Experts: City Hall has the evidence to lengthen yellow light times

[Brandon]

Experts: City Hall has the evidence to lengthen yellow light times

For nearly two years, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration has had strong evidence that Chicago's yellow light times are too short for traffic conditions, thanks to a series of radar gun surveys the city conducted to support its speed camera program, the Tribune has found.

Nearly 20,000 drivers were clocked in the 168 spot surveys beginning in mid-2013, most traveling significantly faster than posted speed limits around the city. The previously undisclosed reports were obtained by the Tribune through a public records request.

The speed findings bolster concerns from national experts who say Chicago drivers are at a greater risk for rear-end accidents due to the combination of red light cameras and 3-second yellow lights that are out of step with national practices.

Chicago transportation officials say the yellow light times are appropriate for such a dense urban environment. They also warned against drawing broad conclusions about traffic safety from the surveys, saying they are not an accurate representation of prevailing speeds throughout Chicago.

But the national experts who reviewed the data for the Tribune disagreed, saying it was odd for the city to use such surveys to support speed cameras yet ignore their value for re-evaluating speed limits and signal timing.

"I have never seen speed surveys specifically designed to go out and support speed cameras but not address any other safety considerations," said Hugh McGee, a safety consultant who led the nationwide study that formed the basis for proposed new national standards on signal timing.

"It is even more evidence that they want to use these things selectively as a way to collect revenue, unfortunately," McGee said.

"What I see here tells me that in many cases throughout the city the yellow lights are too short and the speed limits are too low," he said. "That is a problem."

At a news conference a week ago, Emanuel announced plans to pull cameras from 25 of the 174 intersections in the program and proposed letting first-time offenders take an online safety course in lieu of paying the $100 fine, among other changes.

"Ultimately," Emanuel said, "it's about bringing safety and security to our streets."

But the mayor did not address the issue of yellow light timing, even though proposed legislation in the City Council and the state legislature would mandate longer yellow times for Chicago stoplights. Both proposals call for a minimum of 3.2 seconds.

Rep. Jaime Andrade, D-Chicago, said he filed House Bill 3365 in response to Tribune reports.

"I just couldn't believe how far behind Chicago is compared to the rest of the country," Andrade said. "The yellow lights are too short, and I think something has to be done about it."

A decade-old study by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, since bolstered by other research, found that increasing yellow times by just half a second resulted in a decrease in accidents of up to 25 percent and a decrease in red light violations of up to 40 percent.

[sipes23]

I didn't even get to the bottom, and I thought to myself, "I bet another half second would help a lot." Thank you Texas A&M.

But then I seem to spend my time in areas where the diagonal streets are slicing through making the intersections much bigger than ordinary. My wife mocks me in the suburbs, because I forget that the yellow lights are longer there.

[ET21]

I honestly never noticed they were shorter