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I've gotten so fed up with the traffic lights I've started keeping track of how many I miss and how many I make and what I found is you miss about 80 to 85% of the stop lights on the street while going the speed limit and traveling with traffic. This has to be done on purpose because you can't screw it up city wide that bad by accident so why have they timed the stoplights for maximum gridlock so that you burn not only more fuel because it takes more time but it destroys any semblance of miles per gallon you may be getting out of your car/truck. In an era of smart phones why do we still have stupid stoplights since one side of the political party is presuming that the world is going to end in 10 years because we're burning fossil fuels and cow farts.
 
Try going light to light at bicycle speed, I think you'll find your answers. For all the money pissed away on road "improvements" in the past ten years or so in Portland I have not seen one single thing done to improve car-traffic flow, not one. Everything impedes cars for the sake of buses, bicycles and pedestrians, many of them purposefully impacting cars with no actual benefit to the others.
 
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I like Traffic's The low spark of high heel boys and Dear Mr. Fantasy....
Never heard of lights rant.....:D

Seriously though...traffic lights and timing...Ehhh....ends up as a "So what "...for me.
Other things get me riled up , but not this.
Andy
 
Or bulbed curbs. You know, the extensions of sidewalks into intersections so you can't turn a corner in a pickup without going out into the other lane.

They could have built them like ramps, so the handicapped could traverse them from more angles, but NO, they had to make it so a vehicle that encountered them would be hitting a curb head-on.

Heaven help delivery truck drivers trying to navigate the urban obstacle courses!

My fantasy is that the people who designed and promoted these things spend eternity driving a 2-ton, 200" wheelbase delivery truck around on streets with bulbed curbs, with a Taser attached to their bottoms that would be triggered by a G-switch that would trigger every time the tires hit a curb.
 
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The PacNW is especially incompetent when it comes to city planning, zoning, traffic management, signage, all that stuff. Drivers are slow and inattentive, and would quickly perish in Chicago or New Jersey.
 
Or bulbed curbs. You know, the extensions of sidewalks into intersections so you can't turn a corner in a pickup without going out into the other lane.

They could have built them like ramps, so the handicapped could traverse them from more angles, but NO, they had to make it so a vehicle that encountered them would be hitting a curb head-on.

Heaven help delivery truck drivers trying to navigate the urban obstacle courses!

My fantasy is that the people who designed and promoted these things spend eternity driving a 2-ton, 200" wheelbase delivery truck around on streets with bulbed curbs, with a Taser attached to their bottoms that would be triggered by a G-switch that would trigger every time the tires hit a curb.
I never understood the bulbed curbs either for the people that are so worried about safety it seems dumb to put pedestrians further out into the traffic and also squishes the bike lane down so that now the bikes are further out into traffic and don't even get me started about putting all the green bike lanes (the slowest moving vehicle)in the front of the line So I have to fight my way past them over and over again from every missed timed stoplight. Yes these may be first world problems but I run between two tanks to 2 1/2 tank a week driving all over hell and back giving estimates so for some people it's more of an issue than others.
 
Best answer I can give is, maybe you're going perpendicular to the more traveled roads. The more people that drive on a road, the more are hitting pressure switches and the longer/more often the light is green in that direction. I haven't actually kept tabs on my traffic light problems, though I'd estimate I only hit 25% of red lights in general however certain lights must be about 50%


Also, I hope whoever came up with bulbed curbs got a swift kick in the nads just hard enough to kill the swimmers. Don't need that kind of person making copies of themselves.
 
I've gotten so fed up with the traffic lights I've started keeping track of how many I miss and how many I make and what I found is you miss about 80 to 85% of the stop lights on the street while going the speed limit and traveling with traffic. This has to be done on purpose because you can't screw it up city wide that bad by accident so why have they timed the stoplights for maximum gridlock so that you burn not only more fuel because it takes more time but it destroys any semblance of miles per gallon you may be getting out of your car/truck. In an era of smart phones why do we still have stupid stoplights since one side of the political party is presuming that the world is going to end in 10 years because we're burning fossil fuels and cow farts.
This is why I drive on the sidewalk.
 
Vancouver lights.JPG
 
Best answer I can give is, maybe you're going perpendicular to the more traveled roads. The more people that drive on a road, the more are hitting pressure switches and the longer/more often the light is green in that direction. I haven't actually kept tabs on my traffic light problems, though I'd estimate I only hit 25% of red lights in general however certain lights must be about 50%


Also, I hope whoever came up with bulbed curbs got a swift kick in the nads just hard enough to kill the swimmers. Don't need that kind of person making copies of themselves.
I don't know what it's like in Eugene. I'm going to guess it's logical that they're as screwed up there as here in potland. Up here they have the sensor pad in the road, you can see them. They have the big silver box that houses the tech equipment in them on the corner. They don't use the technology in a LOT of places in potland. Cars sitting at a red light for 60 seconds while not one car goes in the other direction. A green left turn light that has no one waiting in the left turn lane, and the green arrow shines for 20 seconds while cars sit idling waiting for their green light. There's some unnecessary carbon pumped into the air!
 
I don't know what it's like in Eugene. I'm going to guess it's logical that they're as screwed up there as here in potland. Up here they have the sensor pad in the road, you can see them. They have the big silver box that houses the tech equipment in them on the corner. They don't use the technology in a LOT of places in potland. Cars sitting at a red light for 60 seconds while not one car goes in the other direction. A green left turn light that has no one waiting in the left turn lane, and the green arrow shines for 20 seconds while cars sit idling waiting for their green light. There's some unnecessary carbon pumped into the air!
A few decades ago the jurisdiction where I lived had an official number of minutes after which, if it had not changed, a traffic light would be considered broken. It was permissible to proceed with caution through the intersection at that point. I'm sure I've got the wording wrong but that was the basic concept. I remember because I got within a few seconds a few times but never got to try it out.
 

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