LIGHTS ARE ON, BUT SIGNS A PROBLEM?
For the first time, cars in the right lane on northbound Maple Avenue are allowed to turn left onto West Front Street.
First, the news: the new traffic lights at Maple Avenue and Water/White streets in Red Bank have finally been switched on.
Captain Darren McConnell, head of the traffic safety unit of the borough police department, announced the activation this afternoon.
But the recent $1.54 million installation of lights and other improvements at that intersection and the one just north of it, at Maple and West Front Street, have prompted some concern among redbankgreen readers, who think new signage could cause trouble.
The issue? Both lanes of Maple Avenue, which is a one-way for the block leading from Water/White to West Front, are now permitted to make left turns.
Or as one reader outlined it in a recent email:
Its a bit confusing when a car in the left hand lane (formerly the only lane permitting left hand turns) encounters a car in the right lane thats also making a left turn as permitted by the new signage. A car from Maple Avenues left lane which makes the left turn and then bears right onto Riverside Ave. may collide with a car from Maple Avenues right lane thats also making a left turn and intending to head west on Front Street. Or am I mistaken?
What say you, readers? Have you encountered this as a problem, or think it might become one?