Traffic lights at two intersections along Darby Lane have been determined unwarranted recently by the DOTD, but the agency is not averse to other traffic control solutions for the area.

“I’ve made numerous requests for a light at 182 and Darby and LA 31 and Darby,” said District 1 City Councilwoman Therese Segura. “We continue to get denied.”

Segura said she has been working on getting the signals since she got into office in 2004. Mayor Hilda Curry made the same requests as councilwoman for District 1, Curry said.

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Segura spoke to state Rep. Taylor Barras, D-New Iberia, and state Sen. Troy Hebert, D-Jeanerette, and got them to make a request to the state Department of Transportation and Development for lights at the two intersections. She recently received a letter denying the request from Gordon E. Nelson, DOTD assistant secretary of operations.

“At this time, the intersections do not meet legally mandated signal warrants,” Nelson said in the letter.

The warrants Nelson was referring to, said DOTD District 3 Administrator Bill Fontenot, are in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. He said criteria are national and include data such as traffic volume, number of left turns, how much traffic is delayed and crash information.

“It all goes into an extensive study or analysis to determine is a signal is warranted,” said Fontenot, adding that the warrants are based on statistical analysis and engineering practices to managing traffic.

“What the layperson doesn’t understand is that to install a signal that’s not warranted can make things less safe,” he said.

Fontenot said traffic lights are often popularly considered a panacea, but that “professional traffic control engineers are sworn to follow the law just like doctors would be,” and that the law does not provide for a traffic signal in this case.

Fontenot said the two intersections were “really not that close” to meeting the warrants.

“If it’s close, we give it the benefit of the doubt,” Fontenot said. “These were not on the verge.”

New Iberia’s office of planning and zoning commissioned a study of the intersections by Dean Tekell Consulting in 2006 for an apartment complex that has since been relocated.

The study determined that between 5 and 6 p.m. there were 1,302 vehicles at the intersection of Louisiana 182 and Darby. Less than 3 percent of vehicles at the intersection turn from Darby onto 182. Those vehicles typically experience 43 seconds of delay. Average delay at the intersection was 18 seconds.

The study found that 1,201 vehicles enter the intersection at Louisiana 31 and Darby between 5 and 6 p.m. Vehicles turning left from Darby onto Louisiana 31 made up more than 10 percent of traffic and typically experienced 82 seconds of delay. Average delay was 52 seconds per vehicle.

Warrnat three, the warrant for peak hour traffic, however, says that it shall be applied “only in unusual cases.”

Warrant three “doesn’t carry much weight for this type of intersection,” said Fontenot. He said the special circumstances to which the manual refers are mostly shift changes at high volume plants, or anything that would affect peak hour traffic more than a normal rush hour.

Fontenot also said, however, that Tekell’s study seems to contain information DOTD does not have. He said they don’t have the full report, so he is not sure how the numbers break down, but while it seems to him DOTD and Tekell agree that warrants are not clearly met at this time, he will ask Tekell about it.

The study said the intersection at Louisiana 31 and Darby Lane operated less effectively than Darby at Louisiana 182 and called it “stressed.” It said “a traffic signal, a roundabout (if right-of-way permits) or other remedial measure should be considered” at the intersection.

Fontenot said the intersection at Darby and Louisiana 31 might benefit from a turning lane on Darby, which the city would take care of, as it’s a city street, but the physical conditions there are “pretty tight.”

Roundabouts are not something DOTD has looked at for this intersection, Fontenot said, but are something that could be explored.

Segura said that the area at Darby and Louisiana 31 so compact there is not room for a turning lane. “It’s on top of houses,” she said.

Segura said she is still working on the issue and suggested District 1 residents or concerned people write to the DOTD or to the area’s state representatives.

Fontenot said that while DOTD’s decision is purely fact-based, he never discourages people from communicating with DOTD or their representatives.

“They need to come up with some kind of resolve to those two intersections. It’s just insanity,” said Segura. “It’s only going to get worse.”

Fontenot added that “We feel it’s part of the mission of the DOTD to monitor” on an ongoing basis.

But for now, “the numbers don’t yet conclude that it (a traffic signal) is warranted at this time,” Fontenot said.