Monday April 18, 2005
I-95 On-Ramp Traffic Signals
I noticed these cropping up in the northern part of Dade awhile back. I spoke to Ali K. at FDOT, who says activation of the signals has experienced a number of setbacks, and is currently scheduled for the end of July.
They’ll work pretty much as you would expect: if traffic gets too heavy on the highway, these lights will limit how many cars get on each hour. The upside is that traffic flows better. The downside is cars sitting on ramps and backing up on to local streets. Apparently after awhile people will anticipate this and seek alternate routes or travel times. Apparently cameras will monitor the backup, and release additional cars if necessary.
This is one of those things that books about the future predicted when I was a kid, so I can’t wait to see how it goes. I might be a little less exited if I used one of these ramps to get on the highway, though.
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This system may work in the genteel midwest: I saw it years ago on the interstates feeding into Minneapolis-St Paul; thoughtful patient little people sitting quietly and obediently, clean white hands on the wheel, bland, serious expressions, etc. But nobody with a pair of brain cells to rub together thinks it can work in south Florida. I predict fights, shootings, dueling serenades of car horns (and maybe shivs) as maddened, foaming drivers stew in their cars for whole minutes on end at the cusp of the interstate.
This is duckshit: somebody other than the roadworkers union has earned himself a kickback. Great. The rest of us lose. Again.