So some cities are capable of learning, after all:
Denver is re-examining its plans for its first red light cameras after a Rocky Mountain News investigation found that the locations had short yellow lights, which could make the intersections ticket traps and accident hot spots.Traffic engineers will do a quick study of the four camera locations to determine whether the yellow signal should be increased from the legal minimum of three seconds - timing that's considered appropriate for 25 mph traffic.
This has been a problem for years in other places, and the report cites studies elsewhere are motivating this re-examination,
I have to agree with one of the commenters, though: red-light running may be a sport out here, but it could be contained by timing the lights. As near as I can tell, the lights were last recalibrated when horses were competing with cars, and the program hasn't been revisited since. If you're going against what used to be the traffic flow 25 years ago, you can hit just about every red light on a major street like Monaco.
You want to help accomplish everything the Greenies say we should be trying to? You want to improve actual fuel efficiency and cut down on pollution? You also want to help the economy be more efficient? Keep the traffic moving. And on the surface streets, that means timing the lights strategically.
Comments
It's called a traffic survey, and it costs money, probably a lot for a major metro area like Denver. They seem to do them to an limited extent, from time to time, and the evidence is the rubber hoses laying across the street, running into yellow boxes.
As an engineer, I've often thought that being a traffic engineer would be an interesting and rewarding job, except that I see little evidence that one has ever been hired.
Posted by: Billll | March 30, 2008 9:50 AM