Traffic control in Illinois: red wave?

Hello,

Living in NW Chicago suburbs, I notice that in the recent years the traffic
lights seem to begin working in a mode that I would call "red wave",
contrary to the "green wave" system that ensures green light on all
intersections to a vehicle that moves along the street with the right speed.
What I observe here is kinda reverse: a vehicle moving along the street in
my place, meets about 8 red lights at 10 intersections. Very often it can be
seen that the light at an intersection is green to the direction where
there's no cars at the moment, because those cars are waiting at the
previous intersection; and then it turns red just as that previous
intersection gives green and the cars from it reach this intersection. In
fact, in most cases at most intersections the stopped cars are yielding to
noone. Another widespread effect is too long green light for small rural
streets crossing a large street; those rural streets almost never have more
than 2 cars, but when they get green light, it's for 1 minute.

I talked to our city public works official, and he confirmed that it was his
observation too - in the last 3 years or so, the percentage of red lights
met by a random driver, has significantly increased, and is definitely much
higher than the statistical 50%. He suggested that, as conspiracy theory as
it sounds, this might be done intentionally, with the lobbying of gas
companies. Obviously, a car that is stopped/started along 1 mile route, will
consume at least twice more gas than if it was moving without one stop.
Maybe more. Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but how else could you explain
80% of the red lights if not by intention?

Driving in other states, I found that nowhere the number of the red lights
encountered during the driving was even approaching what everyone sees in
Illinois. Somewhere, in Phoenix AR for instance, there was a noticeable
green wave in effect, so I was driving many intersections without a single
stop. In some places, the timing of the traffic lights was proportional to
the size of the road; somewhere it probably was not controlled, so it was
like 50/50; but nowhere did I see 8 red lights out of 10 possible - nowhere
except in my state, specifically, in NW Chicago suburbs.

I wonder, did anyone else notice anything like that?


regards

In article > , bat wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Living in NW Chicago suburbs, I notice that in the recent years the traffic
> lights seem to begin working in a mode that I would call "red wave",
> contrary to the "green wave" system that ensures green light on all
> intersections to a vehicle that moves along the street with the right speed.
> What I observe here is kinda reverse: a vehicle moving along the street in
> my place, meets about 8 red lights at 10 intersections.

That's just the way it is in many chicago suburbs, especially the NW
burbs. I believe it is simply careless timing of the light and that they
are all independently sensor driven. It's just more built in frustration
to driving.

> Very often it can be
> seen that the light at an intersection is green to the direction where
> there's no cars at the moment, because those cars are waiting at the
> previous intersection; and then it turns red just as that previous
> intersection gives green and the cars from it reach this intersection. In
> fact, in most cases at most intersections the stopped cars are yielding to
> noone. Another widespread effect is too long green light for small rural
> streets crossing a large street; those rural streets almost never have more
> than 2 cars, but when they get green light, it's for 1 minute.

And when they have 20 cars the green will be very short. yep yep...

> I talked to our city public works official, and he confirmed that it was his
> observation too - in the last 3 years or so, the percentage of red lights
> met by a random driver, has significantly increased, and is definitely much
> higher than the statistical 50%. He suggested that, as conspiracy theory as
> it sounds, this might be done intentionally, with the lobbying of gas
> companies. Obviously, a car that is stopped/started along 1 mile route, will
> consume at least twice more gas than if it was moving without one stop.
> Maybe more. Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but how else could you explain
> 80% of the red lights if not by intention?

I just blame lazy carelessness. I've found ways to time some lights into
another but the problem is other drivers get in the way of it. Often,
catching red after red is due to drivers who don't even understand the
concept of timing their acceleration (sometimes faster, sometimes slower,
sometimes just normal) to time one green to the next. Since one never can
get into the green wave because of them, it's red after red even where
the lights are halfway decently timed.

> Driving in other states, I found that nowhere the number of the red lights
> encountered during the driving was even approaching what everyone sees in
> Illinois. Somewhere, in Phoenix AR for instance, there was a noticeable
> green wave in effect, so I was driving many intersections without a single
> stop. In some places, the timing of the traffic lights was proportional to
> the size of the road; somewhere it probably was not controlled, so it was
> like 50/50; but nowhere did I see 8 red lights out of 10 possible - nowhere
> except in my state, specifically, in NW Chicago suburbs.

Another issue is that smaller streets seem to have an over-riding sensor.
I've seen lights where a single car pulls up to the light on the small
street and immediately the light changes to red for the major street.

> I wonder, did anyone else notice anything like that?

Yes...

