Skills or StupidityToday I was stuck behind a brand new Mercedes driving strangely slow against the normal flow of traffic. When I finally pbutted the vehicle...
Sherman L. Cahal
Thats why govts. are spending big bucks to upgrade signal systems. Take Cary NC for example. They just finished an upgrade of their system, which has maybe 60 or 70 signals or something like that, and it cost several million dollars. Older signals do not have the capeability to "talk" to other signals next to it, which is an integral part of signal coordination. Thus, the controllers and signals must be upgraded. Communications cable must be routed to connect the system, or wireless communication equipment must be used. And of course all of this has to be designed first. And implemented, and tested, and someone has to spend time figuring out timing plans, etc.
Now, let me tell you, driving through Cary is noticibly better ever since they turned on some of the corridors. Most of the time, you just don't stop at signals, because they are green when the platoon of cars arrives. Some lights are "planned stops", meaning the light is purposely made to be red when the vehicles start arriving, in order to get the vehicles to bunch up and form a platoon (usually planned stops are after a long gap between signals), but the signal will only stay red long enough to collect a platoon and then it turns green shortly thereafter. The only downside is that if you are on a side street, you often don't get "immediate service" like you used to.
Ways to save gasWhat about buying a more fuel efficient car? I went from a Jeep Cherokee to a Subaru WRX. About the same amount of fun, in a different way, but better...
My point is that coordinated signal systems are great, but they are expensive.
