Who's ever traveled a stretch of road with a high number of traffic signals for the area without having to stop at a single red light? Did you get to your destination more efficiently as a result?
Here are mine:
- I once drove up Maryland Route 24 through Forest Hill, between the U.S. Route 1 interchange and Jarrettsville Road, coming back from Bel Air, navigated through six traffic signals and got a green light all six times. The distance is 2.53 miles.
- I once drove up Maryland Route 146 from the Towson roundabout to the Dulaney Valley Road/Jarrettsville Pike split just off the Loch Raven bridge, and did not get a red light at any of the ten traffic signals along that stretch, if Old Bosley Road counts as the tenth and northernmost signal since I bypassed an eleventh signal splitting from 146 to stay on the county-maintained portion of Dulaney Valley. The total distance comes to 5 miles even.
- I once drove up U.S. Route 1 between the Interstate 695 interchange in Fullerton to the Maryland Route 147/U.S. Route 1 Business signal just south of Bel Air (where it becomes known as the Bel Air Bypass), passing through eighteen signals, the southernmost being Rossville Boulevard, with a green light every single time. This is a distance of 12.12 miles.
In your three examples, are the lights timed for consecutive greens or not?
This video was just posted in the "perfect signal timing" thread too but it's relevant here. Driving 40 miles up and down Woodward Avenue without hitting a red light. Lights along a two-way street can always be timed for one direction but to whip around and go in the opposite direction and still hit a wave of green lights is pretty amazing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb2R2fPB1nE&feature=youtu.be
South of Salt Lake City, I drove on State St north from 10600 S to I-80 with only one real red light, at I-215. Any other red lights I had (and really, there were about 2 or 3) were because I was going over the limit, faster than the speed the lights were timed for. They changed right when I got there.
Let me suggest a qualifier: Can't count late at night when some of the lights may be flashing yellow. Otherwise, I could count a usually heavily trafficked CT 10 from CT 372 to the center of Southington, which is over 5 miles.
But several times, I've made it on the Berlin Turnpike from the US 5/CT 15 junction in Meriden up to CT 9/372 in Berlin all green, which is about 5 miles or so.
It happens. Big whoop.
Here is a daytime drive of Woodward Avenue. The driver makes it through 20 miles of consecutive green light but they are only traveling in one direction (but the 40 mile drive could be replicated during the day). This video also takes you through downtown Detroit. Like any downtown, the traffic signals get closer together and you get stopped at a lot more red lights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRWyx0NtpSQ
Downtown Portland is probably the best example in the country of how traffic signals can regulate the speed of traffic. Portland has very short block lengths and the one-way streets are timed for about 12 mph. One nice thing for pedestrians in Portland is that the signals downtown run very short cycle lengths so they don't have to wait very long to cross the street. Short cycles also leads to short green waves for drivers. That means if a driver is at the end of the green wave (ie. just making it through a yellow light) and speeds up to 40 mph, it won't take them very long to catch up to the start of the green wave. This means an aggressive driver who wants to travel at 40 mph through Portland will quickly be regulated by the 12 mph light timing. Now is 12 mph too slow? To me it seems pretty damn slow. Of course somebody has pointed out that the average speed of a bicyclist is 12 mph. So essentially the lights in Portland are timed so that vehicles and bicyclists travel at the same speed.
Here's a model of what the downtown streets of Portland look like when timed for 12 mph. The model isn't an accurate representation of real world conditions as it doesn't show any right/left turn movements, but it's meant to highlight the thru platoons that can be achieved in downtown. There is also some dash cam footage of a guy cruising around the streets of Portland to give you a sense of how the signals are timed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jGWdCknurM&t=60s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z9IX-mPKeQ
Lincoln City Oregon: densest area: 7 lights in about 1.5 miles. All green. Only counting the section where US 101 is 4 lanes for a good amount of time. Also when entering Lincoln City, I hit the first two lights red (which are not included in this)
20 miles later....
Newport Oregon: 7 signals in main part of town (2 miles). Hit 1-6 green. 7th was red.
Getting a little off topic here:
In between: Other Lincoln City Signals South of last in main part: 3
Rural/Depoe Bay signals: 3
all were green (1 yellow that I went for).
This also happened to be my first drive to the coast with me in the drivers' seat.
Total streak: 19
Edit: For anyone asking: Lincoln city is NOT programmed for continuous green, Newport is programmed at what I'm estimated to be 45 mph (speed limit is 35) for first six signals, 7th is programmed for one way to go and the other way stopped.
Made trip at about 9:30 AM, US 101 SB
There is a relationship between downtown grid sizes and how the traffic signals are timed. Smaller grids require short cycle lengths and slower speeds to achieve a 'green wave' while larger blocks run longer cycles and/or faster speeds. So Tulsa has a bigger block size than Portland and it's downtown streets are timed for higher speeds. I wouldn't be surprised if the cycle length in Tulsa is higher than Portland too.
(https://ggwash.org/images/posts/201005-grids.jpg)
Quote from: Brandon on December 09, 2017, 09:31:52 PMVisit Metro Detroit and drive 8 Mile, Telegraph, Woodward, etc.
Not if I'm in the car. In that case, we are guaranteed to hit every red. Every. Single. Red.
US 11 from I-81 Exit 52 PA to PA 581. About 20 lights. If you drive this after 11 PM you'll hit all the greens. 7 years ago I had a friend who lived in Shippensburg and I lived in Mechanicsburg and I visited often. I hated 81 so I took US 11 the whole way.
Nexus 6P