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, bat wrote:

> Living in NW Chicago suburbs, I notice that in the recent years the
> traffic lights seem to begin working in a mode that I would call "red
> wave", contrary to the "green wave" system that ensures green light on
> all intersections to a vehicle that moves along the street with the
> right speed. What I observe here is kinda reverse: a vehicle moving
> along the street in my place, meets about 8 red lights at 10
> intersections. Very often it can be seen that the light at an
> intersection is green to the direction where there's no cars at the
> moment, because those cars are waiting at the previous intersection; and
> then it turns red just as that previous intersection gives green and the
> cars from it reach this intersection. In fact, in most cases at most
> intersections the stopped cars are yielding to noone. Another widespread
> effect is too long green light for small rural streets crossing a large
> street; those rural streets almost never have more than 2 cars, but when
> they get green light, it's for 1 minute.
>
> I talked to our city public works official, and he confirmed that it was
> his observation too - in the last 3 years or so, the percentage of red
> lights met by a random driver, has significantly increased, and is
> definitely much higher than the statistical 50%. He suggested that, as
> conspiracy theory as it sounds, this might be done intentionally, with
> the lobbying of gas companies. Obviously, a car that is stopped/started
> along 1 mile route, will consume at least twice more gas than if it was
> moving without one stop. Maybe more. Sounds like a conspiracy theory,
> but how else could you explain 80% of the red lights if not by
> intention?

You may be right that it's intentional, but I doubt it's the oil
companies' doing.

More red lights = more red light violations = more easy ticket pickings =
greater ticket revenue. Municipalities like that. More tickets also = more
insurance premium hikes, and insurance companies like *that*.

Nevertheless, underhanded chicanery is not necessary in order to have a
situation like this. Never attribute to malice what can be completely
explained by stupidity. All it takes is one traffic "engineer" who
believes the job of traffic control devices is to break up and slow down
traffic flow rather than smooth and speed it. And there are such
"engineers" who hold exactly that view.

A simple (if not entirely foolproof) test to see whether it's stupidity or
malfeasance that's behind the misprogrammed lights is to time the yellow
light interval at the affected intersections. Shortened yellows are
another favorite trick of municipalities angling for increased ticket
revenues, especially in combination with red light cameras.

DS

In article ch.edu>, Daniel J. Stern wrote:

> A simple (if not entirely foolproof) test to see whether it's stupidity or
> malfeasance that's behind the misprogrammed lights is to time the yellow
> light interval at the affected intersections. Shortened yellows are
> another favorite trick of municipalities angling for increased ticket
> revenues, especially in combination with red light cameras.

NW burbs aren't much on red light tickets. I've seen people run red lights
in front of cops and the cop do nothing. Rarely, they will stake out a low
traffic volume stop sign intersection. NW burb cops are more into the
speeding and papers checking/fishing type activities.

If the condition of the light timing is on purpose, it's because those in
charge think the lights are to slow down traffic and cause congestion.

In article > ,
"bat" > wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Living in NW Chicago suburbs, I notice that in the recent years the traffic
> lights seem to begin working in a mode that I would call "red wave",
> contrary to the "green wave" system that ensures green light on all
> intersections to a vehicle that moves along the street with the right speed.

<snip the rest>

Locally, I don't see that TOO much - There are a couple of seriously
boneheaded lights in this town, though. A main east-west state artery is
crossed by 5 light-controlled city strets. If you hit #1 red while
eastbound, you're almost certainly going to hit green through all the
rest if you drive "sensibly". The only exception is the 5th avenue light
- cross traffic or people wanting to make a left can trigger a red on
the "through" route. Ditto going the other way - hit the first one in
the sequence red, and you're going to cruise the full set after that on
green until you either hit the freeway interchange or get hit by the 5th
Avenue light.

Trouble is, at night, two of the lights "get stupid" - The "through"
route is kept on red unless the sensors pick up traffic for it, leaving
the "city" street greened. Traffic flow is utterly destroyed.

There's another brainless light at the corner of Montgomery and
Washington that's my absolute pettest pet peeve light in the world...

Pull up to it northbound on Washington in the "straight through" lane
anytime between 11PM and 6AM, and you'll sit there as *ALL FOUR
DIRECTIONS* hold red until the next vehicle arrives. You can actually
see all the indicators, and for every movement possible, there's a red
light showing. Until a second car approaches the intersection. Then THE
SECOND CAR gets the green - for 8 seconds. The light then yellows out
for 8 seconds, and goes back to red, before giving *THAT SIDE* of the
intersection a green left-turn arrow for 45 seconds, followed by a 20
second yellow, then red, and FINALLY allowing you to proceed - with a
green that lasts between 4 and 5 seconds!

