Gus Khankarli, director of Dallas' Department of Transportation, said an increase of so-called "rodent-related challenges" are causing traffic light problems.
“This is a new challenge that we are facing. We have rodents now starting to get in our traffic signal cabinets,” he said.
Rats can chew through wood, concrete and even metal. Wiring appears to be on the rat menu as well. These pesky creatures are damaging the controllers that ensure our traffic lights switch from green to yellow to red.
Other factors messing up traffic lights include corrosion, natural disasters and technical challenges.
Khankarli's team is replacing broken and older signals in Dallas. Since 2019, his team has replaced more than 50 traffic lights that were constructed before 1980 and installed over 100 new ones.
“The importance we want to contentiously see progression and decline in the number of traffic signals before 1980,” he said.
Khankarli said that the city has also installed new technology that allows his team to see all traffic signals in the city. This will help the department identify which signals are not working and fix them quicker.
Got a tip? Alejandra Martinez is a Report For America corps member for KERA News. Email Alejandra at amartinez@kera.org. You can follow Alejandra on Twitter @alereports.
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