Computer Failure Causes Gridlock In MD County

Uncle Rummy writes "A central traffic control computer in Montgomery County, Maryland failed early Wednesday morning, leading to widespread gridlock across the entire county. The computer, which dates to the 1970s, is the single point of unified control for all traffic signals in the county, which comprises a number of major Washington DC-area suburban communities. When the system failed, it caused all signals to default to stand-alone operation, rather than the highly-tuned synchronization that usually serves to facilitate traffic flow during rush hours. The resulting chaos is a yet another stark reminder of how much modern civilization relies on behind-the-scenes automation to deliver and control basic services and infrastructure. The system remains down Thursday, with no ETA in sight."

Comments

Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[pickled doughboy]

Maybe all the meter maids could direct traffic for a while?

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[Ritchie70]

That wouldn't make it any better.

I haven't read the article, but if the summary correctly reflects the situation, the traffic lights are all working - they're just working independently, so rather than being in sync so the main flow of traffic never has to stop (or stops less) they're all just doing their own thing.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[natehoy]

Wouldn't matter. The traffic lights were working fine, the problem was there was no central system that could take a larger view of traffic and sense that turning a light green a block away could prevent a gridlock issue at a specific intersection. Intelligent traffic control takes traffic that is approaching a heavily congested area and intentionally slows it down, while freeing up cars to LEAVE congested areas more quickly. They help prevent gridlock by making sure that once a specific light turns green you can actually drive through the intersection, and turns the light red BEFORE cars get caught in the middle of an intersection.

You see this kind of design a lot in well-designed roads in smaller towns. Busy towns will tend to have lots of stop signs coming in to town, but try to reduce stop signs when leaving town. The idea is to keep inbound traffic from filling the town faster than departing cars can leave by making sure cars that are leaving can do so as quickly as possible, while cars wanting to come in will be intentionally slowed down.

A meter maid has no more information about traffic flow at adjacent intersections than an autonomous single light would.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[TheLuggage2008]

if the summary correctly reflects the situation

Please mod parent funny.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[OnlineAlias]

I'm about 10 feet from a datacenter that contains similar systems for another major metro area. Ours only upload new programs to the lights, and then the lights act on their own (but they stay synchronized...they know what each other are doing.) There is something more to this story, the database blew up or a programming error, something....

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[zero0ne]

I HATE gridlock, if I were to become a police officer, my entire day would be spent writing tickets for the people who just HAVE to get to the next section, even if it means they are stopped under the light when it is red.

I'm surprised police officers don't write more of these tickets, as it always seems like during the busy hours, you could easily write 15-20 of them within a half hour.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[Gilmoure]

Sounds like it's an old centralized system, when having independent setups per light was too expensive/difficult.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[nsteinme]

A meter maid has no more information about traffic flow at adjacent intersections than an autonomous single light would.

Then how about a Beowulf cluster of meter maids? (with walkie talkies of course)

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Hey, that's like traffic signals where I've live -- they're specifically timed to ensure that you consume as much gas as possible, while sitting in traffic for the maximum amount of time every day!

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[citizenr]

Wouldn't matter.

Yes it would, so would turning off the lights and letting people make choices. You dont see many gridlocks in Taiwan where its customary to ignore the lights.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[dbet]

Probably because often, this is a tough call. What if someone stops RIGHT after a light to turn left into a gas station, and causes the 4-5 cars behind him to get stuck under the light as it turns red? Surely, no one can predict this or see it fast enough to not go through the light. Sometimes the car in front of you is a giant box van and you don't know what's going on beyond him, and he's already across the intersection at full speed. Again, no warning.

Also, some things are a tough call. What if half your car is in the pedestrian crosswalk. Are you blocking the intersection? Technically yes, but how picky do you want to get.

I agree it's wrong of people to block the intersection just because they know they can get away with it, but I can see where cops have a tough time picking the bad or aggressive drivers out from the responsible driver who just got unlucky.

Plus, I imagine a grid-locked intersection is not a fun place to try and pull someone over :)

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Sometimes the car in front of you is a giant box van and you don't know what's going on beyond him, and he's already across the intersection at full speed. Again, no warning.

That would be called "following too closely" around these parts. Doesn't matter that if you leave a 10 foot gap to the car in front of you that 3 people will try and cram their giant SUVs in there at once while talking on their phone.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[bws111]

Some places (like NYC) have a box painted around the intersection. If you stop inside that box you will get a ticket. It is your responsibility to know you can make it all the way though before you enter it.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[nabsltd]

I haven't read the article, but if the summary correctly reflects the situation, the traffic lights are all working - they're just working independently, so rather than being in sync so the main flow of traffic never has to stop (or stops less) they're all just doing their own thing.

I haven't read the article, either, but I suppose I could print it out and read it while waiting in the traffic.

The commute here is bad normally, but yesterday was living hell. I watched lights change green for just long enough to let less than four cars in the line of twenty make it through. I watched several lights completely skip cycles in one direction (since they do that at certain times when there is little to no traffic coming from that way) while lines of cars waited.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[rocketPack]

Damn, I'd mod you up but my mod points got stuck in traffic...

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[FooAtWFU]

You live in Portland?

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[cayenne8]

"That's why most lights have yellow. Yellow means stop."

Hmm...around here it means HIT THE GAS, otherwise you're gonna have to stop soon!!

:)

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[rainmaestro]

When I lived in Orlando, I had a really funky light nearby.

