OK I have to ask this. Does anybody out there think that their traffic signaling system is actually worse than that which we have here in Beaverton?
I cannot believe that there has been any thought at all given to the timing of these lights unless they are to specifically favor the direction of travel of some city council member.

I recognize that there can only ever be a single direction of signal optimization in any area. But I have not been able to discern any pattern beyond “random” around my area. It is the nature of people to find patterns in even the most chaotic systems (hence the popularity of Numerology and other silly past times) but here we have a system so chaotic, so random that I have never met a soul who claims to discern method in this arena.

I visited San Francisco back in 2000 and it was immediately apparent that somebody had put a lot of thought into the traffic signalling system there. Even if the lights were not optimized in the direction that I was going, it was OK with me as I understood that the traffic was as good as it was going to get. Optimizing the busiest direction will naturally decongest every other direction of traffic anyway by preventing gridlock.

Every time any of our traffic signals are altered here in North Atlanta, it is inevitably to make the phases longer (greater duration) in every direction. And this isn’t just my subjective feeling either. Faced with an incredible number of mis-programmed signals on my daily commute I have