I lived in Tacoma and Seattle Washington for almost a decade. Both cities had sequenced signal lights along the major arteries of the cities and that was in the 1970's, before computers. I would think today it would be much easier to accomplish than the mechanical switching systems of the 70's. In fact the police and fire department could control the signal lights to stop all traffic for emergency vehicles. Much safer than the demolition derby when a fire truck tries to cross an intersection in rush hours traffic. Also back in the 1960 when I first started to drive, 4th South was sequenced, I could drive from 13th east all the way to Main Street at the posted speed limit and hit all the lights green. Why not now?
Here is my thoughts of how to accomplish this at a lower cost. Utah has some of the best computer engineering and programming public colleges and universities in the country. Why not provide some grant money, and possibly obtain some federal stimulus money, to give to these colleges and universities to engineer and program a sequencing system? As I see it, they can create a matrix of all the arteries along the Wasatch Front and then develop traffic sensitive sequencing technology to expedite traffic. This would also require changing some speed limits to more effectively move the traffic or possibly having LED speed limit signs that change the speed depending on traffic flow and sequencing. If you had confidence that by maintaining the posted speed you would breeze through the intersections without stopping, you would have better speed control of the traffic. As it is now, most Utahans drive 5 to 10 MPH over the posted speed limit. I have also observed that traffic speed are sometimes kept low for revenue generating purposes and not for better traffic management or safety, Bangerter Highway is a prime example of this; same road design along the entire route, but speeds change from 60mph to 50mph, traffic density is about the same along this entire route, so that can't be the reason for the decrease in speed.
A traffic engineer I once met said that the best way to determine an appropriate speed limit is to monitor the average traffic flow speed. If it is consistent and accident history does not compel a lower rate, then that should be the posted speed. Again using Bangerter, the speed limits in the north end were set almost 20 years ago when they allowed left turns on green through traffic lights. The accident rates were high. Since then, they have designated left turn lights that have reduced this problem greatly. Thus the speed should be increased to match the more consistent traffic flow speed of 60mph, instead of the posted 50mph. In the south end of Bangerter they installed the yellow warning light that let you know that the signal light ahead is turning red and if you see this yellow flashing lights, you will not make it through the intersection and must stop. This is great and they need to install them at every intersection, including the side arteries that cross Bangerter. This should also be done on Van Winkle and 7th East, and Foothill so they can raise that speed limit during high traffic flows.
I am sure there are many parkways, highways and other arterial street that this warning system would be very effective to reducing accidents. Several in Ogden and Orem come to mind.
Come on, there has to be a better way to control traffic flow than to have dozens of cars idling at intersections all day, adding to the smog we have so bad now in the valleys. The money the legislature will spend this year on moral and statement legislation could pay for such a traffic sequencing system. But that is too logical and spending millions of tax dollars to stop health care reform, defend the anti-abortion bills that violate the constitution and the sweet deals given to charter school owners, i.e. fellow legislators, is more important politically.
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