The light was for a side-road onto a major road (6 lanes). The process to get a green after 10pm went like this:
--Arrive at light
--Wait for pedestrian light to go from white to red (white time plus 45 seconds of flashing red)
--Pedestrian light is now red, but traffic light on major road stays green
--Wait for a car on the major road to get in the turn lane
--The new car causes one direction on the major road to go red, he gets a green turn
--Once his turn light goes red, the main road goes back to green and the pedestrian light resets to white
--Wait for the pedestrian light to turn red (minimum two minutes more)
--Main road finally goes red, you get a green light that lasts exactly 5 seconds (I timed it)

If you get there at the wrong time, you could easily be waiting 10 minutes (you are basically dependent on someone on the major road turning off). After discovering this, I just turn right, go up a couple blocks and make an illegal U-turn.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[auLucifer]

That's because, as a mate of mine said, European, Asian and Indian drivers are batshit insane. If everyone is batshit insane it works

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[xaxa]

The commute here was bad a couple of days ago. An accident at a major junction 10km away meant the traffic was backed up all the way back to my house, along all the possible (road) routes to work.

I cycled past it all with my best smug face on :-)

(It did slow me down a little, the 25 minute journey took 30.)

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[xaxa]

If traffic is moving slowly enough that there's a risk you'll block the junction, then slowing down before you enter the junction isn't a problem.

Every day I cross several "yellow box" junctions. If it's busy, most people hold back accelerating when the lights go green until they can see they'll be able to cross. It doesn't slow them down, as they're only going to join the queue on the other side of the junction. (I think the fine is £100 if you stop in the box.)

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[operagost]

It could be worse. Many times, I've seen signals do things like turn yellow only a second after turning green; or more commonly, simply refuse to ever turn green.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[operagost]

Did you ever report it?

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[Jared555]

If that is the case in at least some areas you are legally allowed to run the light as it is a malfunctioning light. Have fun going across 6 lanes though.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[rainmaestro]

A few times. Always got the same generic "we'll look into it" response.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[maxume]

Really, it sounds like they do more dynamic management than the lights themselves are capable of.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[Ritchie70]

I hate to reply to myself.... but why am I modded funny?

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[wiredlogic]

I can't vouch for Florida but in most states you can pass through a red light if you've been stopped (in the proper location) for more than two minutes.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[Idarubicin]

It is your responsibility to know you can make it all the way though before you enter it.

A valuable lesson in life and motoring, as related to me once upon a time by a driving instructor:

Never stick your nose into what you can't get your ass out of.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[Hognoxious]

In Belgium if you leave the junction empty you'll get a chorus of honking. Twice I've seen someone overtake into the gap.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[commodore64_love]

Really it sounds like the D.C. area needs to stop relying on just the Beltway to carry traffic. IMHO they should extend I-66 so you can drive directly across the city instead of going around it. Ditto with an I-270 extension, so you can go straight through to Richmond, instead of having to detour around the beltway. Also I-85 should be extended northward and run semi-parallel to I-95 upto Boston... that way the traffic load can be split across both interstates.

In my view, traffic stoppages on interstates are a symptom of not having enough of them. Blaming other things is illogical. Just as you add more pipes if you want to carry more water, likewise you need to add more interstates if you want to carry more cars to handle the growing population. (Or else stop population growth to maintain the status quo, which would not be politically acceptable.)

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[maxume]

Adding capacity doesn't always work, the article linked below discusses 'induced traffic' in Atlanta, where each time capacity is added, people figure they can commute further (or more people figure they can commute).

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten?printable=true

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[rainmaestro]

That's news to me. We have a lot of lights down here that are red for longer than two minutes by design. Mostly side roads leading to major roads.

It varies by time as well. During rush hour, some side road lights on major roads will be red for 5+ minutes. One of the two lights leading out of my current subdivision onto a big road will have cars stacked up 30 deep during rush hour because the light is red for so long.

I've never been in a state (to my knowledge) that allows you to run a red light, except in cases where the light is clearly defective, in which case you treat it like a flashing red.

Re:Where's a traffic cop when you need one?

[DRACO-]

There is a t-bone light in my town that has a funky sensor if you want to go left from the trunk to the through highway, you will have the best luck, arriving at line, back up 2 car lengths and pull back up to the line. Luckily, I now live on the other side of town and avoid that light.

I've seen this movie as well...

[Monkeedude1212]

I smell foul play...

Quick, someone get Bruce Willis!

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[Deag]

The washington metro's computers did crash yesterday also. So call him quick!

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[EdZ]

Willis? I think you have the wrong movie.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[mitgib]

I think Denzel is the clear choice to uncover any conspiracy in Washington DC

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[mcgrew]

No, he has the right movie: Die Hard IV: Revenge of the Nerds. This is perhaps the nerdiest movie I've ever seen; the theatrical release kind of sucks but the unrated version kicks ass.

The only characters in the whole movie who aren't nerds are McClain and his daughter. And Robert Beltran and Tim Russ (Chakotay and Tuvok from Star Trek Voyager) are in it.

I never heard of "The Italian Job" before; Wikipeda informs me it's a British-only thing. Is there anything at all nerdy about it? Does it have anything to do with computers? In DH4, hackers take over the US's computerized infrastructure in a "fire sale". The first thing they do is turn all of a city's traffic lights green.

The wikipedia article about your movie says nothing about traffic lights that I see.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[EdZ]

In the Italian Job, they gridlock a city by replacing the tape in the city's (Turin) traffic management system.
I have seen Die Hard 4, but I really wish I could un-see it. A terrible film, with a terrible plot, terrible portrayal of computer systems (even worse than the usual hollywood fair, and not even lampooned BPS-style), and it didn't even have decent enough mindless action to compensate.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[Pinckney]

I never heard of "The Italian Job" before; Wikipeda informs me it's a British-only thing. Is there anything at all nerdy about it? Does it have anything to do with computers? In DH4, hackers take over the US's computerized infrastructure in a "fire sale". The first thing they do is turn all of a city's traffic lights green.

The wikipedia article about your movie says nothing about traffic lights that I see.

