it would be interesting to see a study on how this plus bike lanes affected traffic congestion through an area.
hmm, I keep seeing this reposted... but my anecdotal experience is that the new traffic lights in the area surrounding target are terrible. If anything, the three lights on penn circle east seem to be synchronized to turn red in series. Just yesterday I had this happen to me after turning right onto PCE from Penn Ave.
Synchronization on Pittsburgh traffic lights. HA! Entertaining.
just hope this doesn't make light change out of turn at a whim, sometimes i rely too much on known light rotations
Do the lights around Target in E.Lib change their timing based on time of day? During rush hour it seems like I get every light red from the end of Centre Ave all the way to Bakery Sq. If I go through there on a weekend or around 10:00am I can usually go through all green lights.
I'm all for adaptive signaling. Sitting at a light, wasting gas, waiting for no one to go by is a pretty annoying 1st world problem.
This just in....water is wet.
my way-back machine takes me to 2002 when then city traffic engineer, Darryl Phillips, was putting a young intern to work on the CTRTCS. Poor me didn't know Microsoft dBASE, but the Point Park feller did...
CTRTCS was and still is to be the most epicly smartest of electronically controlled traffic signal grids.
Mr. Phillips is now getting paid what he's worth from PB Americas to develop Pittsburgh's BRT System from downtown through Oakland and into the Eastern neighborhoods.
Roadkillen- When I cross penn from the direction of pizza sola going toward target on my commute home on Penn Circle East, I count the number of seconds between my light turning green and when penn ave turns red, and it is always 15 seconds.. No matter the time of day..no matter the amount of traffic.
Does this system detect bikes? Does it handle bikes at the front of the queue with cars behind properly? If they expand this, will they finally pave the craters in front of whole foods?
Those aren't craters, they're traffic calming devices.
It seems pretty obvious that if all your metrics are based on cars, you're likely to end up with a place that's fine for cars but terrible for anyone else. I don't know if the planners are ignorant of that, or if they simply don't care, but either way this is not progress. I spend a lot more time walking around that area than I do in a car (or even on a bike), and it completely sucks. It takes twice as long to walk anywhere around there as it should because of how crappy the lights are set up.
(from the "Pittsburgh City News" email I got today):
The Traffic21 Initiative has proven to dramatically reduce vehicle emissions and long travel times in the bustling Penn Avenue and Penn Circle intersection - home of East Liberty’s Target store - where vehicle wait time was reduced by an impressive 40%. This technology is the most sophisticated in the world and will soon be deployed to more City intersections.
increase vehicle wait time enough to encourage people to walk or bike. THATS how you create a truly bustling business district. foot traffic = sales.
But if you can prove vehicle emissions are reduced because idling was reduced, then you can apply for federal CMAQ funding to install new signals instead of bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
penny wise, pound foolish. reduce emissions in a small area, but promote more driving that increases them overall for the region and as a by-product turns a thriving business district into a ghost town with a through road.
@sloaps, the law of unintended(?) consequences strikes again.
Personally I'd like to see a concerted effort to disabuse drivers of the notion that they should be able to make good time in a car on city streets. They don't just feel entitled to the whole road...they feel entitled to not be delayed. That's fine on the interstates, but on city streets some people would get a lot less ragey if they just accepted that it was going to take a while to get anywhere.
I'm not a traffic engineer or anything, but if I start out at 16th and Liberty in the Strip and exactly stick to the posted speed limit I usually get to the Bloomfield Bridge without having to stop.
This stuff does follow some plan...
if you push the [call] button, it doesn’t get you there any faster. But what happens is, if you do push it, it will make sure it gives you enough green to make it across the street safelyI hate these beggar buttons. It does get you there faster. You won't get a walk signal at all unless you push the stupid things, and not until the next cycle. Screw Rapid Flow. I bet they've never spoken with a pedestrian before or after their stupid implementations.
