General Road and Highway Discussion

[ijmorlan]

Yeah, I feel like it should have been a crosswalk, not a full light. That way, traffic could move again as soon as the person is across. Way more efficient. The way it currently is is analogous to asking a 2000-passenger commuter train to stop at a road crossing because a car wants to cross the tracks.

Also the pedestrian stoplights have weird effects on cross streets. For example, Peppler southbound at Erb gets a lineup of cars at busy times that tends to clear up mostly when pedestrians press the button — but even while the pedestrians have their green, other pedestrians can still cross Peppler, and no matter what, traffic on Peppler is supposed to stop for the stop sign. Or Albert northbound at Seagram, where it is not at all clear that the red light controls the left turn (although I understand the police claim it does, so it’s probably prudent to act as if it does).

In a lot of cases I think a pedestrian refuge is the ultimate solution. Even quite busy roads will usually clear up one direction at a time; what gets annoying is waiting for, and confirming, a break in both directions of traffic simultaneously.