From the article:

The plan calls for Peach to infect Turin's lauded computerized traffic control system to create a traffic jam that will prevent the police from recapturing the gold after it is stolen.

The 2003 remake, which was reasonably popular in the US, featured a cracker manipulating the LA traffic control system to cause similar chaos.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[Smallpond]

It would have been better if John Hodgman had been the villain and had the shoot-out with Justin Long at the end.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[Gilmoure]

With Tim Allen rolling, because it helps.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[Darth_brooks]

Bringing in Bruce Willis is *never* a bad idea. Need an asteroid destroyed in an affront to basic science? Call Willis. Need to remove an East German terrorist that can't speak proper German? Willis. Need someone to have sex with a hot, orange haired diety? Willis. Need Chuck Norris' ass kicked? Willis. Cancer cure? Willis. Making a Jaws Sequel? Have Bruce Willis play the shark.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[mcgrew]

You must have seen the theatrical release. It was indeed bad, the unrated version was pure entertainment. It was almost all mindless action and a lot of good laughs, which were absent in the rated version ("Yeah, your girlfiiend's at the bottom of an elevator shaft with an SUV rammed up her ass"). And what movie ever gets anything at all right?

BTW, what's BPS? I looked it up in wikipedia and nothing seems to fit.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[russotto]

Need someone to have sex with a hot, orange haired diety?

Whoa there, no need for Willis for that one. I'll do it. And if she objects, tell her the next choice is Shatner.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[Kittenman]

Wrong movie! Traffic lights also featured in "The Italian Job" - the original (of course).

By the way, you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[amicusNYCL]

A terrible film, with a terrible plot, terrible portrayal of computer systems

Oh c'mon, it's not that bad. It's entirely believable that one would be able to download The Accumulated Wealth Of The World into a removable hard drive and abscond with apparently the only copy of it.

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[Dachannien]

And if she objects, tell her the next choice is Shatner.

Spock! She... knows... it's a multipass!

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[maxume]

He meant to direct you at the remake, where Scott Evil directs Marky Mark through a city by hacking the streetlights:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Italian_Job_(2003_film)

Re:I've seen this movie as well...

[H. Abdensen]

Looks like Bruce saved the day: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110502344.html?hpid=newswell

How obscure?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Wooo Fire Sale!!

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[JWSmythe]

  I've seen some places in the US, where the green light is blue. I still haven't figured that one out, but I tend to go for the blue light, and stop for the pink one.

remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[trybywrench]

back in the day i read a "tfile" by Sunspot IIRC that explained how to break into those boxes attached the stop lights at intersections and make every light stay green all the time. Not sure if it was legit or not but it sounded a little far fetched.

As for the single computer, i bet a coke no one knows the root password, the system administrator is long gone and the programmers are very long gone. I bet the staff tried to power cycle it thinking it was just like a PC and now they've made the problem 3x worse.

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[EvilBudMan]

Maybe they could turn it off and back on and it would work?

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[BitZtream]

You assume it has a password, and the concept of user accounts for that matter.

If its sitting in some secure control room somewhere it may not require one. Password protection is far less important when you aren't on a network that unauthorized people have access to.

Of course, just because its been sitting there since the 70s doesn't mean it hasn't been modified, the area's traffic is in constant flux and it would need constant adjustment to remain efficient. Its most certainly been modified hundreds of times, I'm sure several times this year alone.

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[WinterSolstice]

It's actually most likely VMS, and it's most likely going to require them to find whoever they laid off in order to outsource their 'legacy' system.

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[Normal Dan]

i bet a coke no one knows the root password...

You're on.

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[th0mas_g]

the sensors in some very old traffic lights in the uk can be fooled by flashing your car headlights at them

Yes... here in the US you can see lights with lux sensors attached to the overhead wires. I think the idea is that if the light was red and there was traffic backed up at the light, an emergency vehicle with flashing lights would trigger the signal to turn green for that direction, allowing the emergency vehicle to pass.

If you're caught at one of these lights (works best at night) and you want it to turn green, you can flash your brights a few times. It's worked for me on occasion with limited sucess.

Best if no police see you do this, though. ;-)

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[roguetrick]

Relating this to the dowsing thread, are you sure what you were doing had any relation to the outcome?

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[rainmaestro]

A machine that old? The password is bound to be: sex, love, secret or god =)

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[DigitAl56K]

back in the day i read a "tfile" by Sunspot IIRC that explained how to break into those boxes attached the stop lights at intersections and make every light stay green all the time.

Did it involve disconnecting the other lights and wiring the green light straight up to the power source? ;)

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[linebackn]

the system administrator is long gone and the programmers are very long gone. I bet the staff tried to power cycle it thinking it was just like a PC and now they've made the problem 3x worse.

Very likely. Maintaining an existing system, especially an "older" one, brings no glory to the higherups. With the economy and the layoffs the last couple of years it is almost a sure thing they got rid of anyone still responsible for or knowledgeable of this system. Even when things were good they probably didn't take it seriously and did not keep any in-house backup personnel around, besides employees can just be discarded and replaced like light bulbs right? Right?

Of course, now the system has gotten everybody's attention.

I can almost hear some manager there yelling "I told you we should have re-written it in Dot Net!"

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[sjames]

You would have to hard wire all greens. The relays are wired so that you can't make both sides green. One side must be red for the other to display yellow or green at all.

I believe on the newer ones, a PLC implements the relays and has a "program" for each valid (safe) state. The controller can only tell the PLC which of those states is wanted.

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[palegray.net]

I'll bet you a truckload of cokes that the operating system on that machine doesn't have an account named "root."

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[uninformedLuddite]

1970s traffic control is most likely RT-11 on a PDP variant. I could fix it but I want a lot of money as I suspect there aren't too many people left that know the arcane rites required.

