5 ms·

Houston has their downtown lights turn green sequentially if you travel the speed limit. Nifty: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/arti

Houston has their downtown lights turn green sequentially if you travel the speed limit. Nifty: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Traffic-light-timing-keeps-congestion-in-sync-4551668.php http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/a...

jnks 12y ago
If you think about it for a second, it's only really possible to do this for one direction of traffic at a time on a given multi-block street segment.
- shliachtx 12y ago
  (Haven't read the article yet, but) I guess they could have it set up for rush hour, and the streets going in and out of downtown generally have one large street with only smaller streets (many of them with only stop signs) going perpendicular.
- msandford 12y ago
  Good thing the streets are all one-way! Seriously though, in the downtown portion of Houston there are only two directions people want to go in a hurry, northeast and southwest. Those roads have at least double the carrying capacity of the cross-roads and as such it absolutely makes sense to optimize the lights for them. So what happens is that the "get me out of downtown" roads are very well timed and the cross-streets aren't but that's OK. Most people don't need the cross-streets and if they do, they're fairly lightly traveled because most people don't need them.
  - jofer 12y ago
    As someone who does need to travel on the cross streets fairly often, the downside of this is that the non major streets have lights that are _really_ poorly timed. I realize why they do it, and it is optimizing for the majority use case, but damn is it annoying when you want to go the other way...
    - msandford 12y ago
      Yeah it's terrible. I do the West End ride sometimes and all down washington it's fine. Then we hit downtown and we get stopped at EVERY light. Once we hit fannin and turn for the med center it's green lights all the way and you see 30-50 cyclists just cruising in an urban environment; it's surreal.
shliachtx 12y ago
I've heard about this before but never seen it in writing, thanks. It is pretty neat. Do other cities not have the same?
- diafygi 12y ago
  Austin does. Also, feeder roads along highways are a great Texas feature, too.
  - shliachtx 12y ago
    Apparently[0] the term feeder is almost entirely unique to Houston. [0] http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_99.html http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_99....
  - majormajor 12y ago
    Huh, ever since moving away, I've greatly enjoyed not having access roads. I feel like they greatly encourage a particularly walking-unfriendly sort of suburban sprawl in which there are long rows of large chain stores and restaurants directly facing highways and no opportunity for any sort of neighborhood to exist around them.
    - toddmorey 12y ago
      They are also very dangerous: they combine people getting off the highway with people accelerating to get on with people entering and leaving those shopping centers and restaurants. It really creates for messy traffic.
  - doseofreality 12y ago
    Feeder roads are one of the worst features of Texas.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    I thought these were called frontage roads? I mean, in Mississippi, they are just called that. I prefer living in the north where they do not have such monstrosities. But I currently live in Beijing, so I have to deal with the "fulu" all the time.
fidotron 12y ago
Yep, known as the Green wave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_wave
superuser2 12y ago
There are places in Milwaukee where it seems that all the lights turn green as you approach them, but unfortunately this is of no use. The cars who have been waiting at the red light take ~30 seconds to get moving again (texting/delayed reaction time/conservative acceleration * 5-6 cars) so you still have to stop, it's just that you're stopping at green lights. Incredibly frustrating.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Hence I'm waiting for self driving electric cars, which can start going almost immediately at a green.

jnks 12y ago

If you think about it for a second, it's only really possible to do this for one direction of traffic at a time on a given multi-block street segment.

shliachtx 12y ago
(Haven't read the article yet, but) I guess they could have it set up for rush hour, and the streets going in and out of downtown generally have one large street with only smaller streets (many of them with only stop signs) going perpendicular.
msandford 12y ago
Good thing the streets are all one-way! Seriously though, in the downtown portion of Houston there are only two directions people want to go in a hurry, northeast and southwest. Those roads have at least double the carrying capacity of the cross-roads and as such it absolutely makes sense to optimize the lights for them. So what happens is that the "get me out of downtown" roads are very well timed and the cross-streets aren't but that's OK. Most people don't need the cross-streets and if they do, they're fairly lightly traveled because most people don't need them.
- jofer 12y ago
  As someone who does need to travel on the cross streets fairly often, the downside of this is that the non major streets have lights that are _really_ poorly timed. I realize why they do it, and it is optimizing for the majority use case, but damn is it annoying when you want to go the other way...
  - msandford 12y ago
    Yeah it's terrible. I do the West End ride sometimes and all down washington it's fine. Then we hit downtown and we get stopped at EVERY light. Once we hit fannin and turn for the med center it's green lights all the way and you see 30-50 cyclists just cruising in an urban environment; it's surreal.

shliachtx 12y ago

I've heard about this before but never seen it in writing, thanks. It is pretty neat. Do other cities not have the same?

diafygi 12y ago
Austin does. Also, feeder roads along highways are a great Texas feature, too.
- shliachtx 12y ago
  Apparently[0] the term feeder is almost entirely unique to Houston. [0] http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_99.html http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_99....
- majormajor 12y ago
  Huh, ever since moving away, I've greatly enjoyed not having access roads. I feel like they greatly encourage a particularly walking-unfriendly sort of suburban sprawl in which there are long rows of large chain stores and restaurants directly facing highways and no opportunity for any sort of neighborhood to exist around them.
  - toddmorey 12y ago
    They are also very dangerous: they combine people getting off the highway with people accelerating to get on with people entering and leaving those shopping centers and restaurants. It really creates for messy traffic.
- doseofreality 12y ago
  Feeder roads are one of the worst features of Texas.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  I thought these were called frontage roads? I mean, in Mississippi, they are just called that. I prefer living in the north where they do not have such monstrosities. But I currently live in Beijing, so I have to deal with the "fulu" all the time.

fidotron 12y ago

Yep, known as the Green wave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_wave

superuser2 12y ago

There are places in Milwaukee where it seems that all the lights turn green as you approach them, but unfortunately this is of no use. The cars who have been waiting at the red light take ~30 seconds to get moving again (texting/delayed reaction time/conservative acceleration * 5-6 cars) so you still have to stop, it's just that you're stopping at green lights. Incredibly frustrating.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Hence I'm waiting for self driving electric cars, which can start going almost immediately at a green.