'No Turn on Red' signs slowly disappearing from Minneapolis

It's the sign most drivers love to hate: No Turn on Red.

"It's just annoying when you're sitting there waiting for the light to turn and nobody's coming," says Brigitt Berlin.

Whether you obey can be a sign of your character.

"When there's not a car in sight, you have that moment where you're like, 'OK, I can do this and it would be alright,'" says Becky Caterine. "But then you're like, 'Where's that cop hiding?'"

You can imagine Caterine's surprise last week when she noticed the "No Turn on Red" signs at Hennepin Ave. and 31st St. in Uptown had vanished.

"I was thrilled," she says.

Why did they disappear? In 2005, the city of Minneapolis determined the signs were not always improving safety. There were also concerns about air quality and congestion.

So Minneapolis opened the door for residents to request their removal.

"Then we go out and analyze and then decide, 'Do we need them according to our guidelines or not?'" says Jon Wertjes, traffic and parking services director for Minneapolis Public Works. "If not, we remove them. If we do, we keep them and respond back to the citizen accordingly."

The city has removed 75 signs since 2005. Ten have been removed so far in 2009, including the signs at 31st and Hennepin.

"We noticed it right away," says neighbor Allison Rubin, who frequently walks through the intersection. "We almost got killed."

After a driver almost hit her recently, Rubin began to yell that you can't turn right on red. Then she realized the signs were gone. She wishes the city would bring the signs back.

The city can reject a request to remove a sign. Some of their criteria for keeping a sign:

- Unique intersection geometrics, like five-leg intersections, skewed angles, etc.

- Sight line is restricted, so it's tough to see around the corner.

- Intersection has a history of crashes.

- A high volume of pedestrians use the intersection.

Requests in Minneapolis can be filed online. For more information, click here.

Residents can also request to have "No Turn on Red" signs added to an intersection, but Wertjes says that's a pretty rare request.

"We were a little bit generous with our installation in the past and so most of our requests to date have been for removal," he says.

The city of St. Paul only has about 35 "No Turn on Red" signs, but residents there can also request to have signs removed.

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