Thumb-twiddling traffic lights

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

This letter appeared in the Advocate (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) on 19 July 1995.

This item may be cited as M. R. Franks, Letter to the Editor: Thumb-twiddling traffic lights, Baton Rouge Advocate, July 19, 1995, at 6B.

Dear Editor:

Waiting at Coursey and Sherwood for the light to languish through its incredible five-minute (!) cycle, a motorist has ample time for reflection on the competence of Baton Rouge's traffic engineering.

As a native Chicagoan, I'm used to a 65-second light cycle - usually forty seconds of green for the major thoroughfare followed by 25 seconds of green for the cross street. (According to the Chicago Traffic Engineer's Office, which I called today, the longest light in the entire city goes through its full cycle in 105 seconds. But then the engineer who spoke with me told me, "In Chicago, we believe in moving traffic.")

Of course, Chicago has over 12 times the population of Baton Rouge. How strange it is, then, that it is Baton Rouge that has by far the worse traffic congestion. Perchance Baton Rouge's traffic problems are the product of less-than-optimum traffic engineering.

While ensconced at a Baton Rouge light for five thumb-twiddling minutes, one can easily fantasize.

If we didn't know better, we might even suspect malevolent gremlins fiendishly taking small chunks out of people's lives one stoplight at a time by setting light cycles to glacial speed when not busying themselves hanging signs that prevent people from turning where they want to turn and going where they need to go.

Bureaucratic minds all too often marvel at the solutions they fashion for the very problems they themselves create.

Wouldn't it be nice if our esteemed traffic engineers derived their sense of accomplishment from getting people to their destinations quickly and directly?

M. R. Franks
2 Swan St.
Baton Rouge

Click here to return to Maurice Franks's Writings