Driving You Crazy: Why is the left on 56th Ave. at Dallas Street a red arrow and not a flashing yellow?

DENVER — Tom from Denver writes, “What’s driving you crazy? I have noticed on 56^th Ave, most of the lights have a yellow flashing left turn arrow, however, the light at 56th and Dallas is the ONLY light that doesn’t going into the north Central Park neighborhood. The most annoying part is that on the opposite side of the same light, turning south, drivers do have a yellow flashing light. Why is this? Oncoming traffic is easily visible and it would be easy to allow for drivers to turn into the neighborhood.”

When I went out there to take a look Tom, it seemed to me that with fairly light traffic during most of the day and good visibility, it would seem that a flashing yellow could be used there safely. Traffic engineers with the City of Denver disagree, saying that making a left turn using the green arrow only is by design. They told me it’s because of the shared bike path that runs between Northfield High School and Inspire Elementary School.

Part of the bike path crosses Dallas Street on the north side of 56th Ave. Since Denver traffic engineers are treating this shared used path the same as they do a two-way bikeway, they made the left turn from eastbound 56^th Ave. to Dallas Street a protected crossing. The goal is to minimize the potential for conflicts between people on bikes that are crossing Dallas Street on the path, and drivers turning left who may not be looking for path users.

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There is no such restriction for westbound drivers on 56^th making a right turn onto northbound Dallas St.

Generally, Denver traffic engineers told me they look at many factors to determine left-turn operations including overall visibility, number of conflicting through-lanes, speeds, adjacent facilities and crash data. I looked at Denver’s Open Data Catalog of crashes there and found there were only 37 over the past 5 years.

I asked if the city would consider ever changing this left to a flashing yellow from a red. They told me no, saying since the shared use path is there they will keep this left turn as a protected-only turn as a crash prevention safe system that aligns with Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure safety and multi-modal goals.

Your only options around the prohibitive left is to turn left early at Central Park Boulevard or late at Galena Street and get to your neighborhood that way.

Denver7 Traffic Expert Jayson Luber says he has been covering Denver-metro traffic since Ben-Hur was driving a chariot. (We believe the actual number is over 25 years.) He's obsessed with letting viewers know what's happening on their drive and the best way to avoid the problems that spring up. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or listen to his award winning Driving You Crazy podcast on any podcast app including iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Podbean, or YouTube.