- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
Because who needs traffic calming measures and bollards and roundabouts, right?
If anybody reads the article, this initiative seems to be results driven. They say that they’ve used this “rest on red” strategy where they punish speeders by giving them more red lights, and that I think it was in Albuquerque where they successfully reduced the average driving speed from 39 to 30 on a road using this strategy.
I grew up near a road that I swear did the opposite of this. Drive the limit, and you hit every light, drive 5 over the limit, and you get endless green. Didn’t help that the road was a horrible stroad that visually facilitated cars going easily 20 over. Coincidentally the local police also kept like 75% of the on-duty cops on that road.
Light timing has got to be really complicated, so the approach seems like it couldn’t work everywhere, but where it can be implemented, it seems like a no brainer.
I’ll argue that don’t giving RAM or Ford truck to man-child could do more good than augmenting the number of green light
As a bicycle, I’m all about it. Imagine lights timed to a 20-25mph speed limit? tits.
Obv, physical traffic calming are required as well and I’m all for timing the lights to a less dangerous speed limit.
The “flow of green” thing doesn’t work for a couple reasons. One, imagine one driver doing the speed limit catching every green light. Now imagine, 2 blocks back, there’s another car doing the speed limit, but they’re catching reds because they’re behind the target car. So they are now incentivised to speed to catch up to the car that is reaping the benefit, so they too, can reap the benefit.
But then you get local businesses saying that if someone never has to stop, what they pay extra to be on a corner and run advertisements on billboards or other signage isn’t paying off because people aren’t being stopped there. They might as well pay less to not be on the corner. By letting traffic flow free, people are getting more miles out of their tyres and brake pads, so your auto body shops are losing money, too. On top of that, ICE engines use more gas when they have to stop and start, which is why most people can go, at most, 1-2 lights before stopping, because your local city government doesn’t think you’re paying enough for petrol.
The “flow of green” thing doesn’t work for a couple reasons. One, imagine one driver doing the speed limit catching every green light. Now imagine, 2 blocks back, there’s another car doing the speed limit, but they’re catching reds because they’re behind the target car. So they are now incentivised to speed to catch up to the car that is reaping the benefit, so they too, can reap the benefit.
What….?
If you’re stopped at one red light, all the others will be timed to be green when you get to the next. If you speed from the red, you’ll only hit the next red. You seem to not comprehend how the system works.
These systems have been around for decades already.
The downside is if you’re traveling against the traffic (like leaving downtown in the morning), you’ll hit every light.



