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One of the problems with the older major streets in the city of Phoenix is they're lopsided: two lanes on one side and three lanes on the other side. Also, many of them have streetlights on one side only. The newer thoroughfares (those built and/or widened after the 1980s or so) are divided with the same number of lanes on both sides, and street lights located either in the median or on both sides. I don't know why major streets like Northern, Bethany, Indian School, Thomas, as well as a lot of the north/south numbered thoroughfares can't contain the same number of lanes on each side. What they should also do on these older streets is install concrete medians & put the streetlights in them so that lighting can be sufficient on both sides!
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Originally Posted by new2colo
The streets in Phoenix are lopsided for a reason. Traffic volumes during the afternoon rush hours are a lot higher than they are for the morning rush hours. Since downtown was the primary business center when many of the arterial streets (Indian School, Camelback, 24th Street, Northern, etc.) were reconfigured and/or widened back in the 1970s and 1980s, the side of the streets heading away from downtown were given one extra lane than the side heading toward downtown. Many of the east-west arterials west of Central Avenue (0 E/W) are three lanes westbound/two lanes eastbound with the opposite configuration east of Central Avenue. Many of the north-south arterials north of Washington (0 N/S) are three lanes northbound and two lanes southbound with the opposite configuration south of Washington.
It was cheaper to eliminate parking and restripe the street or just widen the street in this fashion than taking more expensive right of way to make all city of Phoenix arterials three lanes on each side.
I've always wondered why the number of lanes on older major streets are lopsided, then I figured out it was done that way because of the volume of traffic during the afternoon rush hour, but as the volume of traffic increased in recent years, it's no longer true, you'll see traffic back-ups in both eastbound and westbound lanes, and again at major intersections with traffic lights where the red light cycles are too long. This is true 7 days a week now. A good example would be Glendale and Northern Avenues, on both sides of I-17.
It's also not unusual to see traffic backed up in the left turn lanes, even on the weekends, to get on I-17 from the east/west major streets, and that again is the result of long red light cycles. It's also not unusual to see traffic backed up on the westbound direction with 3 lanes, Thomas Rd, Indian School Rd, Bethany Home Rd, Dunlap Ave, Peoria Ave, and Thunderbird Rd in the afternoon rush hour are perfect examples. To make matters worse, there are lights on those east/west streets that intersect with north/south smaller streets less than a 1/2 mile east and west of I-17. Northern, Dunlap, and Peoria Avenues are notorious for being very backed up in the afternoon because of the extra lights they added in recent years within the vicinity of I-17, and their unneeded long red light cycles on the north/south intersecting numbered streets. Peoria Ave and Thunderbird Rd, intersecting with 23rd, 25th, 29th, and 31st Avenues are perfect examples.
Last edited by Magnum Mike; 05-23-2018 at 07:37 AM..
I agree, the lights here are stupid. I often travel during the wee hours of the morning in the east valley. Almost everytime im out I notice a phenomenon that I can’t figure out. I’ll be coming up on an intersection that I can see has a green light, even from hundreds of feet away. As soon as I get within what I would call “sensor” range, the light will turn red and the intersecting lights will go green, even though I’m the only car on the road in any direction. I often just treat them like a stop sign, otherwise you’ll sit there for several minutes waiting for nobody. It pisses me off and I’ve been meaning to contact the traffic dept and ask them what the hell kind of programming they do to these things. The only thing I can think of as to why this happens is that they go to a timer-only operation mode after a certain time overnight?
In the recent past, I know lights at major intersections were synchronized, so theoretically, if you start with a green light and drive at the posted speed limit, you'll be able to keep moving through most intersections, on green lights, and that used to be true most of the time if you drove on major streets, but that's no longer the case because of the heavier traffic we have now, and all of those extra "On-Demand" lights they added at major/minor intersections that are not synchronized with lights within 1 mile away. Thunderbird and Bell Roads near I-17 are examples. West of 19th Ave there are too many lights that are very poorly timed at 21st, 23rd, 25th, and 29th Avenues.[/color][/b]
Personally, I think it's negativity bias. When we hit 3 red lights in a row, or we get stuck at a long red light, we get upset and it sticks in our mind. When we hit 3 green lights in a row, we hardly recognize it.
I'm sure a city like Phoenix has plenty of traffic engineers studying these things, but they're never going to make everyone happy.
Personally, I think it's negativity bias. When we hit 3 red lights in a row, or we get stuck at a long red light, we get upset and it sticks in our mind. When we hit 3 green lights in a row, we hardly recognize it.
I'm sure a city like Phoenix has plenty of traffic engineers studying these things, but they're never going to make everyone happy.
When I hit 3 green lights in a row I definitely notice it because it almost never happens!
I notice there are a lot of lights at busy intersections that have very short light cycles, as in the light is only green enough to let 3-5 cars go, then red again. If you are more than 10 cars back, be prepared to wait for at least 3 greens before you can go. Or, sitting at a red light for several minutes with no cross traffic as far as the eye can see. I don't know why lights can't be triggered by traffic (or lack of) rather than on a timer in many intersections.
