There’s been a temporary traffic light at the southeast corner of Post and Ives roads for … years now – ever since a car plowed into the old light, bringing it down. According to the state Department of Transportation, it will be almost another year before a permanent traffic light is returned there.

“Projects like these are funded through a line item in the Rhode Island Transportation Improvement Program,” said DOT’s Rose Amoros. “Because it’s not cost effective to put out individual contracts and fix one signal at a time, we develop the design plans and add several together to form a larger contract.”

Amoros said typically the time to replace a light can take one to two years. She did not explain why replacing this particular light will have taken three years by spring 2015.

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