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Kind of a confusing OP. Cary's signals are actually pretty good compared to other municipalities. As mentioned, lots of sensors and a command center to help them monitor and tweak major intersections in real-time if needed. Potholes not too bad here...much better than up north where the ice and salt are constantly chewing them up. The system of road maintenance between state and local roads can cause some confusion over who's responsible for fixing things up, but Cary staff is good at passing things along to NCDOT.
Yellow flashing arrows are becoming more and more common all over the country. Still relatively new, so there's is some unfamiliarity with them, but they are quite useful. They make for safer intersections by reminding left turners they need to yield, while also allow for greater flexibility in signal phasing as it eliminates concerns over yellow trap where your light turns red while the oncoming traffic's does not and you're stuck in the intersection trying to turn left not knowing you don't have the right of way.
Definitely agree about road markings/reflectors though. There are some very sketchy areas when it's rainy at night.
Haha I agree, Raleigh is nothing compared to some cities in the Northeast when it comes to potholes (though that's probably because of all the snow/ice they get
This is nothing compared to the Bay Area in California... and they don't get snow or ice. Even the mountain roads are full of potholes.
Did you know that Cary has a traffic control center where they can actually view certain intersections and adjust timing of lights as necessary? Pretty impressive if you ask me.
I'm not impressed with Town of Cary - when you have a left lane backed up on High House at Cary Parkway and people turning left have to wait through 2-3 light cycles to make a turn, I have to question who is monitoring that and how well. And what then happens is no one can get into the left straight-ahead lane, causing even more backups.
Same thing at High House and Davis - why the traffic turning left/southbound on Davis gets a green arrow at the start of the cycle and not the northbound traffic (which, again, is clogging up the straight ahead left lane) is beyond me. Has TOC traffic engineers heard of SAS? RTP? More people are going north in the morning than south.
One of the largest if not the largest intersections in Nassau County, NY has the light timed with sensors so that everyone in the "chute" gets through their light on one cycle. Cuts down tremendously on people jumping the light and running the light. Yet Davis and High House and Cary Pkwy and High House have accidents all.the.time.
Maybe these people monitoring the traffic don't come on duty till 9 a.m.
I'm not impressed with Town of Cary - when you have a left lane backed up on High House at Cary Parkway and people turning left have to wait through 2-3 light cycles to make a turn, I have to question who is monitoring that and how well. And what then happens is no one can get into the left straight-ahead lane, causing even more backups.
Same thing at High House and Davis - why the traffic turning left/southbound on Davis gets a green arrow at the start of the cycle and not the northbound traffic (which, again, is clogging up the straight ahead left lane) is beyond me. Has TOC traffic engineers heard of SAS? RTP? More people are going north in the morning than south.
One of the largest if not the largest intersections in Nassau County, NY has the light timed with sensors so that everyone in the "chute" gets through their light on one cycle. Cuts down tremendously on people jumping the light and running the light. Yet Davis and High House and Cary Pkwy and High House have accidents all.the.time.
Maybe these people monitoring the traffic don't come on duty till 9 a.m.
Have you reported all that stuff on that website that lets you report that stuff? Lol I can't remember the name of it...
I'm not impressed with Town of Cary - when you have a left lane backed up on High House at Cary Parkway and people turning left have to wait through 2-3 light cycles to make a turn, I have to question who is monitoring that and how well. And what then happens is no one can get into the left straight-ahead lane, causing even more backups.
Same thing at High House and Davis - why the traffic turning left/southbound on Davis gets a green arrow at the start of the cycle and not the northbound traffic (which, again, is clogging up the straight ahead left lane) is beyond me. Has TOC traffic engineers heard of SAS? RTP? More people are going north in the morning than south.
