(OPEN) SINGLE Direction LPI Causing Near Misses (No Planning/Review/Thought Before Implementing)?

This is at Dundas St W & Humber Hill Ave in Toronto, Ontario.
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I couldn't believe that these safety issues weren't reviewed and looked at before Toronto added this "adaptive" leading pedestrian interval. They really should have made westbound left turns fully protected.
This is a T-intersection.
The side street which is Humber Hill Ave, has a leading pedestrian interval which I strongly support!
For the main road which is Dundas St W, eastbound has a leading pedestrian interval and westbound doesn't. If someone triggers the westbound protected/permissive left turn green arrow, then neither eastbound or westbound receive a leading pedestrian interval for that cycle.
The dangerous part, is when the protected/permissive left turn phase doesn't activate. Eastbound receives a leading pedestrian interval but westbound doesn't.
Because westbound drivers turning left have a green ball, they try to dangerously jump ahead of oncoming traffic, during the eastbound leading pedestrian interval. This can even put pedestrians at risk.
The city seems to think it's not possible for westbound to have an LPI because there's no crosswalk at the north leg at the intersection.
*** To fix this in my opinion, I would change the westbound protected/permissive left turn to fully protected, change the eastbound leading pedestrian interval to a leading through arrow interval, and keep the existing northbound leading pedestrian interval as is!

[@TheTrafficTech]

If you’re using Econolite, you can program both ped phases (2 & 6 or 4 & 8) and set the pedestrian detector to call both so both directions get an LPI. Even if it’s a “ghost” phase, you can fix this. I don’t implement them with protected or protected permissive arrows unless I call the left turn arrow and keep the green ball red. You can also write logic to force the opposite direction to stay red under certain circumstances like a single direction LPI.

[@EngMadison]

Turn off color check if you are using a dummy ped phase. Otherwise the signal goes into flash.

[@TheTrafficTech]

@@EngMadison I always have color check off anyways! Good point!

[@Gentrol]

Well done Toronto! You've screwed up another intersection.

[@WestCoastTrafficSignals]

Wow, just awful! If they’re going to keep the permissive phasing, they need to at least hold both directions red during the LPI to prevent the left-turn conflict, otherwise what’s the point of the LPI….

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

Yikes that's some dangerous (lack of) design

[@Gentrol]

That's unfortunately what I'm used to in Toronto!

[@EngMadison]

I remember when we first started installing LPI's, I quickly realized you needed to have ped phases call the opposite ped phase if you didn't have any left turn signals (FYA, or protected only). Saw this once and said nope!

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

When I worked in the Netherlands we would always program an explicit constraint in the controller if there were permissive left turns: - If both directions have permissive left turns, the greens need to start simultaneously. (There are no protected-permissive lefts in NL as far as I'm aware) - If one direction has a permissive left turn, that direction needs to start simuntaneously or later than the opposite direction.

[@EngMadison]

@@OntarioTrafficMan flashing yellow arrows are fine since they're an overlap of the phase with the LPI (usually). It's those 5 section head configurations that are a pain! (Side note, European controllers seem way more logic driven than NA controllers)

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

@@EngMadison Yeah European controllers are completely logic driven. There is only the most rudamentary control structure, then all the rest of the phase servicing is based on the conflict matrix and manually-specified constraints such as the ones I listed. If you're interested, I wrote an article in the Winter 2023-2024 edition of the ITE Canada Transportation Talk magazine (page 26) in which I talk a bit about how European controllers work. It's available for free online.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

@@EngMadison I don't think a flashing yellow left turn arrow would resolve the situation in this video though. The left turning driver on the side that gets green first would still see a permissive turn with oncoming traffic sitting still, only for that traffic to start moving just after the driver decides to turn left.

[@EngMadison]

@OntarioTrafficMan they do because the FYA doesn't start until the opposing green starts. On top of that, you can program an additional delay. So a 4 section PPLT overlap solves all this.