Blame city planners for U.S. gas price woes
Maybe not all the blame for the noxious gases spewed into the atmosphere and for the rising fuel prices can be traced to city planners, departments of public works, or whoever's in charge of your entity's traffic engineering, but much of it can -- and now there's proof.
The Institute of Transportation Engineers has reported that most of the traffic lights are either not synchronized or there is no marking to drivers that the synchronization has been installed.
Synchronization or "sync" means that you can travel from one green light to another if you maintain a constant velocity in your vehicle. On major roads, the lights are synched for a certain speed at high traffic hours, another speed at off hours, and some may have sensors in the road to determine if a vehicle is waiting for a light to change.
The ITE said it studied 378 communities in 49 states and gives the city planners nationally an average grade of "D-," a grade just barely passing, on traffic flow efficiency.
This grade tells you, as a driver, something you already know. You sit in traffic, consuming fuel, polluting the air with noxious gases, and your frustration and anger rises. And then when the light finally turns to green, you drive a short distance and go through the entire vicious cycle all over again.
I'm on the road all the time and I know about this problem intimately. It's not so much that the lights on the roads I travel on aren't synched -- many of them are synched. But they are synched for the wrong speed.
Here's an example: Choctaw Blvd is major 4-lane undivided thoroughfare connecting Northwest Baton Rouge to Southeast Baton Rouge. The posted speed limit is 45 miles per hour. But the lights, I have determined through trial and error, are synchronized for 25 mph!
Drivers want to drive posted speed limits. So they normally jackrabbit at the light to get up to speed and hit their brakes to slow down when they come to the next light just three blocks down the road. And they sit and wait for the green only to begin the cycle all over again.
It's not just workers in pickup trucks flooring it to get up to 45, it's moms traveling by themselves in gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and commercial vehicles, from 6-wheelers to 18-wheelers. Choctaw is a primary conduit for oversize loads to and from the ExxonMobil refinery, and it's a mess 16 hours a day. In the off hours, traveling 25 mph for efficiency to catch the green lights is boring but it's not life threatening. But don't dare try to maintain 25 mph down Choctaw during daylight business hours -- you'll be run over in short order.
It wouldn't take much to change things. A few dollars making signs explaining the sychronization to anyone who hasn't done the trial-and-error test like I have done wouldn't break the city budget. Nor would synching the lights for 45 mph instead of 25 mph break the city budget. Either way, fuel is conserved and the environment doesn't become polluted.
Maybe the city planned it so that people would burn a lot of fuel traveling down Choctaw. Maybe it is part of the business model. Speed down the road, hit the brakes, speed-up, slow down. That equation means money is spent at fueling stations and money is spent for brake replacement ... and for antacid tablets. "Keep honking, I'm reloading" is a common bumper sticker around here.
Whatever the reason, the truth is now out there. It'll be interesting to see if city fathers and mothers around the country respond to the ITE report. If they don't or if they do, I'm sure people will continue to blame President Bush and the Arabs for our troubles. It's just easier to bitch about a problem and hang blame on someone or another than take some personal responsibility for one's actions and implement solutions.
The Institute of Transportation Engineers has reported that most of the traffic lights are either not synchronized or there is no marking to drivers that the synchronization has been installed.
Synchronization or "sync" means that you can travel from one green light to another if you maintain a constant velocity in your vehicle. On major roads, the lights are synched for a certain speed at high traffic hours, another speed at off hours, and some may have sensors in the road to determine if a vehicle is waiting for a light to change.
The ITE said it studied 378 communities in 49 states and gives the city planners nationally an average grade of "D-," a grade just barely passing, on traffic flow efficiency.
This grade tells you, as a driver, something you already know. You sit in traffic, consuming fuel, polluting the air with noxious gases, and your frustration and anger rises. And then when the light finally turns to green, you drive a short distance and go through the entire vicious cycle all over again.
I'm on the road all the time and I know about this problem intimately. It's not so much that the lights on the roads I travel on aren't synched -- many of them are synched. But they are synched for the wrong speed.
