ON-RAMP

Pigeons busily feathering their nests under traffic signal visors may be pastoral diversions for motorists at red lights, but to L.A.’s signal servants, the birds are just another streetlight predator. Signal crews must also contend with ants, lizards and gophers, all of which are a threat to the city’s 4,000 traffic signals, says Senior Traffic Signal Supervisor Jim Ferris.

Those critters have a taste for the insulation on the wires connecting signals to their underground pullboxes, and their noshing can short a signal in minutes. But no animal has the destructive power of a human, particularly one in a car. Each month, the city replaces about 10 controller boxes (the gray-green curbside cabinets) with which vehicles have made an abrupt acquaintance. Drivers also knock over about 30 signal standards each month. All told, the city spends about $40 million on signal equipment each year.

With an 8,000-hour lifespan, each of the city’s 84,000 signal bulbs provides about a year’s worth of illumination; signals last seven to 10 years. One robust specimen in the Sepulveda Basin continued to beam brightly underwater during last February’s flood, sending its tri-colored message to any pigeons that might have been, uh, swimming by.