Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street With New Traffic Signal Tower 1920
This amateur snapshot captures the manually operated signal tower to control traffic along the busy stretch of Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street. We are looking north from 42nd Street with Temple Emanu El beyond the flags.
The tower was active in February 1920 to “control congestion,” not just for vehicles but pedestrians.
103 years later the war on congestion is still not under control.
Erroneously the blame goes to passenger cars. The actual modern culprit is a combination of lane closures or reduction consisting of restricted lanes for bikes and buses, unending construction, road repair, double parking, and a proliferation of delivery vans, trucks, busses, and for hire vehicles. Private passenger vehicles make up less than 20 percent of the traffic within the streets of Manhattan below 96th Street.
Back in 1920 before regular traffic signals were put in use, it could take 40 minutes for a vehicle to travel from 57th to 34th street on Fifth Avenue.
On February 16, 1920 a 30 day experiment to control traffic began by installing the signal tower at 42nd Street. Traffic would move one way between 57th and 34th streets; southbound on Fifth Avenue and northbound on Park Avenue.
The twelve foot police traffic signal towers would operate at 57th, 50th, 42nd, 38th and 34th streets. The towers would work by flashlights, telephones and push button signals operating between the towers. The traffic officer within the booth would convey the signal of green, yellow and red lights.
However the colors would operate a bit differently than you might imagine. Women’s Wear Daily described how the traffic signals would work.
Red – Traffic will move on Fifth Avenue and all cross traffic from the side streets shall stop behind the building lines or white limit lines when marked on the roadway.
Yellow – All traffic on Fifth Avenue as well as side streets shall stop to give clear intersections.
Green – Traffic from the side streets shall proceed.
The signals would apply not just to vehicles but pedestrian traffic. For a minute and a half traffic would flow down Fifth Avenue before the signal would change to allow a minute of crosstown traffic to flow. The cycle would continually repeat reducing travel time down Fifth Avenue to about 10 minutes between 57th and 34th Streets.
The signal towers would be operating from nine in the morning until midnight. But traffic would still run both ways before 10 A.M. and after 5 P.M.
The end goal according to Special Deputy Police Commissioner John A. Harriss, “Greater safety, convenience and comfort to drivers of vehicles as well as to pedestrians and shoppers on Fifth Avenue it is firmly believed, will be brought about by these regulations.”
The experiment was a success and permanent towers not relying on manual operators would make their debut December 14, 1922.
