3 ms·
> I learned about how traffic light green times (how many seconds a signal stays green for one direction vs. the cross street) usually have a "right answer" fro
by _dain_ 4y ago
> I learned about how traffic light green times (how many seconds a signal stays green for one direction vs. the cross street) usually have a "right answer" from an engineering standpoint
There's a "right answer" but only with respect to what kind of traffic you care about. Most cities default to prioritizing car throughput, which is about the most spatially inefficient way of moving people.
Some traffic lights don't even detect waiting bicycles. You have to wait until a car comes up behind you, otherwise it will be red indefinitely.
- UncleEntity 4y agoThere was a stoplight right by one of my old apartments which never would detect my motorcycle so I’d always have to make a right and U-turn if I didn’t want to wait until a car showed up. Never seen a traffic light that can detect a bicycle, I’d just ride up on the sidewalk and press the crosswalk button if no cars were around.
- _dain_ 4y agoThere are new style ones that have some kind of motion detecting camera or radar or something. There's a little LED that lights up when it sees you.
- aidenn0 4y agoI believe in California they are required to detect bicycles. The old EM ones will detect my bicycle just fine as long as I stop directly over the seam in the pavement. The newer ones are optical
- goodcanadian 4y ago20 years ago, in Vancouver, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised that the coil in the pavement did indeed detect my bicycle, so there is certainly no engineering reason it can't be done.
- matheusmoreira 4y agoYes. Would be interesting to learn about all these tradeoffs. The point though is that all those interesting traffic engineering concerns were invalidated because a politician wanted citizens to look at his backer's advertising.