|
Light Rail will slow Tempe, Tempe Town Lake and Phoenix Traffic
But get this they tell us that even though light rail will slow down traffic from 40 mph to 30 mph and add 8 seconds waits at each stop light that “You're driving slower, but you should get there just as fast," What kind of Orwellian logic is that lie! Perhaps they should have told a bigger lie and said that even though we will be going slower we will actually get their faster!
Light rail could slow traffic
Katie Nelson and Sean Holstage Traffic on Tempe streets will move more slowly once light rail is operating, according to Metro engineers. Now, Tempe traffic experts and light rail analysts are working to minimize the impact of the trains. The trains will trigger other changes, mainly how long stop lights last and whether turn signals happen before or after the green-yellow-red cycle. "I think the biggest impact is that the train coming through will be unexpected for travelers, at first," said Christine Warren, a Tempe engineer. "It won't always be as predictable." Teams of engineers, including Warren, are looking at how to tweak the traffic lights so they are synchronized with arrival of a train. Refrigerator-size computer boxes placed along the train route will do most of the work. In Tempe they'll be painted brown; in Phoenix, green. For two years now, city engineers have been trying to determine how to mix train tracks with road traffic. But regardless of any efforts made to smooth the system, traffic studies show that in Tempe a number of intersections will be congested. They include:
Part of the adjusting going on is extending stoplight cycles around the light rail line to 120 seconds. That amount of time allows as many cars to pass as possible, while still giving trains the best chance of getting a green light. It will be a slight change for Tempe, where the traffic signals are on a 110-second cycle. And it will be a bigger adjustment for Phoenix and Mesa, which operate on a 90-second and 94-second cycle, respectively. As a result, vehicles will have to move slightly slower along Tempe's roadways near the light rail line to catch a green light. Yet patient drivers can still get where they're going in about the same time, said Pat Fuller, Metro traffic manager. By driving steadily at approximately 30 mph on main arteries, they should hit green lights all the way, just like the trains. If they drove 40 mph, they would miss the timing and catch more reds. Fine-tuning the lights will be a slow process. Metro engineers won't be able to fully figure out how it will all work until the trains start running because of other potential factors. How long a train stops at a station to pick up passengers, or unusually heavy or light road traffic could change how they need to operate the system. "The next thing is to turn these babies loose with trains on the track," said Bill Porter, lead consultant. That will probably happen in March. "The goal is to be inconspicuous," Porter said. "If it works right, nobody even knows we're here." And eventually the responsibility of running the computer control boxes will go to the cities. "So we've been doing everything we can to learn about them and how to maintain and operate," Warren said.
Light rail will slow Valley traffic
Sean Holstege Light rail will slow traffic speeds in a large swath of the Valley when trains carry passengers in two years. Car drivers can expect slightly longer waits at stoplights, and not just along the rail route, but for miles on either side. The cycle for many traffic lights will increase so that drivers wait up to eight seconds longer, and average speeds will slow by as much as 10 mph. Yet drivers will reach their destinations in about the same time because of careful timing of the traffic lights, Metro officials say. "You're driving slower, but you should get there just as fast," said Pat Fuller, Metro's traffic project manager. The projections point to one of the trickiest obstacles in running a successful light-rail line: coordinating traffic and trains without crippling either. Metro must choreograph the two along 20 miles of major streets in north and east Phoenix, Tempe and into Mesa. The arteries include Central and 19th avenues and Apache Boulevard, which have tracks, and parallel or cross streets such as Seventh Street, Seventh Avenue, and Camelback, Indian School and Rural roads. "I'm very confident it will work very well," Fullersaid. He added that some intersections will improve and that some will get worse. |