Do city workers/planners come here, Traffic Lights (Phoenix, Scottsdale: casino, live in)

[locolobo13]

I've noticed that too. I think part of the problem is too much traffic. Timed lights work best in light to medium traffic.

When the roads fill up some people will be caught. Then they will slow down those who otherwise have caught the green light. Having triggered lights halfway between timed lights disrupts the flow as well.

[pbenjamin]

Years ago I worked a midnight shift, and was staying at a hotel at 32nd St/Thomas. I would drive east on Thomas to I-17 and then head north to the Honeywell plant. At that hour you could drive the speed limit and make the entire run without catching a light. The problems would occur when there was a little more traffic. People would insist on speeding, would get to the light before it changed, then sit there and block the lane positions waiting for the light to change. If there were few enough of these morons that I could slip through I would play hopscotch with them all the way to the freeway. You'd think that they would figure out that they were acting against there own interests, but they never seemed to.

[edhhjrs]

pbenjamin, you got it. Speeding to the next light is a huge problem and the problem is caused by the timing of the lights. I see it every day, the person driving like they're in the Indy 500, can make the green light is the traffic isn't to bad. Most driving junkers or big pickup's thinking they're driving a sports car. And the ones that do speed and catch the red, have to make sure every lane is filled up, so they can be the first to speed off to the next light.

I'm sure the "Planners" want people to drive slower/safer, which I've tried and still doesn't work. The timing is that bad, you can drive 5mph under and it still doesn't work. You'll just get passed and there will be a pile up of cars at the next light.

The best is when you see someone on a bicycle making the lights and keeping up with the traffic. Because the idiots in the cars are speeding to the next light, then sitting there playing with their phones.

[pbenjamin]

Originally Posted by edhhjrs

pbenjamin, you got it. Speeding to the next light is a huge problem and the problem is caused by the timing of the lights. I see it every day, the person driving like they're in the Indy 500, can make the green light is the traffic isn't to bad. Most driving junkers or big pickup's thinking they're driving a sports car. And the ones that do speed and catch the red, have to make sure every lane is filled up, so they can be the first to speed off to the next light.

I'm sure the "Planners" want people to drive slower/safer, which I've tried and still doesn't work. The timing is that bad, you can drive 5mph under and it still doesn't work. You'll just get passed and there will be a pile up of cars at the next light.

The best is when you see someone on a bicycle making the lights and keeping up with the traffic. Because the idiots in the cars are speeding to the next light, then sitting there playing with their phones.

I don't see how you figure this means that the timing is bad. Sounds to me like the driving is bad.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by PhoenixSomeday

I'm in a generally free flowing area, during rush hour or not. I do, however, miss the lights back home in Silicon Valley. At night if you approach a light that is red, it will trigger the perpendicular-direction light to turn red so that yours can be green. If you let off the gas (and maybe engine-brake a little) as you approach, you can even work it so that it's green when you get there and you don't have to brake. Bigger streets have longer lights than the smaller streets they cross. Streets of similar size/flow have generally equal weight.

Around here though, forget it. When a light is red, that's it, your effed. Regardless of which intersection and which direction, you're waiting for all the lights at the intersection to run their full cycle. Also, small streets seem to have lights just as long as big streets.

I do, however, appreciate the nice balance of green-arrow only lights and lights with both a green arrow and a go-when-you-can green. In L.A., they were ALL of the kind with no arrow, and ONLY go-when-you-can; and back home, they were ALL green-arrow only (not that I minded, however). I also appreciate how extremely far apart the lights are here. Back home it's like there's a light every few hundred feet on most streets. Here, it seems like I can go a mile or two most of the time. Definitely better on my gas mileage! I got 15mpg pure city driving back home. Here, same pure city driving, but I get 23mpg. Love it!

Something else I've noticed is that the walk signs are on for every cycle of almost every light, regardless of if someone is there. That makes lights even longer. Back home, hardly any of them are auto-walk; they don't trigger unless someone presses them.

The lights in Goodyear and Surprise work as you describe. Actually lights in the newer parts of town all have traffic sensing devices (they are the little camera-looking devices mounted on the light poles. Some are real cameras as well but they are not for tickets) and operate on demand with delays and schedules managed by a central computer. It is rather sophisticated and theoretically superior - to the timed light system of years ago that is common in Phoenix proper. I still get way too many lights. As far as I am concerned, anytime I get a red, it is unjust. I miss the days when I got off the freeway at Estrella and had NO lights the rest of the way home.

[edhhjrs]

pbenjamin, more like a cause and effect. Over time people realize they can get to a green light if they speed. Than everyone starts speeding up. Again really only works when the traffic is fairly light (off rush hour). I still think the timing is off, because I've tried to drive much slower and still hit reds. Or you hit the pile of cars that spend up to get to the light, which doesn't help.