At those hours, there's almost never anything coming from ANY direction.
Ideally, this light would/should go solid green in the north/south
direction, with sensor interrupts to let the east/west traffic and left
turns through as needed.

And of course, you just KNOW that the one time you say "Screw it! As far
as the eye can see, the road is empty other than me. I'm not waiting any
longer for this stupid light!" and decide to go for it, that'll be the
time the cop is hiding over there behind the restaurant waiting for
somebody to do exactly that...

--
Don Bruder - - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I'm trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn't contain a password in the
subject unless it comes from a "whitelisted" (pre-approved by me) address.
See <http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd/main/contact.html> for full details.

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:09:54 GMT, "bat" > wrote:

>Driving in other states, I found that nowhere the number of the red lights
>encountered during the driving was even approaching what everyone sees in
>Illinois.

>I wonder, did anyone else notice anything like that?

Richmond, Va is very good with their "green wave" on roads like Broad
St.

I once called up VDOT and commented that I couldn't activate the
sensors built into the road while riding a bicycle (you need to be
able to activate the sensors in order to change the light, otherwise
it will be red until a car comes along & activates it).

Within 24 hours VDOT had a crew blocking the section and inspecting
the sensors, looking for any problems. I felt a little bad that I had
caused such a stir, I hadn't expected much effort, coming from NJ &
all. I was very impressed with their attention to customer comments.

I would say it depends on the competency of your state's dept of
transportation crews and management. NJ has terrible traffic
structures in many places, and e-mails and voice compalins are
completely ignored. I've had to wait over 2 minutes for a "red-arrow
only" left turn to change to green (you are not allowed to turn left
unless the arrow is green). This intersection has over a mile of
visibility, I can see cars coming from literally a MILE away, and
it's STILL illegal for me to turn left at the light. The road is
frequently empty...just me idling there (unless I skip it & take a
back-road).

NJ also had (and still has) some amazingly bad and expensive traffic
structures, namely a "traffic circle" and jughandles. Instead of
upgrading the traffic lights to operate a "left-turn first" signal
with a left-turn lane, NJ-DOT spends tens of thousands of dollars
purchasing over an acre of land (per intersection) for a jughandle.
You drive around the jughandle and viola, you're in the cross-traffic
road (you still have to wait for the light, possibly twice, since you
have to wait for it in both directions).

Don't even ask how horrific and accident-prone the traffic circles
were...you DON'T want to know (most are now gone, thankfully). One
big gridlock nightmare after another. NJ is great with
"through-traffic"...just don't go off the highway / interstate /
parkway / turnpike if you can help it.

Dan

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005, Dan wrote:

> NJ also had (and still has) some amazingly bad and expensive traffic
> structures, namely a "traffic circle" Don't even ask how horrific and
> accident-prone the traffic circles were...you DON'T want to know

The problem is not with traffic circles.
The problem is with New Jerseyites.

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:38:28 -0500, Dan > wrote:

>On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:09:54 GMT, "bat" > wrote:
>
>>Driving in other states, I found that nowhere the number of the red lights
>>encountered during the driving was even approaching what everyone sees in
>>Illinois.
>
>>I wonder, did anyone else notice anything like that?
>
>Richmond, Va is very good with their "green wave" on roads like Broad
>St.
>
>I once called up VDOT and commented that I couldn't activate the
>sensors built into the road while riding a bicycle (you need to be
>able to activate the sensors in order to change the light, otherwise
>it will be red until a car comes along & activates it).
>
>Within 24 hours VDOT had a crew blocking the section and inspecting
>the sensors, looking for any problems. I felt a little bad that I had
>caused such a stir, I hadn't expected much effort, coming from NJ &
>all. I was very impressed with their attention to customer comments.
>
>I would say it depends on the competency of your state's dept of
>transportation crews and management. NJ has terrible traffic
>structures in many places, and e-mails and voice compalins are
>completely ignored. I've had to wait over 2 minutes for a "red-arrow
>only" left turn to change to green (you are not allowed to turn left
>unless the arrow is green). This intersection has over a mile of
>visibility, I can see cars coming from literally a MILE away, and
>it's STILL illegal for me to turn left at the light. The road is
>frequently empty...just me idling there (unless I skip it & take a
>back-road).
>
>NJ also had (and still has) some amazingly bad and expensive traffic
>structures, namely a "traffic circle" and jughandles. Instead of
>upgrading the traffic lights to operate a "left-turn first" signal
>with a left-turn lane, NJ-DOT spends tens of thousands of dollars
>purchasing over an acre of land (per intersection) for a jughandle.
>You drive around the jughandle and viola, you're in the cross-traffic
>road (you still have to wait for the light, possibly twice, since you
>have to wait for it in both directions).
>
>Don't even ask how horrific and accident-prone the traffic circles
>were...you DON'T want to know (most are now gone, thankfully). One
>big gridlock nightmare after another. NJ is great with
>"through-traffic"...just don't go off the highway / interstate /
>parkway / turnpike if you can help it.
>
>Dan

That's my experience driving around Teterboro, Fair Lawn, Paramus, and
Newark Airport (EWR?). A holy hell of a wide-awake nightmare where
people are doing full speed on roads that look like a plate of
spaghetti from the air.

