Seattle Press on Line - It Takes a Village to Synchronize a Traffic Light

It Takes a Village to Synchronize a Traffic Light

By Dick Falkenbury

Feb 08, 2001 -- It shouldn't take three years and a million dollars to fix a few stretches of road in this town. But recently Mayor Schell and City Council Member Richard McIver (who, by mere coincidence, are coming up for re-election this year) called a press conference to announce that they've done just that. Schell has managed to get 500 traffic lights synchronized, at a cost of $1 million. For those of us who slept through math class, that's $2,000 per traffic light!

To be fair, with this stupendous accomplishment Mayor Schell has partially fulfilled a campaign promise he made three years ago--and just in time for next year's election. But why did it cost so much? Well, first you have to count the traffic for weeks, then you feed the data into a computer--taking into account slow-accelerating buses and trucks--and then you change the lights.

Of course, you could also just get into a car, run the street a few times and get a pretty good idea of what needs to be done. Change the lights that need changing, then come back in a few months to see if it's working. Change them again if they need it, and check them again in another few months. It doesn't take a computer to do everything ... and some things don't need perfection, just improvement.

H.L. Mencken once said, "For every problem, there is a simple solution--usually wrong." Well, he was mistaken. Sometimes, you take the pie crust, put it in a greased tin, pour in the filling and bake. That's why they call it "easy as apple pie."

Any cab driver in the city will tell you that if you just drive the streets, it becomes fairly clear which lights are not in sync. So change them, check to make sure and get on with it. What's the big deal?

(Note to the press: When covering one of these press conferences, it really is okay to ask a question. In the future, try these samples: "Why did it cost so much?" "Why did it take so long?" "Why are you announcing this so close to the election?" Certainly they covered some of this in journalism school? Practice asking these questions in front of the mirror. And keep in mind that getting the mayor to like you isn't part of your job description.)

Talk to Dick: falkenbury@aol.com.

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william bartlett	May 31, 2004	paris, france	student
I am studying traffic light synchronisation and I don't believe that the solution this article proposes is any better than the $2,000 a light method. If you were to change the lights depending on traffic from one road you may throw off the rest of the system. Traffic flow produces a very complicated system of differential equations and slight changes in one place could have varying effects somewhere else.