OK, it’s just a guess.
But I’m betting if you added up all the time that motorists sit needlessly at stoplights, it would come out to, oh, 7.8 months over the average person’s life.
Just think of all the wasted seconds and minutes and hours over days, weeks and years that you wait at reds for no good reason.
I offer just a few examples from recent personal experience:
– If you want to make a left turn onto Naper Boulevard from eastbound 75th Street in Naperville, you have to wait for a green arrow whether or not there’s any traffic coming down 75th from the west.
On a recent visit to the intersection in this otherwise fine town, I sat for about 35 seconds before I could make a legal left, even though there was nothing coming from the opposite direction.
Now, 75th is a busy street with a 50-m.p.h. speed limit. And maybe traffic engineers, fearing that miscalculating left turners might be broadsided if they were permitted to move when westbounders have a green, based their green-arrow decision on the lowest common denominator of driver skill.
– But what about all the lights on 22nd Street and adjoining Butterfield Road in Oak Brook, where the limit is 40 m.p.h., but congestion and a proliferation of stops often keep speeds lower?
Seeking to turn left from Butterfield onto Meyers Road one noontime, there was a 15-second break in traffic from the opposite direction, but I had to wait patiently for the green arrow.
– And what about Lake-Cook Road at Northgate Parkway in Wheeling? Those of us heading east on Lake-Cook one day this month had to wait about a quarter minute for a left-turn arrow from the opposite direction to run its course, even though there wasn’t a car making a turn in front of us.
Then there are all of those intersections where the green arrow comes on first in the signal cycle, forcing the majority of motorists, who are going straight ahead, to sit and wait. What would be wrong with putting the arrow at the end of the cycle, thus delaying fewer people?
Wasted time aside, consider the supertankers full of gasoline that get burned across the U.S. annually and the clouds of unnecessary pollution that get billowed into the atmosphere by idling cars that don’t have to be idling.
In fairness, there has been some progress in recent years on the intersection-delay front.
For example, huge amounts of time have been saved by the ability to turn right on red at most intersections (although the predictable bunch of me-firsters abuse the privilege by jumping in front of oncoming traffic). Sophisticated signal systems at some spots also activate left-turn arrows only when sensors buried in the pavement detect vehicles in the turning lane.
But there’s still so much more to do-and so many more rewarding ways to spend 7.8 months of your life.
Major crime down on CTA
The good news for Chicago Transit Authority riders is that serious crimes took a dip last year, according to police statistics. Offenses on the bus system went down 2.8 percent, to 893 from 919, while the total on the rail system fell nearly 4.2 percent, to 1,814 from 1,893.
Unfortunately, the crimes were perpetrated against a shrinking population. CTA ridership last year plunged 9.3 percent.
Within the crime statistics, there were some upticks. Robberies on buses climbed 45 percent to 235, while thefts on the bus system were up 12 percent to 1,146.
Olympic ideal for U.S. cities?
Could little Lillehammer be giving drivers in America’s big cities a glimpse of the future?
The Norwegian town is hosting the 1994 Winter Olympics, and officials, in their wisdom, have barred private cars from its streets for certain periods of the day.
The auto ban also is in effect in other parts of the Olympic region, as buses shuttle motorists from large parking lots in peripheral locations to in-town spots.
This is just the strategy that some visionaries contend is the hope for increasingly congested, polluted and pedestrian-hostile U.S. cities.
Got a commuting question? See a problem on the area’s roads, trains or buses? Getting around will address topics of general interest. Write to Getting around, c/o Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611-4041.
