Lights have to get smarter. Right on red is half the traffic flow in my area.* I always see so many situations where a green turn arrow would be appropriate, and yet the intersection is relying on the right-on-red rule instead, causing each car to pause when it should be flowing through. And even more situations where a light always stops the majority direction of traffic on what must be a fixed timer that poorly syncs with some upstream lights, because it always seems to turn red as a clump of cars arrives, even when there’s almost always no cross traffic. Maybe right on red is more dangerous in some places, and we can get rid of it, but we have to replace it with some actual civil engineering instead of making traffic even worse.
Totally agreed, and from the pedestrian side of things, civil engineering would be helpful too.
Our roads are too fucking wide for pedestrians. Give me some pedestrian islands and raised crosswalks.
I’m more interested in giving pedestrians a direct route that doesnt need to cross fast traffic.
fixed timer that poorly syncs with some upstream lights
This has gotta be the number one traffic issue in the US. Our timer lights are just garbage and we so rarely use sensor lights. Our traffic light setups always seem overcomplicated but not over engineered.
Pedestrian signals are slow too. Have to wait a long time to get the WALK signal, and its rarely necessary as it’s already illegal to not let a pedestrian go at a crosswalk if you’re turning into it, in my state.
Lights have to get smarter. Right on red is half the traffic flow in my area.* I always see so many situations where a green turn arrow would be appropriate, and yet the intersection is relying on the right-on-red rule instead, causing each car to pause when it should be flowing through. And even more situations where a light always stops the majority direction of traffic on what must be a fixed timer that poorly syncs with some upstream lights, because it always seems to turn red as a clump of cars arrives, even when there’s almost always no cross traffic. Maybe right on red is more dangerous in some places, and we can get rid of it, but we have to replace it with some actual civil engineering instead of making traffic even worse.
*±100% margin of error, sample size 1
Totally agreed, and from the pedestrian side of things, civil engineering would be helpful too.
Our roads are too fucking wide for pedestrians. Give me some pedestrian islands and raised crosswalks.
I’m more interested in giving pedestrians a direct route that doesnt need to cross fast traffic.
This has gotta be the number one traffic issue in the US. Our timer lights are just garbage and we so rarely use sensor lights. Our traffic light setups always seem overcomplicated but not over engineered.
Pedestrian signals are slow too. Have to wait a long time to get the WALK signal, and its rarely necessary as it’s already illegal to not let a pedestrian go at a crosswalk if you’re turning into it, in my state.