New LED lights don't melt snow, so city crews out clearing traffic signals

A blast of winter meant a busy day for city crews Thursday, as they sanded and salted huge swaths of Winnipeg including icy bridges. But there's a new item on the winter storm to-do list that's still being completed, thanks to a change in the city's traffic lights. "Traffic signal lights at some intersections throughout the city ... have become partially obscured by snow frozen to the lens," Winnipeg manager of corporate communications David Driedger wrote in an email Saturday. "Over the years, the city has replaced traffic signal bulbs with LED bulbs which are not as hot and do not melt the snow as the previous bulbs did."