City officials have deactivated pedestrian-crossing buttons at several major intersections around Winnipeg.
Officials said it's because they were affecting the flow of traffic.
"That might happen when one intersection needs to serve a pedestrian crossing the major street and (another) one doesn't, so what happens is one intersection is sending vehicles earlier," said Michael Cantor, traffic signals engineer with the City of Winnipeg.
That can lead to vehicles backing up at red lights, said city officials.
Pedestrians now have to wait for the traffic lights to change at regular intervals, rather than spurring the lights to change by pushing the buttons.
The city started deactivating the buttons in some locations a few years ago.
There are about 12 intersections on Kenaston Boulevard from Academy Road to Scurfield Boulevard with deactivated buttons, along with another 12 on St. Anne's Road from Kingswood Avenue to Aldgate Road. Another 15 intersections on Main Street from Euclid Avenue to Fernbank Avenue also have deactivated buttons.
Many others, however, have not been deactivated at other locations in the city.
City workers have begun the process of removing the deactivated buttons, with most of the ones in downtown already gone. City officials hope to have the rest of the deactivated buttons removed by the end of the winter.
- with a report from CTV's Jon Hendricks
