It wasn’t the best of times for a set of traffic lights at a major intersection to malfunction but the Town of Stephenville was still dealing with it from Friday to Tuesday afternoon.
The traffic lights having the problems are at the intersection of Main and Queen streets in Stephenville and town manager Mike Campbell is asking drivers to the patient.
He said electricians with EFCO Enterprises were working hard to try and get the lights working; however, it’s not an easy task at times when you have three different sets of traffic lights in the town, all of different vintages.
He said during the weekend they were able to eliminate the controller that operates the lights as the source of the problem. The suspected cause was a short resulting from chafing of wiring in the light heads brought on by age and wind.
About 80 per cent of the wiring had already been replaced on Tuesday afternoon and the work was continuing to try and get the lights back in working order.
Campbell said he had been monitoring traffic at the intersection and it seemed to be flowing pretty well but drivers need to be patient and yield the right of way to those who get to the stop sign before them.
Campbell said they were very close to a resolution of the problem late Tuesday afternoon and that the electricians would be going back at it on Wednesday morning.
He wasn’t aware of any accidents at the intersection since the problem came up on Friday.
