BATON ROUGE - A key intersection in the city’s effort to automate and upgrade was down once again Wednesday morning. 

Lights were flashing red and not cycling for hours at Perkins Road and Essen Lane. Drivers first noticed lights flashing red Tuesday night, but lights were still flashing at 6 a.m. Wednesday and seemed to still be malfunctioning during rush hour at 8:30 a.m.

Mark Armstrong, a spokesperson for the city-parish, says the traffic signal at that particular intersection had just been upgraded as part of the MOVEBR effort to synchronize more than 400 lights across the city. He blames miscommunication and a lack of public reporting as the reason for the problem going unnoticed. 

“That’s how we know about things is when people report them to us, that there’s a malfunction happening. We are upgrading them with lots of great technology, so it does inform us through the computer system if there’s an issue but not necessarily all the time," said Armstrong.

It’s been a problem since the city-parish began signal work earlier this year but has refused to blame the system. Armstrong urges any drivers who experience issues on the road to call 3-1-1.

In April, WBRZ noticed over a handful of days that intersections along Perkins had faulty traffic signals. 

The light at Perkins and Essen was fixed late Wednesday morning. Any reason for the malfunction was not given.

After reports aired on WBRZ, a viewer called in saying he reported the issue to 3-1-1 twice on Tuesday night.