Traffic Light District

On Thursday, after many years of driving through the intersection of Sophia Street & E 12th Avenue, I had to stop at a red light at said intersection for the very first time. Hundreds of times I've driven through that intersection and not once have I had to come to a stop at it. Wow, what good luck you've got, you may be thinking. Well, no. Sometime within the past fortnight, brand new pedestrian-controlled traffic lights were activated at that location. There are already traffic lights one block west, at busy Main Street and E 12th Avenue, and one block east, at busy Kingsway & E 12th Avenue.

Six or seven years ago I remember reading that the city of Vancouver reviews several dozen potential locations for new traffic lights (likely all pedestrian-controlled), based on amount of use and safety, and that about a dozen new traffic lights are installed yearly. The area surrounding the aforementioned new traffic lights has seen, and is still seeing, much development which will see a higher population in the area, so maybe the lights are a good idea. Though I wonder why people can't just walk one block east or west to one of the intersections with already-existing traffic lights.

What I'd like to know is, Are any traffic lights being removed? Or is it just a matter of a few more years before every single intersection in the city includes traffic lights?