Pet peeve #3 about roadway intersections

[ewmon]

(You didn't think I had only two pet peeves, did you?)

 

We’ve all experienced it — going to work or coming home, the seemingly endless stop-and-go traffic along a major roadway because the traffic signals aren’t synchronized.

 

Why not synchronize the flow of traffic in the direction that most people want to go? And once a driver “catches a wave”, it’s pretty much unimpeded driving on long stretches of roadway. I experienced synchronized traffic in my home town 40 years ago on two parallel streets used to bypass downtown traffic, and it worked like a charm.

 

The “convention” of the synchronized traffic could be indicated on the traffic signals with small signs that simply read “AM” or “PM” (they could be on the opposite sides of the same signs). Most people work first shift in big cities, so the “AM” sign would be visible to drivers entering a big city on designated roadways during the morning rush, and the “PM” sign visible to drivers leaving the city on the same roadways during the evening rush.

 

Most roadways would have this convention; yet it’s also necessary for some drivers (off-shift workers, urban people with suburban jobs, etc) to go efficiently against this convention. Thus, a few roadways would need to employ the opposite convention. So if you’re trying to drive into the city in the morning on a particular roadway and you see “PM” on the traffic lights (partly because you'll be forced to sit there and stare at some of them), then you know you’re on an opposite-convention street and need to get onto an “AM” street.

 

Make sense?