I call that fly-over country. If you're on the ground there, consider
yourself in trouble.

Lg

bat wrote:
> Driving in other states, I found that nowhere the number of the red lights
> encountered during the driving was even approaching what everyone sees in
> Illinois. Somewhere, in Phoenix AR for instance, there was a noticeable
> green wave in effect, so I was driving many intersections without a single
> stop. In some places, the timing of the traffic lights was proportional to
> the size of the road; somewhere it probably was not controlled, so it was
> like 50/50; but nowhere did I see 8 red lights out of 10 possible - nowhere
> except in my state, specifically, in NW Chicago suburbs.

IDOT. Their philosophy of traffic control is that cars that don't move
don't have accidents. That's why the speed limits are set so that a
stock Model T can negotiate the road without leaning or overshooting
a stop.

IDOT is also careful to make sure that you *always* catch *every* light
red as you pass a shopping center.

They nearly got me killed on my first real trip outside the state. We
went to Kentucky for a funeral. Now, "recommended speed" signs for
expressway exits in Illinois are set such that your conestoga wagon
won't lean or sway enough to spill your champagne while negotiating
the exits, so any exit marked 30 MPH in Illinois is safe at 50 in
nearly any car and a good driver in a good car can do 70 without
tire noise. But in Kentucky, I hit a sign that said 35 MPH and
instinctively tried it at 45; nearly rolled the car, because they
had the limits set sanely and realistically while I was expecting
the IDOT method of horse-and-buggy speed control.

Down in Bolingbrook and Romeoville, near where my nephew lives, they're
currently laying down fiber optics to time the lights along roughly
ten miles of Weber Road. I noticed they started at the southern
end of the route; I also notice that now, a few months after the
start of the project, the lights in that area are no longer nicely
timed and easy to get green lights with. I'm betting they time them
to give drivers a red at every intersection, which will make that
road (already a rush-hour nightmare) a horrible place to drive, and
a parking lot during peak usage times.

--
The state religion of the USA is atheism, as established by the courts.

In article >, clifto wrote:
> IDOT is also careful to make sure that you *always* catch *every* light
> red as you pass a shopping center.

That's why people often end up driving faster, so they can get a couple
greens in a row.

> They nearly got me killed on my first real trip outside the state. We
> went to Kentucky for a funeral. Now, "recommended speed" signs for
> expressway exits in Illinois are set such that your conestoga wagon
> won't lean or sway enough to spill your champagne while negotiating
> the exits, so any exit marked 30 MPH in Illinois is safe at 50 in
> nearly any car and a good driver in a good car can do 70 without
> tire noise. But in Kentucky, I hit a sign that said 35 MPH and
> instinctively tried it at 45; nearly rolled the car, because they
> had the limits set sanely and realistically while I was expecting
> the IDOT method of horse-and-buggy speed control.

This has been a topic in r.a.d. that the posting needs to be
consistant, otherwise it's worthless and dangerous. And you are 100%
correct that almost every ramp can be done at roughly 2X the posted
speed. You are also correct that IL instinct is trying unfamiliar ramps
posted at 35 at 45 as well.

One thing though, is there are drivers who actually drive the posted ramp
speed (here in IL) right up to the point they have to merge in front of a
semi doing 75mph.

> Down in Bolingbrook and Romeoville, near where my nephew lives, they're
> currently laying down fiber optics to time the lights along roughly
> ten miles of Weber Road. I noticed they started at the southern
> end of the route; I also notice that now, a few months after the
> start of the project, the lights in that area are no longer nicely
> timed and easy to get green lights with. I'm betting they time them
> to give drivers a red at every intersection, which will make that
> road (already a rush-hour nightmare) a horrible place to drive, and
> a parking lot during peak usage times.

The lights may be on what I call construction timing. Certainly true if
they have shut down the main ones and put up temporary ones hung from
wires over the road. Practically any time an intersection is set up for
construction the timing is even more screwed up than normally. All the
lanes could be open, but traffic will be 5 times worse because the lights
are screwed up.