Time Wasted at Traffic Lights

I just got back from the Lyman Street shopping center to my home in Westborough about one point five miles from the store.  This trip I did in the middle of the day, around 1:45 pm.  On the way to the store, traffic along Milk Street was lined up and I immediately thought “Oh no, that’s the construction going on at the fire department site”.  And, fearing a long wait, I smartly took the next right turn in order to get around it all. From a side road further down, I could see that the traffic was indeed not banked up like I had thought or it must have passed along since.  I decided to take Milk Street again.  There was no construction work going on and the reason for the long lines (before I took the detour) did not seem evident.  It’s just the usual jamming of traffic that we have come to expect at all times of the day now and that we are supposed to accept as though it were written in stone.

On the trip back home from the store, I decided to take the route that took me along Main Street instead of taking Route 9.  As I turned the corner from Lyman into Main, the traffic was at a standstill almost all the way to Lyman.  I thought it would probably move along soon enough as it was only about 2:45pm, nowhere near peak hour.  As the time sitting there idling got longer and longer, I thought “that’s it, I’m getting out of here”.  As far as the eye could see the traffic was not moving and it was building up behind me as well.  Just getting to a driveway in order to make a “U” turn, took about five minutes, a distance of only a few yards.  Finally making the turn and heading to Route 9, the traffic all the way along Main Street looked as gridlocked as the Mass Pike on a ball day.  

But this is what we have to contend with in small towns as well as big cities these days, waiting for traffic till our eyes draw blood.  And we take it oh so well. 

This folks, is our life draining away from us like sand in an hourglass.  Lives sitting mindlessly in constant wait.  Time that, when added up would be interesting to see how much we’ve wasted in a week, a month, a year – and a lifetime.  What does it all add up to, have you any idea?

Why do red lights stop traffic flow if there are no vehicles coming into the intersection from a crossroad?   When there are no cars crossing or imperiling our progress, we shouldn’t have to sit cluelessly idling at lights when there is no reason to do so.  We have the technology today to be able to sensor the traffic flow, so that when you are going down the road, the traffic lights can be set to remain at green until traffic begins coming from an intersecting road.  We have unimpeded installations of surveillance cameras and threats of speed cameras, why can’t we have cameras that enhance our lives instead of just penalize?

Let’s say on average, we wasted 30 seconds at 20 traffic lights per day, just to get a rough idea.  My assumption of the number of traffic lights per day is high however it is based on a commuter’s pattern of going into and out of a city, somewhat like Boston, a situation that happens in countless cities nation-wide.  Before going on, let me explain what I mean by “wasted” time at traffic lights.

Firstly, the seconds “wasted” is based, not just upon sitting idly at red lights, but at green lights also.  You probably haven’t noticed the unnecessary delays that happen by traffic lights that are programmed so that the green left-turn arrow comes on at the beginning of the green cycle instead of at the end.  A simple re-positioning of the green arrow like this can make quite a difference to delays.  Were the green left-turn arrow to appear at the end of the green cycle, that is, after the straight-going traffic has traveled forward, less delay would result when taken in the aggregate.  At  almost all intersections, the majority of vehicles are not turning left, most vehicles are the ones going straight ahead.  Therefore why delay the majority of vehicles for the minority ie; those turning left?  Were the ongoing vehicles to get “first dibbs” on the green light cycle, that would mean most of the vehicles would be delayed for the lesser time.

Except at congested times and certain interactions, vehicles turning left have the opportunity to make their turn after ongoing vehicles have passed  and before the traffic light goes to red, without needing a left-turn arrow to do it. 

Additionally, allowing left-turners to turn in front of forward-going vehicles goes against the good habit of left-turners giving way to ongoing traffic. Why are the lights programmed to force a less intuitive road behavior by having turning vehicles cross in front of ongoing traffic? 

That’s not all - have you noticed that more and more traffic lights now stop traffic from four sides of the intersection to allow pedestrians to cross diagonally?  The pedestrian lights at these intersections are programmed automatically so that they stop all traffic to allow pedestrians to cross – even when there are no pedestrians!

This often forces traffic to stop for a minimum of 15 seconds and often double that.  What’s wrong with a button that the pedestrian presses when they wish to cross the intersection, like in the “old days”?  What’s wrong with pedestrians walking perpendicularly across the intersection instead of diagonally, and walking in alignment with the green light of the traffic flow?  Most pedestrians intuitively walk that way anyway.  Have you seen the large intersections that stop all lanes of traffic to allow pedestrians to walk diagonally across them?   Many of these intersections have such a vast distance that a prudent pedestrian would not attempt to cross it diagonally even when they do get all the traffic stopping for them.

But most of all what does this wasteful time cost us?  Not just in money but in time – in precious time?  Time that we can never replace, time that we could be spending with our family or friends, or simply watching the grass grow.  We don’t notice twenty seconds here and there, but over time it amounts to a lot.  

And take it a step further - what can we as a society do en masse rather than sit in a vehicle waiting for traffic to move? Imagine what would result in the aggregate, if each inhabitant of each and every car that waits in traffic, (much of it unnecessarily) could spend that time productively.  

It's true that today many cars are on the road, but are we addressing this?  Are we looking at ways of alleviating it such as upgrading public transit?  That is another story which I intend to cover in an article at another time, but an option I hope we all start to examine seriously.

I have prepared a chart below which aims to shine a light on what this wasted time could be costing us in terms of time when looked at in the aggregate.  In one year it amounts to 18 days, in a decade 25 weeks and in a lifetime, over 3 years! That’s just considering the time we waste at unnecessary stopping at traffic lights.  It does not count the times we are stuck in traffic for other reasons such as at tolls, at accidents, at events and at peak times.  The “trick” is to look at things in the aggregate.  That gives us the proper picture, the whole picture, a picture that often eludes us when we merely look at it from the individual’s perspective or from “ground level”.

The streets through Westborough are congested at almost all times of the day.  Not that the delays are caused by traffic lights alone. Traffic at the rotary is a dog’s breakfast and has been for years.  The situation continues from year to year. That particular intersection may take some intelligent design! Therefore we should think of solutions and share ideas.

But I wish to ask you, do we value our time, our life?  Why are we so passive about insisting on what is best for us?  Adjusting traffic lights to consistently reduce delays, to eradicate unnecessary wait times, is a simple fix.  Why do these easy solutions not come to the minds of the "experts" or the “authorities”?  The traffic light programming system is almost uniform throughout New England and in other states that I have visited such as Texas and California. Imagine if our wait time is cut down by twenty percent over the country! That equates to getting home in 48 minutes instead of an hour if that’s the travel time to get to work.  Every weekday.  That’s an extra hour per week for millions of Americans, to spend on their terms!  

                 Time "wasted" at traffic lights 

(Assumptions: 30 seconds "wasted" at 20 lights per day)