What’s keeping the wingnuts busy?
- posted by demo kid
I’m almost tempted to say that I put them in a round room and told them to piss in a corner. But no, the amateur transportation engineers at (un)Sound Politics are measuring yellow light timing for any hint of malfeasance. Of particular interest was this choice quote:
I measured the yellow light durations at the two intersections in West Seattle that have ticket cameras. Here are the results:
Intersection Yellow Light Speed Limit
35th and Avalon 3.5 sec 35 MPH
35th and Thistle 3.5 sec 35 MPHThe above times are consistent with what has been stated by Wayne Wentz, Seattle’s traffic management director. Seattle PI quoted him as saying that yellow signal times were shortened as part of a re-timing of downtown signals in March 2008, to make sure intersections are cleared of vehicles when lights change.
“Many of our downtown signals were operating with four seconds of yellow time, then going directly to green for the other direction,” Wentz said. “During our recent optimization, we changed the signals to 3.5 seconds of yellow time and added one second of red in all directions for a total of 4.5 seconds. This actually increased the vehicle clearance time by 0.5 seconds.”
The “all red” time at the two intersections I observed was about one second. So that is also consistent with Mr. Wentz’s statement.
So… there’s NO evidence that SDOT is changing the signals to boost revenue, and any changes that they’ve made have actually been done in an effort to improve safety.
But hey, why let evidence get in the way of an old-fashioned conservative know-it-all bitchfest, right?
November 27th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
It’s not unheard of for cities to get caught doing this:
http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/
That said, I haven’t seen any evidence that it’s being done here. They put up a camera at the intersection where I catch the bus in the morning (and where I’ve seen an accident from someone running a red light), and I’ve been curious what the results have been (the accident I saw likely would not have been prevented by the camera either, as it was someone who simply ran a red because she was on a cell phone).
November 27th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Oh, absolutely! There are certainly cases where some cities have been caught doing this. However, as per the typical (u)SP investigative inquiry, they’ve found no proof of wrongdoing, but they don’t let that get in the way of a good bit of whining.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
It’s wingnut 101 - if government has been caught doing something wrong/inept/corrupt/embarrassing in the past, there’s a 100% chance they’re wrong/inept/corrupt/embarrassing regarding any other specific thing.
November 27th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Don’t forget the obvious corollary: conservative politicians and the free market are exempted from this rule. (And if they aren’t, they were never really “conservative” or “free market” to begin with.)
November 30th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
35th and Avalon is downtown?
November 30th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Also, am I the only one who hears the Python troupe singing, “I Like Traffic Lights?” Also.
December 5th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Tensor, I have a wingnut relative who thinks everything between Renton and Lynnwood is downtown Seattle…