seriously. i was heading north on westgate this morning on my way to work. i got stopped at jones street. north south traffic backed up probably a quarter mile in each direction while no one (seriously, no car cleared that intersection) was headed east-west on jones street. wtf. this happens all the time in austin, usually heading north-south. and it happens frequently on the shitass little streets, but it can happen at major lights, like brodie and wm cannon - same thing. traffic backs up and north south folks have to sit through 2-3 lights before they clear the intersection while the wm cannon east-west traffic clears it easily in one light. westgate and 290/71. i'm trying to turn left onto westgate. we wait at that light for a good 3-4 minutes so maybe 2 cars clear the intersection during rush hour. i could go on and on. do the city engineers actually drive around in this city? jesus christ.
Traffic lights on access roads of TxDot roads are timed by TxDot in most cases, not city employees. You are only at those lights for a finite amount of time at a specific time of day. Lights are generally not timed to aid in the convenience of one person at one time of day. It is impossible to time all lights in such a manner that all people will catch a series of lights on a "cycle" no matter where they are or which way they are heading. It is frustrating to sit at a light while no one goes through the other side while you wait. If you just wanted to rant, please continue. Life becomes much calmer when you learn to not let traffic problems piss you off so much.
I can catch all the green lights from 15th to south of the river - on my bike. Maybe they are timed for little old ladies going 15mph. 15th is pretty good east-west. Lavaca and Guadalupe are pretty good north-south.
It is not impossible to have much better timed lights in some places, which would aid traffic flow and air emissions considerably. TxDot aggies have done a horrible job of mismanaging traffic light timing. I went down Cameron Road from Braker to 183 the other day, and made every one of the 8 or 9 lights. I don't know if this was the equivalent of winning the lottery, or that they actually timed the lights for intelligent flow of traffic. It can be done on many streets, not every place of course. Late at night, many more could be changed to blinking so you don't have to sit there like an idiot for three minutes with no other vehicle in sight, or run the light like everyone does risking a ticket from Barney Fife hiding in a bush awaiting fed up drivers.
There was no condescending tone intended, but thanks for taking it that way. Traffic patterns at specific light can change in a 15 minute time period, several times a day. If there is a school or day care near an intersection, that can change a pattern dramatically for 45 minutes and then it will be completely different for another hour and then change again due to the predominate arrival time at a near by office building. The point was that it is impossible to please everyone all of the time and that a lot more goes into timing traffic signals that just morning rush hour, mid day, evening rush hour and night time. But hey, I guess people ranting about things they know nothing about is not new on HF's.
when is traffic the heaviest? should not some allowances be made for the heaviest times of day? i understand that traffic fluctuates. that's my point. during rush hours, when north south traffic is the heaviest, equal time at lights is given to east west traffic when it is not nearly as heavy. also, would it be that ******* hard to put sensors on the piddly little streets, so that they aren't turning green when no one is waiting?
I go back and forth on this, and I definitely think there are some sections of lights that are better timed than others. I work in Hyde Park and I usually take Mopac up to Parmer to get home. Yesterday I left at 5:30 and I knew Mopac would be terrible, so I decided to try taking Burnet all the way home. I got from 45th to North Austin Medical in about 15 minutes... would've taken me 25 on Mopac. I think I'll try that again today to see if I get the same result. Then again, lights on Lamar seem to be you sail through or you catch them all red... so who knows.
lots of aggy work at setting the timing of them lights so yes we ****** totally. It could be worserrr, cause aggy was pervented from doing what they wanted which was a milkman at ever intersextion waving his arms and clutching groinal areas to direct traffic.
^ I wouldn't be surprised, since they are the same group of people who didn't maintain the road network properly so that people wouldn't move here.
Doesn't LA have system where they can monitor the traffic situation at lights around the city, then adjust the timing of the lights accordingly? It's not about making it perfect for everyone, but how hard is it to know that certain streets at certain times of the day are much more heavily used?
I saw on the news a while back that they calibrate the lights like every 6-7 years or something like that. They definitely need to do something about the William Cannon/35 intersection. It's pathetic! We have all these new condos, etc.. being built, but yet the streets/lights/intersections are getting worse! Plus, not to forget all the many people moving here.
It seems that a lot of you are confusing TxDOT and the City of Austin. At least confusing their areas of responsibility. The City of Austin does not maintain the highway network. Therefore, they could not alter it or fail to maintain it in order to limit growth. There was a time when the City was anti growth and they freely admitted it, but none of the major roads were affected by that. The big fall out from that time was "Loop" 360. That was supposed to be a real "Loop" with access roads and ramps, but the City under vast environmental pressures, had it knocked down to its current version which acts more like a major arterial city street than a true "loop". You can tell that it was supposed to be bigger if you notice how wide the ROW all along it. Also, City engineers do not time lights at those intersections that connect to a TxDot road. I don't recall anyone in city hall saying anything about timing lights to affect traffic, but TxDOT was caught and admitted to timing their lights poorly in and around their new toll roads in an effort to get more people to use the toll roads.
I remember being stuck going north on Cameron Road at 183 (recently after building the Cameron Road overpass), and there were easily 40 cars in each lane going north. The light would stay green for 2 seconds, and we'd be lucky if 4 cars went through. I called 311, got transferred to someone who deals with traffic stuff, told them about it, and in about 4 more cycles, the lights actually changed. I don't know if it was my call or something else, but it was kinda weird... Austin lights do suck. Like at 2 AM when driving near campus, when there's nobody walking around. How about you make the damn students use the buttons when they want to cross, and don't make all the cars sit there for an extra minute when nobody is using the crosswalk? I understand that there is a whole 'science' behind how traffic lights are timed, but a fifth grader could see how ridiculous some of the lights in Austin are.
I guess we're lucky that the homeless, indigent and diseased people panhandling at the major Austin intersections aren't given control of the traffic lights. It could be worse: no donation, no green light.
Am I the only one that does this: If i find myself at a red light that never changes, and am alone on my road, i back my car up 20 yards, and drive over the sensors a second time. Maybe it's crazy voodoo timing, but it seems to speed things up and I get my green light much quicker.
They have had West Lynn at Enfield shut down for a week. Yet the stop light still thinks West Lynn traffic is going full bore. So busy Enfield stops for two minutes for nonexistent West Lynn traffic. Is it that hard for the lights to be reprogrammed to take into account a street is completely closed?
