German traffic light stays red for 28 years (2015)
I know this light personally. I live there. It is no problem for the casual driver, as Dresden is one of those rare german towns with US "Rechtsabbieger" rules. You may turn right even with red lights.
And the german law clearly states if one entries to a crossing has lights, all others have to get lights also. This is the only case in Germany where this law makes no sense.<p>But the best is the last sentence: They do change all the green and yellow light bulbs also in their regular maintenance schedule. The justification goes like this: Bulbs mostly wear due to hours in usage, yes. Red and Yellow are not used, so should not wear, and thus should not be replaced. But hours can not be the only cause for problems, and while we are there and there's a budget for replacement, we'll do it all together. Not really a just technical justification, just a practical one.<p>We do the same in software also all the time. There are two principles: 
1. Make minimal changes to cause only minimal effect. 
2. Harmonize your changes to avoid unnecessary asymmetries.
They went with 2.
You can fight the system, or you can live with it. In this case there is no reason to rock the boat.<p>[Update:]
The lawful alternative would have been to close this crossing for the Ziegelstraße into the Güntzstraße. People would have protested over this sillyness. And Dresden has enough budget surplus to do such things. In fact Dresden was very lucky in its real-estate deals, where they sold all of their old residential apartment complexes to a US company Fortress for billions: 
<a href="http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/milliardendeal-dresden-verkauft-wohnungsbestand-und-wird-schuldenfrei-a-405194.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/milliardendeal-dresden-verk...</a>
Normally such deals turn out bad and unprofitable, but in this case not. Both parties are happy.