,” explains FDOT.

If you have a traffic issue you want addressed, write in to Ryan’s Traffic Inbox. Go to www.mynews13.com/trafficinbox and fill out the simple form.

 

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