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[uninformedLuddite]

Did it involve disconnecting the other lights and wiring the green light straight up to the power source? ;)

You actually raise a very good point. A lot of the modern breed of 'hackers'(in this context very, very loosely used) would be wondering what trojan they needed to install before they could do their uber-hack. I can just imagine little timmy trying to work out how to make the CD tray pop out and wow his friends. I wonder just how hard it would be to find a pre-rolled PDP-ll trojan on google?

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[gtall]

I live near Washington, the county commissioner came on the tube and said he'd been budgeting for a replacement system since 2002 and that it would cost something on the order of $40 million. I presume there is a penny jar in the commissioner's office and he cadges pennies from visitors. He also said the new system would be ready around 2012 or 2014 (I cannot recall which). My guess is that the system just clunked away on its own and no one thought to upgrade parts of it as newer technology became available. Now they have a massive problem on their hands.

Re:remind of a Cult of The Dead Cow tfile

[Hurricane78]

Well, I know, that Spain for a long time, had the same password on every local Internet distributor node box in the country. One that was breakable with a normal overnight dictionary attack. All you needed to do, was to buy a triangular standard key from the hardware store, open it, connect your laptop to the serial port inside, put the laptop inside, and let it run overnight. The next morning you could tweak the bandwidth distribution in your favor. ^^

1970's computer

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I have an old Pentium 75. They are welcome to it, it it will help. :) Of course with the diffrence in processing power between a Pentium and a 1970's era computer, you could probably run the entire countries traffic lights with a P75.

Re:1970's computer

[hardburn]

Old systems stick around because they work. City-wide traffic systems are very complicated affairs. Getting rid of a 40 year old system also means trashing 40 years of hard lessons.

Re:1970's computer

[yurtinus]

Doesn't necessarily mean trashing all the lessons learned when building the new system. However you bring up a great point-- it works. How many failures have there been since 1970? If it's just now making news for a failure, then reliability doesn't seem to be an issue.

Re:1970's computer

[realityimpaired]

Until somebody sent it a F00F... imagine the mayhem if the whole country went down... :P

Re:1970's computer

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I make my living trashing 40 year old systems. :)

Re:1970's computer

[Vancorps]

Sounds like you've come to the end of a porn career or something.

Re:1970's computer

[Bigjeff5]

A Pentium 75 won't run a control system, this system was more than likely a VAX or DCS system running VMS, that's what most of the old control systems run where I work.

They are beastly machines, and solid as a rock - they almost never crash. You can grind them to a halt, but you'll never get the equivalent of a blue screen of death. If you can free up whatever resources you managed to hog it'll go on purring like a kitten. Tons of processing power for their age, and more than likely 64-bit to boot (if they run VMS they have to be 64bit).

More than likely the situation is some sort of hardware failure, combined with the fact that you can't get 35+ year old hardware any more and it's incredibly difficult to find hardware to run 35+ year old software on, and the fact that they apparently hadn't considered the system going down and thus had no redundancy, and it might take a while to fix this.

Re:1970's computer

[operagost]

The VAX was 32-bit and VMS is still available for it (although it's stuck at version 7.3). The Alpha was 64-bit, but it didn't appear until 1992.

Re:1970's computer

[MrPhilby]

Fucking brilliant

Re:1970's computer

[palegray.net]

No, that would be making a living thrashing 40 year old systems.

I live there

[Mekkah]

I live around this area and I hadn't noticed anything. I haven't heard anyone complain either..

I guess traffic was a little heavier yesterday. Traffic sucks all the time, if it rains it is the apocalypse.

Hmm.. Strange.

Re:I live there

[dsieburgh]

I live here too and it was mayhem last night. It took me 2.5 hours to get home from work which usually takes 25 minutes. (6 miles) Many of my coworkers and friends have also reported major headaches... We were sitting at traffic lights with nowhere to go for sometimes up to 5 cycles of the lights. What I heard is that there is a different timing for rush hours that lets more traffic flow south in the morning and north in the evenings. The worst areas according to news reports are Rockville Pike, which I experienced last night, Connecticut Ave, Georgia Ave and Rt 29. The official word is that some board blew in the main computer and they are unable to find "parts" to replace it. I am not certain about the details. The county website is reporting that all traffic lights are going to have to be manually updated one-by-one. There are 800 intersections.

Re:I live there

[Deag]

I noticed it yesterday, I was cursing whoever changed the timing on one of the lights as it was causing a considerable backup. Then I read this.

I wouldn't call it gridlock though either. Just slightly worse than usual

It depends on your route also, if you are crossing the main routes rather than going on them it might even make your journey quicker.

Re:I live there

[JustinOpinion]

I also live in the affected area. I personally wasn't affected much since I bike to work. Actually I did notice the long lines of cars at all the lights. As a cyclist it was actually nice since the gridlock of cars slowly crawling onto the highway on-ramp is easier to navigate than the usual situation where cars don't stop for pedestrians or cyclists at the cross-walk.

In any case, my coworkers sure noticed. Some of them said that their commute yesterday went from 30 minutes to 3 hours. Similarly getting into work this morning took people longer than usual.

So it's certainly having an impact. But, life goes on.

Re:I live there

[squirrelist]

I live in downtown Silver Spring. I commute from Columbia. It's usually a 30 minute drive, but last night took me an hour and a half. The worst part was when I crossed Georgia Ave a block from my home, right by the DC border. That last block took me 20 minutes.

I was trying to figure out what was up with the traffic. I didn't see any accidents or emergency vehicles, and the traffic reports I heard just said that traffic on Georgia was slow. Didn't hear anything about the control system until today.

Re:I live there

[rotorbudd]

sounds like the northern end of ATL everyday.

