Greeley Gets New Style Of Traffic Light Along Hwy 85 – More Or Less Confusing

If you've spent some time driving around Greeley then you have inevitably been through the intersections along Hwy 85. They were borderline confusing and had more old broken glass and car wreckage in them than any other intersections I have seen. Well, now that's about to change but it might be a bit confusing at first.

This massive 2.5 mile project stretching from Hwy 34 to 5th Street started last June and is scheduled for completion this August. The highway as many know is being widened, the medians have been removed, and some intersections will receive these new traffic signals I speak of.

You'll see new gutters, guardrails and curbs. Cdot even added a new fancy right turn lane at 5th Street to now safely merge into Hwy 85 traffic. To sweeten the pot, the bridge over the Poudre River will be repaired, and the roadway will get a face lift and tummy tuck between 5th Street and US 34.

But be careful of these new fangled lights coming in.  They are designed for safety and to help slow traffic down but if you've never seen them before it might be more dangerous trying to figure out what it's telling you. The lights are uncommon but a few can be found around Fort Collins, Boulder and a few other places with plans to change them statewide as money becomes available.

The new lights will only replace the existing left-turn lights that use the green, yellow and red arrows at 5th, 8th and 16th street. These new lights will still give you a green arrow but when "through traffic" is moving on a green, that yellow arrow will flash reminding you to "yield" on that traffic and proceed when safe.

Oh, well that's easy. Yield to oncoming cars when turning left. Shouldn't be too hard, just don't let that flashing yellow arrow throw ya.