It Appears 3rd Graders Time Idaho Traffic Lights
There’s an old saw about the engineer who designed a great machine and then lamented that people didn’t use it the right way. Human nature sometimes gets overlooked. I’ll offer an example. When the Dodge Caravan dominated the minivan market, Honda took away the crown. Designers asked who bought minivans. People with kids. The engineers then added several cup holders.
I thought about that story the other day while driving along Washington Street in Twin Falls. I was in a line of about a dozen cars when we suddenly got a red light. Because one car approached College Avenue, the light gave the driver an immediate pass by turning green. A dozen stopped and waited for one. Could the dozen have passed through and then watched the light change? Is one car idling better for the environment than twelve drivers twiddling their thumbs?
I realize the timing of lights isn’t exact, but data collection and computer programs have made it a lot easier to see patterns.
I calculated last week that I’ve probably traveled the same route to work almost 3,000 times in the previous ten years. There are only three major routes between work and home. Washington Street, Blue Lakes Boulevard, and Eastland Drive. Even when I’m driving steadily in cruise control and at the speed limit in the morning, I still catch some lights almost always green, and a couple almost always red. The latter is frustrating at 2:30 a.m. when I’m often the only car within a mile radius.
Some mornings I’ll see a light turn green less than half a block away, but quickly shift back to red when a rare car approaches.
Can’t we do better?