Re:I live there

[EvilBudMan]

I know how you can fix this. Move to the gun loving, gun running state of Virginia. It's not too far away. Yeah, and we never have problems with our ultra new traffic lights. No. No way hehehe. (sarcasm)

Re:I live there

[herring0]

I'd believe they are unable to find parts. I worked on phone systems and one of our clients had a nearly 30 year old Rolm CBX system that had gone from Rolm to IBM to Siemens. The model they had *ONLY* had parts for both it and its voicemail add-on available from some guy that literally bought up a bunch of units being replaced and sold the spare parts out of his garage.

And keep in mind that for quite some time ROLM systems were nearly as popular as the Nortel systems.

Re:I live there

[PingSpike]

Pretty nuts. But at 6 miles, wouldn't it be faster to just walk to work until this crap gets sorted out? Getting some exercise sure beats the red faced swearing behind a steering wheel I'd likely be engaging in if I were in your position.

Re:I live there

[neverpsyked]

Biking to work in Montgomery County would be suicidal. I use mass transit and have been hit by cars while using crosswalks twice in 3 years. I simply cannot imagine the additional danger to someone who bikes to work every day surrounded by MD drivers.

Re:I live there

[getagrip]

Rockville Pike can be faster to travel on in morning and evening rush hour than nearby 12 lane Interstate 270. When the synchronization is working it works very well. Of course, during the day, all the shoppers driving on the Rockville Pike just turn it into an extended parking lot no matter what the traffic signals are doing.

Re:I live there

[natehoy]

Time to break out the bicycle. Or walk it, for that matter.

6 miles should take about an hour and a half at a decent walking pace, or about 45 minutes at a fairly leisurely cycling pace, and a week or so of it and your new sculpted bod will drive the ladies wild. :)

Re:I live there

[MiniMike]

I live in the county also, and I noticed that my commute was actually better than usual. Normally, the lights are so poorly timed on my route (which is with rush hour traffic) that timing them randomly would be an improvement. The timing is so bad that I actually attribute it to malice, or having some priority other than having traffic flow smoothly. When the predominant flow of traffic catches every red light, when there are major intersections with long backups for one road and no traffic on the other (long gone through the mistimed green), it's beyond incompetence. Hopefully this event shakes things up enough to get the system fixed, but I doubt it.

Re:I live there

[Anonymous Codger]

Depends on where you ride. I ride to the Silver Spring Metro most days, and often ride from Silver Spring to Virginia. Maryland drivers suck, as do DC and VA drivers. But as long as you stay away from the homicidal Metrobus and RideOn drivers, it's not too bad.

Re:I live there

[Anonymous Codger]

I haven't had any problem because I ride my bike to the Silver Spring Metro. But my wife got stuck on Rockville Pike yesterday afternoon trying to go to a store. She gave up and headed for home, and the whole trip, which should have been 30 minutes, took her 2 hours.

Re:I live there

[bonius_rex]

There are bike lanes everywhere. I would think that with some combination of bike lanes and side streets, you'd end up getting home faster on a bicycle even if it added a few miles to the distance.

Re:I live there

[nasch]

Perhaps it's to keep too many cars from getting into a congested area at once. Maybe the choices are either stopping at every light, or massive nasty gridlock later on.

Re:I live there

[fridaynightsmoke]

It took me 2.5 hours to get home from work which usually takes 25 minutes. (6 miles)

Y'know, ya cudda parked and walked it in an hour and an half and gotten some exercise.

Yes, because there was ample, free and safe overnight parking for him to abandon his car at, and retrieving the car would be soooo easy later.

Re:I live there

[Nadaka]

6 miles should should take about 15 minutes with a bike on normal roads. I've done 5 miles in 10 minutes, including stopping at 2 signs. Of course bikes are considered motor vehicles in the US, so you must follow all traffic signals. Won't be much faster in this case.

Re:I live there

[natehoy]

Well, true. Especially since, in theory, you are not supposed to pass any cars on the right on a bicycle.

I have a 15-mile ride to work (20 minutes by car, 1 hour by bicycle). I stop at all traffic lights, stop signs, etc.

I have to admit I occasionally bust the "don't pass any cars on the right" rule, especially if there's a long line of traffic at a light. I suppose if you were to follow that rule strictly, then by definition a bicycle would ALWAYS be slower than your slowest car commute, and I imagine that rule would be more strictly enforced in a larger city (if by no other means than the sheer peril).

Re:I live there

[DinDaddy]

That would have worked out well for him. He could have chose to simply not go home.

Re:I live there

[dsieburgh]

I did walk the final 1.5 miles, but the beginning of the commute is way too dangerous for walking. 6-8 lanes across with on/off ramps to 270 and 495. Especially with lots of impatient drivers making lots of crazy and stupid decisions. Not to mention all of the cyclists in DC who are a bunch entitled a**es. Seriously, first the take over the roads like they own them in the ridiculous spandex outfits, cycling on highways, though red lights and stop signs. And then the other day I was hiking by the C&O canal and got run off the trail by a cyclist. Oh and BTW I do get lots of exercise and am in great shape. Walk 2 miles every morning with my dag on go hiking regularly. Thanks for thew advice tho!

Re:I live there

[dsieburgh]

Cyclists don't use bike lane in DC. Perfect example is MacArthur Blvd. There is a very nice bike lane that I have used a few times, bu cyclists insist on using the road, even at rush our, which as another commenter pointed out is suicide around here.

Re:I live there

[roguetrick]

I wonder if there's a place in this world where people say "Our drivers are awesome."

Re:I live there

[roguetrick]

Sounds like they slow down your route to let other people pass through in a different direction without major congestion. Tough decisions, because it sucks when you get shitted on.