It's all relative to the volumes, if that left turn volume is low compared to other movements at that intersection (even if it's significant compared to a normal intersection), then it's not going to get a bunch chunk of the traffic cycle so that's not surprising to hear. The longest cycle length NCDOT typically allows is 180 seconds so that gets divided up according to typical volumes. The solution to that is usually to just extend the left turn lane if possible since giving the left turns more time in a cycle may lead to backups on other approaches as well since you are then giving less time to a thru movement that may have significantly more traffic. I'm working on a project right now in Wilmington where currently a "side street" straight movement has 800 cars/hour in the morning which is A LOT (for example) but they only get 30-40 seconds out of the cycle since the main street has 2000+ cars/hour (3 times the amount of traffic) so that street gets a bigger chunk of the cycle. The side street is always backed up but at least the main street with more traffic is somewhat moving. If the cycle length was extended to always clear the intersection, that would just never happen (and the stopped approaches would be even worse with backups) - that's an extreme example and there's certainly nothing that bad in Cary but an example of how the traffic cycle is sometimes never long enough to clear the cars waiting at a light at once.
As far as protected left turn movements, unless there is a safety issue, there has to be a significant number of cars making the left turns to warrant putting in a protected left turn. Again, the solution there should be extending the left turn lane if possible to avoid blockage. Giving a protected left turn signal would eat into the cycle and take away time from major movements if the volume is comparatively low.
Hopefully that helps - I don't drive thru those intersections or live in Cary but just a simple explanation based on the info you provided. Not sure what Cary specifically does with traffic monitoring so no comment on how that affects what I said above.
I'm not impressed with Town of Cary - when you have a left lane backed up on High House at Cary Parkway and people turning left have to wait through 2-3 light cycles to make a turn, I have to question who is monitoring that and how well. And what then happens is no one can get into the left straight-ahead lane, causing even more backups.
They proposed a right-turn only solution at that intersection with looping roads behind the shopping centers to get people where they needed to go, but people revolted, so now they're working toward a traditional widening there.
Cary can only do so much, as those are NCDOT roads.
They proposed a right-turn only solution at that intersection with looping roads behind the shopping centers to get people where they needed to go, but people revolted, so now they're working toward a traditional widening there.
Cary can only do so much, as those are NCDOT roads.
Yeah there are solutions to intersections where left turns are badly affecting intersections such as quadrant intersections
Another somewhat crazy (to the normal person!) idea that Utah has implemented on some of it's busiest intersections are Continuous Flow Intersections (CFI's). I think people here would lose their minds if we put one here haha
This is nothing compared to the Bay Area in California... and they don't get snow or ice. Even the mountain roads are full of potholes.
Maintenance funding is something that DOT's always get caught behind. Selling politicians on getting money for fancy construction projects is easy but it's not easy to get money to keep up on needed maintenance for the infrastructure once it's there. I know NCDOT has slashed county maintenance staff left and right from what it used to be - a group of 80+ people in the past per county is probably down to just a handful now.
What I can't stand is the DOT method of reducing congestion on intersections.
Instead of trying to find a way to stop backups, DOT adds a right lane to get more traffic off the main road.
Unfortunately, this new lane ends quickly forcing those in it to either stop or make a dangerous merge into the left lane.
A prime example is the 440 offramp at Wake Forest Road. Three lanes exit but the leftmost one takes you back on 440 heading back where you came from.
The guide lines do not help, and an extensive redesign on Wake Forest Road did no good at all.
So often Ii hear of wrecks at Wake Forest Rd and Navajo Dr because of this.
Real problem is too many people want to exit 440 to Wake Forest Rd. A true example of why adding roads does not solve anything.
Wait.......the 440 off ramp at Wake Forest Road feeds into the 3 straight lanes on Wake Forest Road......people in the leftmost lane make a terrible angle turning there so they sometimes get into the wrong lane back onto 440. People don't pay attention to any guide lines.
Side note, they should be converting that intersection to a diverging diamond intersection around 2018.
I agree that you can't widen or add more roads to get your way out of congestion - see Los Angeles. But people are going to want whatever they want and NCDOT is just going to fight the good fight that they see fit in the name of increased mobility and decreased congestion (at least for temporarily until the population grows to a point that it's a problem again).
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