Crew will look into light malfunction on Naperville Road

Q. The traffic light at Naperville Road and Blanchard Circle/Blanchard Street in Wheaton appears to periodically get out of sync. When it does, it provides northbound traffic on Naperville Road with a left-turn green arrow for about 30 seconds even though no car is turning left. On southbound Naperville Road, traffic has to sit there and wait. This occurs every few months, and it's annoying. Isn't there any type of monitoring of traffic lights, or is it up to the public to report issues?

--J.C., Wheaton

A. Dave Ziesemer, traffic engineer in DuPage County's transportation division, reports the Naperville Road and Blanchard Street/Blanchard Circle intersection has had three signal malfunction reports in the last two years, and the reports were identical to your description.

"In both cases, the signal was found to be operating normally when we arrived," said Ziesemer.

Random occurrences of this type are normally associated with a faulty wire loop vehicle detector that's embedded in the pavement, or a shorted-out circuit board in the traffic signal control box nearby, according to Ziesemer.

"We'll investigate and isolate the problem," said Ziesemer.

Each of the county's 300 traffic signals are field inspected once every two months by certified electricians that the county contracts with to do maintenance.

Proper operation of electronic equipment, lights, sensors and safety devices are checked.

"Signal malfunction reports generally arrive from law enforcement agencies and concerned citizens," Ziesemer said. "Citizen calls help us out a lot."

According to officials, response times to reported failures are generally within 30 minutes.

To report a signal malfunction on a DuPage County roadway, call the Division of Transportation at (630) 407-6900.

-- Andrew Smith