Re:I live there

[Bigjeff5]

We have pretty good bike paths along the sides of the streets where I live, but no experienced rider uses them. I asked a co-worker who biked to work why, and he told me the only times he's ever been hit or had a close call was when he was using the bike paths + crosswalks instead of riding in the road with traffic.

The reason is pretty simple if you think about your own and other's driving habits: dumbass drivers coming up to the light or coming to a main street from a side street do NOT check to see if there is a biker about to cross before pulling up. In this case, nearly all drivers qualify as dumbass drivers, because they are literally breaking the law almost every time they stop at a light or intersection (you are supposed to stop before the path/crosswalk and pull up if no pedestrians are coming). This means a biker can have a clear right-of-way (walk sign + traffic moving his direction) and still have people pull out in front of him or, if the timing is bad, even hit a biker using a crosswalk.

When bikers ride in the road with the cars, the people driving, no matter how much they may curse at the bikers, are forced to notice them. Crossing intersections and side streets, making turns, waiting for traffic, EVERYTHING becomes safer.

Bike lanes in the road are only better if drivers are forced to notice the bikers in the process.

Re:I live there

[operagost]

Biking to work in Montgomery County would be suicidal.

Not when all the cars are parked in gridlock :-)

Re:I live there

[SputnikPanic]

The shoppers also make Rockville Pike a particularly frustrating road to travel on weekends this time of year. Given that the control system will not be repaired until at least the middle of next week, this weekend is probably going to make for some horrendous driving in that area.

Re:I live there

[palegray.net]

Amen. Ever since I moved to South Jersey, I've missed many things about Atlanta. I most assuredly do not miss wasting a fifth of my day in traffic.

Re:I live there

[treeves]

Are you guys still the only state in the Union where radar detectors are illegal?

Re:I live there

[ultranova]

I wonder if there's a place in this world where people say "Our drivers are awesome."

In Soviet Union, everything is awesome, and only an imperialist enemy of the people would say otherwise.

Re:I live there

[gtall]

Maryland drivers are the worst. They will pull out and zoom past you if they think there's an extra car length hiding there they can fit into while the entire train of cars for as far as the eye can see attempts to race from clusterf--k to clusterf--k traffic light. And then some bonehead will do something to cause an accident and traffic is hosed for the rest of the evening while the cops shut down every highway they can find, I think they get extra bonus points for screwing up extra traffic. To the scene of the accident will then rush about 4 times as many emergency ambulances (the word 'ambulance' here is a bit like calling the Hope diamond a nice rock) as are necessary careen though the jammed up traffic all fighting to be the first. I guess they get bored and when an accident happens it is something like Halloween for them.

Re:I live there

[EvilBudMan]

No, Massachusetts once had that law but I think they repealed it. Washington DC, military bases, and certain commercial vehicles in certain states have also banned the use of radar detectors.

You bring up an interesting point though, because we used to also have confiscation. That was ruled unconstitutional. Believe me, if you have one here turned on the state troopers will find it and the fine is unbelievable. If they just took the radar detector, that would be much cheaper than the fine.

Interestingly though, radar jammers are illegal everywhere while laser jammers are actually legal in some states, but not Virginia, and the Virginia state troopers also have their radar guns set to only 5 miles over the limit. Watch out in Virginia.

Re:I live there

[fropenn]

It's a good suggestion - unfortunately in my hometown, as I am sure is the case in many other places as well, the infrastructure is not designed to allow for bicycle and foot traffic. There are not sidewalks in many places and it would be suicide to try to ride my bike on the highway. We've become so accustomed to driving everywhere that designers often ignore the possibility (probably for cost reasons) of alternative modes of transportation.

Re:I live there

[mejesster]

Who are you? I also live in downtown Silver Spring and commute to Columbia. Try taking Wayne or Ellsworth instead of Georgia.

NBU

[Mekkah]

http://www.symantec.com/netbackup

Just throwing that out there.

All-green probably an urban legend

[davidwr]

Most of those boxes have a "conflicting green" detector circuit that automatically puts the signal in "safe mode" when it detects two conflicting green lights.

On simpler systems, "safe mode" is all-way flashing red lights.

I guess if you knew what wires to mess with you could disable this safety feature.

Physical access is root access.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[sexconker]

Physical access is root access.

Physical access is infinitely more powerful than root access.

Root access is shit.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[Qzukk]

After hurricane Ike blew through Houston, I ended up parking at a light that was stuck, showing green for traffic in one direction only for at least 15 minutes.

Every time someone was brave enough to try to run the red light, someone else would drive through the green light and spook everyone. Eventually I turned right, U-turned, and turned right again.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[jimicus]

Physical access is root access.

Technically true, but it doesn't do you a whole lot of good if you don't have anyone on staff who has the remotest idea what to do once they have physical access.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[Tdawgless]

Why not just switch the wires on the red light and the green light? Then they'll all be green or red at the same time.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[Anonymous Coward]

I was recently stuck at a light where both the red and green lights were lit at the same time. I put my foot on the brake and the other on the gas, and drove through.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[roguetrick]

Unless they're yellow!

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[rcw-home]

Most of those boxes have a "conflicting green" detector circuit that automatically puts the signal in "safe mode" when it detects two conflicting green lights.

That's what's supposed to happen. I have anecdotal non-proof from several years ago that that may not be universal, though. In Renton, WA, just west of the Sunset Blvd intersection, Bronson Way crosses a couple railroad tracks (which recently were only used for the Spirit of Washington dinner train and have now been torn up completely in Bellevue). When a train came, the gates would lower and all four sides would see flashing red lights. After the train passed and the gates lifted, both Bronson and Sunset traffic attempted to move immediately, then slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting each other. This happened not once but three out of the three times I was able to witness it. Now, this being Renton, it's possible that the other drivers were just retarded, but the most likely explanation is that everyone was seeing a green light. From my viewpoint I couldn't see the traffic lights pointing the other direction, so I can't be sure.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[DigiShaman]

By any chance, that wouldn't be Westheimer and Kirby would it?

