Starting Monday, February 7th, City of Yakima crews will perform annual maintenance on all traffic signals in the city.
During the next eight weeks, drivers may encounter routine traffic signal cabinet maintenance during project work hours of 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday.
While undergoing maintenance, each signal will flash red in all directions for one to five minutes before normal operation resumes.
Drivers are again reminded to always pay attention to the current status of traffic signals.
“When normal operation resumes, drivers often remain focused on the previous flashing red status and treat the intersection as a 4-way or all-way stop,” said Traffic Operations Supervisor Dan Nickoloff. “They can fail to notice that normal operation has resumed and that opposing traffic may now have a green light and continued right of way.”
The annual traffic signal maintenance project will begin Monday in the West Valley area. From there, crews will work from West to East across the city.
“Maintenance crews will try to avoid disrupting arterial traffic flow during peak traffic hours,” said Nickoloff.
Drivers are reminded that the speed limit through all traffic-related work zones within the City of Yakima is 20 miles-per-hour.
As always, the schedule for this type of project is subject to change daily dependent on weather, equipment failure, and emergencies.
For more information, contact Traffic Operations Supervisor Dan Nickoloff at 509-576-6746.