Since moving to Lincoln in August the lights are actually something I've been thankful for and thought were done well
I don't understand this. You like the fact that you can't go more than several blocks without hitting a light and stopping?
Traffic systems should be designed to efficiently move traffic around. In Lincoln, they are designed (or at least, they function as if) to chop traffic into controllable pieces and move those pieces around the city in short steps.
Driving down O Street from 9th to 17th, you're going to stop four of the eight lights, if not more. Driving the opposite direction at the same time - same result.
Driving down O Street from 17th to 27th, you're going to definitely stop at 27th, if not 25th, and now you're almost 100% likely to stop at Antelope Valley. In a ten-block distance you're stopping a minimum of once and likely three times - and that's despite syncing up with the traffic pattern of the street when you had already stopped at 17th.
Continuing east on O from 27th, you're going to stop at 33rd unless you speed like a madman. You're going to stop at 48th after you stopped at 33rd, and that's even if you stopped again at the only light between them at 44th.
This is Lincoln's "thoroughfare," the street with the most traffic, the street which moves the most cars. But there's no flow.
Take 27th. Longest north/south street through town. Start down at Yankee Hill and head north. If you stopped at the light at 27th & Yankee Hill, you're going to stop at Pine Lake without question, and that's even if you stopped at Porter Ridge. You're through Pine Lake now, going north, and you're likely to stop at one of the South Pointe entrances. You'll definitely stop again at Old Cheney - and again, that's if you're already in sync with the lights of the street, having stopped at the 27th & Pine Lake intersection.
You will stop again at Highway 2, and that's even if you got through the light at Tipperary. So, you're stopped at Highway 2, heading north, the light turns green and you have to GET ON IT or you're going to stop again at Woods Blvd. WHY!?!? Why should you have to stop at that podunk intersection when you just cleared a major intersection of two thoroughfares? THAT is asinine.
Anyway. You've made it through Woods unscathed, let's say, and now you're heading toward the trifecta of Van Dorn, Sheridan and South. You may get through Van Dorn, presuming you didn't stop at Woods, but it's unlikely (unless you're speeding) that you'll make it through Van Dorn AND Sheridan. And even if you've stopped at one of those two, you're going to stop for sure at South. Then you're going to stop at A, and you're going to stop again at Capitol Parkway. And you're quite likely to stop AGAIN, unless you get off the light quite quickly, at Randolph, and if you make it past Randolph, you're lucky if you make it past J Street without stopping.
You WILL stop at O Street. Period. But once you're through O, you may stop again at P street, which happens to me about half the time. Proceeding north, you're stopping at Vine, no questions asked. If you get on the gas once the Vine light turns green you MAY avoid stopping at the next light, Y Street, but that's a 50/50 chance. You get past Y Street and you're almost definitely stopping at Holdrege. Get through Holdrege and you may stop at Fair Street, but not always. You WILL stop at Cornhusker, and you may, depending on traffic, sit through a couple of lights. From Cornhusker you're stopping at either K-Mart Drive or Fairfield, possibly both. Get past those two intersections and you ARE stopping at Superior, again maybe waiting for two lights, depending on traffic. From there you're stopping again at probably two of the three lights at Ticonderoga, Kensington, and/or Folkways.
North from there you're most likely stopping again at Fletcher, and even if you make it past Fletcher you're stopping at Whitehead Drive. From there you're at the Interstate, and if you're heading west to Grand Island or York, you're most likely going to have to stop at the on-ramp light to wait to get onto the Interstate.
This is a tremendously antiquated way of moving traffic. I talked to a city engineer years ago about this. Basically they're using a philosophy developed in the 50s & 60s where they try to break traffic up into manageable chunks and control how it moves across town. That was probably OK in the 60s when there were half to 1/4 as many cars on the road as there are today, but it simply does not work in the modern era.
First, it wastes a TON of gas. All that starting and stopping is horrible for gas mileage. It causes unnecessary delays in simple drives across town. What used to take 15 minutes to drive now takes 20 or more. That's a completely unnecessary addition of time in the interest of slowing traffic. Traffic can be managed so it flows smoothly, so it moves at a reasonable and safe speed, and so it has a minimum number of stoppages. Lincoln doesn't have this philosophy, and I can't imagine why anyone would think the way they run traffic here is good. I find it baffling.