Not sure if it's because of the on-going construction, but I was stuck in a left-turn lane for about 15 minutes on red a few months ago. For all I know, it could have been the central computer system at fault (if there is one).

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[Hognoxious]

I would have thought the obvious way to design it would be with a series of preprogrammed modes, such that the controller can only select from them rather than address the lights directly.

If there was an all green mode, it would occur much more often.

I'd say it's stupidity. People see the train has passed and assume they can go. It happens in the UK where (despite it clearly saying to wait for the lights to stop) people go straight after the train ... and get hit by the second one. Don't even get me started about half barrier crossings.

Re:All-green probably an urban legend

[RMH101]

and many have an IR-strobe detector, so that emergency vehicles can use an IR strobe to trigger all-red signals.

When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[characterZer0]

No lights is better than badly times lights.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Golddess]

You're joking, right?

I mean, sure, the law states that when an intersection has traffic lights, and the lights are out, it's an all-way stop. But in practice, I rarely see other drivers actually give a fuck that they are supposed to stop.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[greed]

When a traffic signal in Toronto loses contact with the computer, it goes to flashing 4-way red, to remind people it's an all-way-stop now. They only go to "no signal" if there's a power failure. (In which case, they're still all-way-stop but despite the radio saying so every time there's a power failure, 70% of drivers just blow through a dark traffic light at speed.)

I think all-way-stop on multilane roads are MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH worse than untimed lights. People have no idea how to deal with multilane roads that have a stop sign; almost no-one will let a left turn through, all sorts of problems like that.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[jeffmeden]

I have seen accidents at lightly trafficked intersections when the light was completely out... I don't want to imagine the apocalypse of a couple hundred all going out in a well populated area; it would turn into Mad Max in a matter of hours.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[colfer]

That's D.C. for you. As I recall it, California drivers are actually pretty good at that when the lights go out. The state has a lot of 4-way stop signs.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[characterZer0]

In my experience, when the lights are out, a bunch of people will go through the intersection and then somebody will stop, at which point a bunch of people will go from the perpendicular direction. It works out quite well.

There is one light that I pass through on my commute that goes out for an afternoon a few times a year. On those days, traffic improves noticeably as people are better able to judge which direction is more backed up at that particular moment than a computer is.

The computers only have a few sensors, and do not know about accidents, effects of nearby construction, or temporary delays due to an old lady crossing the street at half a mile an hour. People can see these things and react. If even one of four is courteous enough to stop when appropriate, traffic flows nicely.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[idontgno]

True. Since turning off traffic lights also suspends the Pauli Exclusion Principle, vehicles can zip right through each other in the intersection without interacting all. Brilliant!

And this just proves that traffic signals are just a conspiracy to get red-light-runner ticket money into corrupt local government budget coffers.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[dameatrius]

Your recollection is awful. Calfornia drivers are about the worst in the country. Flashing lights / Lights out, be prepared for the most incompetent driving you will ever witness. I was always told how great the freeways are designed, how great the drivers are, and how well maintained the roads are. The northeast dealing with freeze/thaw cycles has better maintained roads. People here are too stupid to pull off to the shoulder when they have a minor fender bender or their car starts to stall. Everyone NEEDS to be in the left lane. I have been cut off by soccer mom merging onto the freeway at 50 while the flow is 70 and she just floats across 4 lanes so she can park it in the far left. Maryland and the surrounding areas are impressive how quickly people will get out of the left lane. I've driven for miles in CA with 4 dumbasses driving the same exact speed side by side by side by side.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[stephanruby]

I don't want to imagine the apocalypse of a couple hundred all going out in a well populated area; it would turn into Mad Max in a matter of hours.

Yes and no, I live in Northern California. During major outages, like an earthquake or something. People will drive like idiots at intersections initially, but after a couple of hours they'll settle into a rythm, and the lack of traffic lights stops being a problem.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[nanospook]

In the two years I lived in Calabasas, CA off the 101, I decided that CA drivers are pretty good. There's always a few dopes, but most drivers learned their lessons (pay attention, the 70 mile per hour traffic can stop NOW) early and the fact that everyone is breaking the speed limit just makes it easier to get places (unless you are on the 405 pass (just about anywhere). North Dallas, where I live now is totally different. The gov't and the cops have made it their personal mission to keep traffic slow and to make sure each light only gives one party at a time a chance to go. Light switching is way longer taking forever and if you are unfortunate to hit multiple red lights, you add lots of time to your trip. I've often wondered why they do this? Does it lower the town's insurance bill? Did insurers push and pass bills to lower their possible liability?

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[jimbolauski]

In California they get out of their cars and start looting when the power goes out. So there is not a traffic problem until the looters take to the streets and start flipping cars.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[shentino]

Then people who run red lights that ARE legit should get heavy fines.

Problem is that often times cities will screw with light timings on purpose just to beef up ticket revenues.

Being stingy with yellow light times is a popular method to do that.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Rick17JJ]

Summer thunder storms frequently cause power outages which occasionally knock traffic lights out for up to a couple of hours, in some parts of the country. Presumably, that also happens in larger cities. I do not seem to recall hearing about any Mad Max situations resulting from that. However, I have wondered what would happen if much of our complicated technology and the power grid itself or the economic system were to collapse all across the country for a few weeks. Then, we might be in a Mad Max situation.

