Ken was a “stone thrower.” The story goes that in 1925, exactly 80 years ago, the city put up a new traffic signal with the green light on top, a salute to the Irish requested by city Alderman John “Huckle” Ryan.
The trouble began when city officials reversed that decision and put the green light on the bottom. At that point, Ken and his young friends supposedly got involved, using stones to break the red light every time it went on top. Eventually, city leaders wore down. Tipp Hill received the only traffic light in the nation where the green shines over red.
John Berry/The Post-Standard
The motorcade of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern approached the green-over-red traffic signal on Tipperary Hill.
Irish Prime Minister actually visited the light. Who knew.
Uh, normally this is one of those times when I would say, “ENGLISH MOTHER FUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT!” but you don’t even need english to see that the light position isn’t the same. That was the whole point, they changed the light position because if you’re dumb enough Irish it’s better to have green on top of a safety device.
Right, What I meant was the “GO” light is still on the bottom, it’s just different colors. Same with the “Stop” (obviously). Maybe what I said wasn’t portrayed that way.
Green is on the top of this light in Syracuse. Every other traffic light in the country has green on the bottom.
Color blind people can’t see red and green so they rely on the rule that the top light being lit up means stop and the bottom light being lit up means go. They can see a light is on but just can’t tell what color it is.
This isn’t some, “oh, what are the odds it could ever be a problem” thing either. 7-10% of the male population have red/green color blindness.
Sorry I read the blurb in the OP and not the article. I see the problem now. I thought originally the light poistions were the same, meaning Stop was still at the top, Go was still at the bottom. What they did, I see it now. My bad, what a dolt.
