Span-wire signal installations

[Chris Bertram]

Streetview tells us that there is a set of traffic signals in Bradford with overhead signals supported by span-wire.

Span-wire is common in the States and in Canada, especially in states/provinces that favour high-level signals for most purposes, and nearly always on the far side of the junction of course. But here, we have tended to prefer totem poles, mast-arms or gantries. Are there any other span-wire installations in the UK? Should this method of installation be considered more often?

[scynthius726]

I also notice a mix of nearside and farside pedestrian signals on an English installation there... naughty naughty!

[Euan]

Would the spanning traffic lights over the clockwise A6181 really be of much use to anybody given that the wire spans almost directly above the stop line? Even an HGV driver would struggle to see the lights if they were at the front of the queue of traffic. The lights spanning the anticlockwise side seem fine though, they are easily visible on the opposite side of the pedestrian crossing to where the traffic queues up.

[Chris5156]

There used to be a span wire in Leeds, across Great George Street, but it's gone now, replaced with a conventional mast arm. The two anchors for it are still mounted on the brickwork of the building on the left. It must have vanished more than a decade ago because Streetview from 2008 still shows the mast arm.

And of course the UK's first traffic lights, at Prince's Square in Wolverhampton, were a single four-way signal head strung from a wire.

Would the spanning traffic lights over the clockwise A6181 really be of much use to anybody given that the wire spans almost directly above the stop line? Even an HGV driver would struggle to see the lights if they were at the front of the queue of traffic. The lights spanning the anticlockwise side seem fine though, they are easily visible on the opposite side of the pedestrian crossing to where the traffic queues up.

Like all overhead traffic signals in the UK, their purpose is to be visible to traffic approaching the stop line, so that the lights are seen from far away, not to be used by traffic at it. The signals at the roadside are for drivers waiting at the stop line.

[nickoli]

Streetview tells us that there is a set of traffic signals in Bradford with overhead signals supported by span-wire.

Span-wire is common in the States and in Canada, especially in states/provinces that favour high-level signals for most purposes, and nearly always on the far side of the junction of course. But here, we have tended to prefer totem poles, mast-arms or gantries. Are there any other span-wire installations in the UK? Should this method of installation be considered more often?

I don't know the answer to any of those questions, but I did like that there are two wires to hold them steady. American ones typically hang precariously from one, and blow about in the wind - not as badly as you'd expect, but more than I feel comfortable with.

American example: https://goo.gl/maps/touV5jPT1o92