Here's an example: Choctaw Blvd is major 4-lane undivided thoroughfare connecting Northwest Baton Rouge to Southeast Baton Rouge. The posted speed limit is 45 miles per hour. But the lights, I have determined through trial and error, are synchronized for 25 mph!
Drivers want to drive posted speed limits. So they normally jackrabbit at the light to get up to speed and hit their brakes to slow down when they come to the next light just three blocks down the road. And they sit and wait for the green only to begin the cycle all over again.
It's not just workers in pickup trucks flooring it to get up to 45, it's moms traveling by themselves in gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and commercial vehicles, from 6-wheelers to 18-wheelers. Choctaw is a primary conduit for oversize loads to and from the ExxonMobil refinery, and it's a mess 16 hours a day. In the off hours, traveling 25 mph for efficiency to catch the green lights is boring but it's not life threatening. But don't dare try to maintain 25 mph down Choctaw during daylight business hours -- you'll be run over in short order.
It wouldn't take much to change things. A few dollars making signs explaining the sychronization to anyone who hasn't done the trial-and-error test like I have done wouldn't break the city budget. Nor would synching the lights for 45 mph instead of 25 mph break the city budget. Either way, fuel is conserved and the environment doesn't become polluted.
Maybe the city planned it so that people would burn a lot of fuel traveling down Choctaw. Maybe it is part of the business model. Speed down the road, hit the brakes, speed-up, slow down. That equation means money is spent at fueling stations and money is spent for brake replacement ... and for antacid tablets. "Keep honking, I'm reloading" is a common bumper sticker around here.
Whatever the reason, the truth is now out there. It'll be interesting to see if city fathers and mothers around the country respond to the ITE report. If they don't or if they do, I'm sure people will continue to blame President Bush and the Arabs for our troubles. It's just easier to bitch about a problem and hang blame on someone or another than take some personal responsibility for one's actions and implement solutions.
---
The Gibbous Effect -- My little cousin Dan, a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, has his own band and now they have their own web site. They sound pretty darn good. But you be the judge. You can listen at the website. His influences appear to be the Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Taylor & Reeves. But you might hear something else there. He's a yankee like me but he's been playing gigs around Tempe, Ariz. Catch a club date if you have a chance. And, if you do, tell him I said to quit smoking. I've been kidding him about the name of the band. "Gibbous" is a phase of the moon and if you look it up at Dictionary.com it says a synonym for "gibbous" is "humped" or "humpback." So, an alternative name for the band might be "The Humpbacked Wailers." Well, I thought it was pretty funny. But he hasn't responded to any e-mail I sent since I mentioned that to him. He's probably just busy.
---Porn spam Easter egg of the day:
"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." - Dean Martin
posted by NEWS4A2, blood-sucking journalist @ 16:45
2 comments
2 Comments:
I wouldn't blame the city planners since they posted the most reasonable speed limit with the situtations given.....it is the drivers that are to blame....i.e. underflated tires, dirty air filters, car that needs tune-up, jackrabbit starts at when red becomes green and holding gas pedal until you are ready to brake at the red but too hard.
Thanks for stopping by The 6th Estate Mike! Times on this orb is the most precious gift we're given and I thank you and everyone else for spending some here.
You've got a good point. I'm not trying to berate city planners or traffic engineers though it probably reads like I am. Lord knows those folk have a tough job and are given precious few public dollars to accomplish miracles. I guess I tend to look at that ITE report as ammunition those folk can use, to go to town meetings and the Town Council or the Selectmen's Meeting and ask for funding. To be able to say, "I told you so!" It doesn't make sense -- to me anyway -- to have the max speed at 45 and the lights synchronized at 25 and unmarked. At the very least it's confusing to drivers. All you mention does contribute significantly to pollution. That's a good point. If we as individuals can keep our cars tuned, tires inflated, and avoid the pedal-to-the-metal, and if the traffic engineers and the politicians can get ideas together with implementation resources, we'd at least be heading in the right direction.
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