To improve traffic safety along major urban arterials, the Transportation Bureau of Kaohsiung City Government took advantage of the Public Works Bureau’s road milling and resurfacing works and, from March 28 to 30, 2026, successively carried out pavement marking upgrades and signal timing adjustments at four key intersections on Guanghua 1st Road, a major north-south corridor in Lingya District, namely the Wufu, Sihwei, Cingnian, and Sanduo intersections. Dedicated left-turn lanes and protected left-turn signal phases have now been officially put into operation.
Breaking away from the conventional construction approach, this project made use of the opportunity presented by full pavement renewal to reconfigure lane allocations. At the four major intersections, the Transportation Bureau installed additional left-turn lanes, guiding left-turn traffic into dedicated left-turn lanes to address queue spillback caused by left-turning vehicles occupying through lanes, thereby allowing through traffic to move more smoothly.
In addition to the reorganization of roadway space, the Transportation Bureau further implemented protected left-turn signal phases. With a protected left-turn green indication, left-turning vehicles can complete their turns safely without interference from opposing through traffic, effectively preventing the side-impact collisions commonly seen at intersections and achieving the dual safeguard of “spatial guidance and temporal separation.” According to domestic research, the addition of left-turn auxiliary lanes at intersections can prevent left-turning vehicles from obstructing through traffic, improving through-movement efficiency by 20 percent while reducing left-turn-related crashes by 30 to 50 percent.
The Transportation Bureau stated that the optimization and improvement of intersections along Guanghua 1st Road is a concrete example of interdepartmental collaboration to advance traffic safety. Looking ahead, the Bureau will continue to monitor traffic flow changes through big data analysis and dynamically adjust signal timings to create a safer and more user-friendly road environment.