Anyways, I don't think it will every change until there's a smart enough system put in place that will match the speed, direction and number of cars etc.

And don't get me started on the people planted in the high speed lanes going north on the highway 51, north of glendale ave all the way to the 101. I find it faster most of the time in the far right/slow lane. Especially on the weekends. No wonder they have to put up the warning sign move over for emergency vehicles, people will not move out of that lane.

[edhhjrs]

Going north on McClintock and Apache Blvd around 3pm today, hit the red, second inline. It turns green, the guy in front of me hits the gas guick and I take off normal speed. I catch a red light less than a 1/4 mile up the road, Don Carlos, the other guy just makes the green. There was one car coming off this tiny side street, 10 cars behind me. Another half dozen coming south bound, had to laugh.

[43north87west]

Some of the roads I drive on are well timed, but that doesn't go for everywhere. Scottsdale is bad across the board. I can't think of any road in Scottsdale with a reasonably good chance of making a lot of lights. Scottsdale Rd, forget about it. Not Hayden either. Shea baffles me because it carries so much traffic, but the lights seem to be almost intentionally timed so that the group of traffic that leaves one light gets trapped by the next light at the last minute. FLW is hit or miss, but mostly miss.

But there are others that are reliable in areas that I frequent. The 7s are both good north of McDowell. I have driven from McDowell to at least Glendale on 7th St without having to stop, but I didn't get messed up by any of the minor traffic-triggered intersections either, and there wasn't much traffic. Even in heavy traffic, it's possible to make several major lights on both of the 7s. South of the 10, 7th street is pretty good too. University is usually green, and if you make Broadway and drive the speed limit, Roeser and Southern are almost guaranteed unless there is a slow moving landscape truck or city bus. That leaves only the high school and Vineyard to interrupt traffic between Broadway and Baseline (which is almost always red).

Greenway is another one. If traffic is light, you can drive from the 51 to Scottsdale Rd and only stop once if you pay attention to the light at 64th (which you can see from 56th) and don't race between 40th and Tatum.

Ray is not bad going through Chandler between the 10 and the 101. There are others too.

The light rail can cause some headaches around Central Phoenix. Anything downtown is going to be slow going. And there are some central Phoenix streets that I avoid like the plague in peak traffic times, unless my destination is adjacent to those streets. Camelback, Lincoln/Glendale, Osborn, Thomas, and Indian School. McDowell is usually not as bad as Indian School.

[Arizona Renegade]

I realize this is quite a bump, but I was intrigued by this topic, as I've been a long-time red light-hater! I currently live in Payson, but work in Scottsdale at Talking Stick, and I used to take the Beeline Hwy (87) to McDowell Road, then take McDowell to the 101 Northbound and take it 7-8 miles north to Indian Bend Road/Talking Stick Way. Lately, though, I've been taking the Beeline to Shea Blvd., then Shea to the 101 Southbound, then the 101 S. to Via De Ventura. From what I recall, it's actually 81 miles if I take the McDowell Road route, and 76 miles via Shea Blvd., but the time difference is only a couple minutes (with the McDowell Rd. route actually being shorter time-wise). So, I figured I would save 10 miles of driving and fuel usage and take Shea Blvd. for a while.

With this stated, I must say that there have been times while driving on Shea Blvd. that I have wanted to post on some ADOT website/forum and tell them that I hate the person who determines the traffic light times/settings and that I hope they get fired and go to prison. There are times where I will hit 4-5 red lights in a row, with there being little-to-no traffic on the roads. There's also a stoplight somewhere around 120th Street (I think) that has turned red as I approached it, with literally no vehicles waiting to go through the intersection or approaching it.

For the record, I work a late-night shift, so I'm typically traveling on Shea Blvd. around 10:30 p.m. on the way to work and early in the morning anywhere from 4:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., so it's pretty much always with very little traffic on the roads.

Does anyone else drive Shea Blvd. between the 101 and the Fountain Hills/Beeline Highway? If so, do you think the traffic light schedules/settings are awful and aggravating? Or am I maybe just spoiled from getting to drive 65 miles of my commute on the Beeline Highway with literally no stoplights after I leave Payson until the one at the Fort McDowell Casino entrance?

Also, does anyone else have any current roads/areas with frustrating/aggravating/seemingly-unnecessary traffic lights?

Also, does anyone else have a long work commute? If so, how long a drive is it? How long does it take? And how often do you have to make the drive? Also, how long have you been commuting for?

[new2colo]

ADOT doesn't control the lights on Shea. The timing of lights on city streets that are not designated as state routes (ex. SR 87/Country Club/Arizona Avenue) and) US routes (US 60/Grand Avenue) are the responsibility of whatever jurisdiction you're in. 120th and Shea is the responsibility of the City of Scottsdale. Write them and tell them you think someone should be jailed because the light isn't green when you want it to be.