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If shorter cycles moved more cars through in the same time period I'm sure the thousands of engineers who look at this problem for a living would have come to a consensus by now. The problem with traffic will always come down to a capacity issue. We build in 3 dimensions and then pack a lot of people into multi level office spaces and small multi level housing yet our roads are still only built in 2 dimensions.
The only real solution is going to be subterranean transportation and even that has some limits, though technically we could go down hundreds of levels whereas we cannot go up hundreds of levels. Think NY subways but several layers deep and built for car transit not just trains. Up isn't a feasible option for roads so we need to look down.
Well, the statement about the thousands of [traffic] engineers who look at traffic issues and come up with solutions, that's debatable.
On the "subterranean transportation" system of New York city, they were initially set in place long ago, I believe in the early years of the 20th century, when the city wasn't as populated as it is now, and the extensive underground infrastructure had not been built. It was also designed at a time when many people were still using horses and horse carriages, and automobiles were not too common. I also remember hearing a few months ago that one of the reasons they built the subways was to eliminate the problems created by horse manure on the streets.
To build such an underground multi-level transportation system here in the Phoenix area now may be doable, but certainly not feasible, mainly because the Phoenix area is much larger in space and more spread out than New York City and its surrounding areas. Plus many of the utility lines for water, electric, storm drainage, sewage, etc. are already in place under street surfaces and it would require a lot of additional work to build it. I've read something years ago that to build such a subterranean transportation system similar to New York City's that would provide more underground subway lines under many streets would be too costly, and it would take too long because of the existing infrastructure.
The current light rail system we have now serves mostly the people who live very close to those corridors, and those who work in the north Central business corridor, and downtown Phoenix, along with many who go to ASU in downtown Phoenix. As I mentioned previously, you won't see too much traffic on those light rail corridors.
I can't speak for the east valley, but I know that in the west/northwest valley, the light timing to me is very impressive, especially during rush hour. When I get off 101 west bound at 67th avenue, I can go north, all the way to jomax, going through at least 8 or more lights, and get a green every time, as long as I keep it near the speed limit. This is the case usually in the 3pm-5pm time frame, during the week.
There are traffic cameras EVERYWHERE out here, and, I read somewhere that there are people monitoring these cameras during rush hours, and they sometimes manually change the light patterns to keep traffic flowing.
Not sure this is true, but, we are always commenting on how impressed we are with how the rush hours traffic flows are handled out here, in the northwest Phoenix/Peoria areas..
Personally, I think it's negativity bias. When we hit 3 red lights in a row, or we get stuck at a long red light, we get upset and it sticks in our mind. When we hit 3 green lights in a row, we hardly recognize it.
I'm sure a city like Phoenix has plenty of traffic engineers studying these things, but they're never going to make everyone happy.
I'm not sure about that, and you're right, they can't make everyone happy, but they're certainly making a lot more people very unhappy with the way things are now.
The major intersection closest to our house was updated last year. They added some cameras, and it seems that during slow times the lights are changed whenever there's traffic waiting in one direction and nothing coming from the other way. Seems pretty sensible.
In a different city where I lived years ago there was an intersection where, during slow times, all four directions were set to red and then when a car was detected the light for that car would be turned green. That was a little dangerous, IMO, since people got accustomed to the light's behavior and wouldn't slow down for the red.
I can't speak for the east valley, but I know that in the west/northwest valley, the light timing to me is very impressive, especially during rush hour. When I get off 101 west bound at 67th avenue, I can go north, all the way to jomax, going through at least 8 or more lights, and get a green every time, as long as I keep it near the speed limit. This is the case usually in the 3pm-5pm time frame, during the week. There are traffic cameras EVERYWHERE out here, and, I read somewhere that there are people monitoring these cameras during rush hours, and they sometimes manually change the light patterns to keep traffic flowing.
Not sure this is true, but, we are always commenting on how impressed we are with how the rush hours traffic flows are handled out here, in the northwest Phoenix/Peoria areas..
The west/northwest areas of the valley are newer and are not quite as populated as the areas further south.
If your statement about cameras everywhere with people manually setting their patterns, that's not a bad idea, and with technology that's constantly advancing, the light patterns can be adjusted automatically depending on the volume of traffic. I'm wondering if they're looking into setting up something similar in the older and more congested areas of the Phoenix area.
Though it's smaller in population, the City of Peoria does have a good traffic light control system in place, one of which is the flashing yellow arrows, which allow you to make a left turn at specific times of the day. Maybe Phoenix and other valley cities can also do something similar.
If you've driven on 7th Street around Bell Road and Greenway Pkwy recently, you'll notice that they added left turn arrows that stay red and create a back-up in the left turn lanes, in both directions on 7th Street, even when there's no traffic in the opposite directions. I must also admit (or confess? ) that I've made left turns onto eastbound Greenway when the arrow was red, and absolutely no traffic in the northbound lanes, and traffic in the left turn lanes was backed up. This was the case also in the northbound left turn lanes and traffic was backed up in them as well. I also saw a couple of other motorists who were behind me make the left turn on a red arrow.. We were thinking the same thing, "Whose bright idea was it to put this stupid left turn arrow here?"
Last edited by Magnum Mike; 05-23-2018 at 10:55 AM..
Reason: Correct a mispelled word.
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I must also admit (or confess? 