A few years ago, the traffic light on the highway nearest to where I live, was replaced by a traffic circle (also known as a roundabout). One nice thing about a traffic circle is that there are is no longer a traffic light to fail during summer thunder storms or computer problems. There are only yield signs for traffic entering the circle. So hopefully, that Mad Max scenario you describe, would apply slightly less to my neighborhood.

Surprisingly, the traffic circle has also been able to handle much more traffic than the old traffic light did. This on a two lane highway, in a small city, in the mountains in Arizona. With the old traffic light, people at the end of the line sometimes failed to make it through the green light before it changed. With the traffic circle, it is rare that anyone needs to wait more than a few seconds before passing through the traffic circle.

I am suggesting that we should have been building more traffic circles and less traffic lights. But of course, most Americans are unfamiliar with using traffic circles, and think of them as those weird confusing European things. Traffic circles are not dependant on computers, fancy electronics or electricity.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[natehoy]

When I lived in Kentucky, we had an ice storm that knocked out power in Lexington for the better part of a week. The loss of traffic lights meant every intersection was supposed to turn into a 4-way stop. Which meant that every car came to a halt (in theory) at every intersection for a second or two. My 8-mile 15-minute drive to work turned into 3 hours one morning. I finally found a parking lot, parked my car there, and walked the remaining 3 miles. It was faster. Seriously - I recognized a guy 2 cars ahead of me and he arrived at work 1/2 hour after I did.

The reality was that people were assuming that dark lights meant that either (a) it was a 4-way stop, (b) people on the "larger/main" road had right-of-way, (c) I have no idea so I'm going to creep through, or (d) screw it, y'all, I've got the big fukkin truck - get outta my way.

On the third day, they deployed every police officer, meter reader, and anyone else with a pulse who was trainable to direct traffic. Of course, this meant that every bad driver in Lexington knew that all bets were off in terms of speed limits, right-of-way, and other moving violations during those times. Ever read "Lord of the Flies"? Yeah, it was like that. With cars.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[natehoy]

I remember reading about a city in Germany that eliminated all traffic lights. I don't remember reading how well or poorly it came out. Maybe no reporters have managed to get out yet to report the results - they're all stuck in traffic.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[citizenr]

People have no idea how to deal with multilane roads that have a stop sign; almost no-one will let a left turn through, all sorts of problems like that.

Maybe you should teach them this and test it on Drivers License exam instead of usual round the block with automatic transmission then, eh?

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[frogzilla]

While I agree with you, this video from India shows how it can work. It seems to a be a case of "critical mass".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM

There's also a town in the Netherlands with no traffic signals.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533248/Is-this-the-end-of-the-road-for-traffic-lights.html

Personally I feel like traffic signals are a good thing but who knows? Maybe it would all work better without them.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[frogzilla]

Netherlands ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1533248/Is-this-the-end-of-the-road-for-traffic-lights.html

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Rick17JJ]

People here in Arizona, also do it that way whenever some traffic lights have gone out after a thunderstorm. A bunch of people will go through from one direction until somebody stops, and then a bunch of people will go through from the other direction. Theoretically, when the traffic lights are flashing red in both directions, they are supposed to treat it like a 4-way stop sign. But of course, they don't.

I have never seen any accidents, where I live, resulting from the traffic lights being out for a little while.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Faerunner]

Try it in Pittsburgh and watch people treat the yield sign A) As if it's not there (and they'll probably try to turn the wrong way into the roundabout, too!) or B) as if it's a stop sign at which they must sit until all trace of traffic is clear regardless of time of day and the number of cars piling up behind them. Most people can't even merge onto the I-376 corridor, which has been there for YEARS and is a daily commute for a lot of them.
Anyway, this end of the country has enough constant road construction slowing everything down!

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Vancorps]

You're right, the first time I encountered them in Sedona I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Then I saw the yield signs and all was fine. I had no problem with them after that but I saw a lot of people not know that they could go while another car was in the circle and so it would definitely cause major congestion if it's a high traffic area like downtown Phoenix.

I've yet to figure out Arizona drivers. They drive like such crap on the 101 but I was driving up Hayden one day and the light at Shea was out. Everyone automatically did the four-way stop and it was problem free, it wasn't even really backed up.

I would hate to see Mad Max in AZ, there is a lot of firepower here, it would be one bloody event. I mean more than it already is.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Vancorps]

That's one high quality test. I remember you either were tested on parallel parking or hill starts. My tester had me do a hill start in an automatic. Gotta love it!

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[mcgrew]

Often they don't stop becaise they don't realise there's a light, particularly if the lights are out becaise the power's off. A substation here blew up a few weeks ago and knocked a lot of lights out, and without streetlights you can't tell if there's a light or not -- the headlights don't illuminate the side of the road.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[natehoy]

I knew it was one of those Foreign places. (grin).

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[russotto]

I mean, sure, the law states that when an intersection has traffic lights, and the lights are out, it's an all-way stop. But in practice, I rarely see other drivers actually give a fuck that they are supposed to stop.

I believe in Maryland, the rule is that traffic on major thoroughfares has the right of way with all lights out. So where Podunk Road intersects Route 650, you're supposed to treat a light which is out as a flashing yellow for 650 and a flashing red (or stop sign) for Podunk. I've driven on 650 (New Hampshire Avenue) with all lights out during the rush, and it works OK, but Rockville Pike is much more heavily travelled and would be a disaster.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Carnildo]

Maybe you should teach them this and test it on Drivers License exam instead of usual round the block with automatic transmission then, eh?

Do you know how many multilane roads there are with all-way stop signs? I know of one in Grant Village in Yellowstone, but other than that, I don't think there are any within 500 miles of me. Does it really make sense to teach people how to handle extremely rare events?

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[dangitman]

No lights is better than badly times lights.

Hmmm... multiplying a quality by a luminaire, and comparing it to a null value. What branch of mathematics is this, exactly?

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[jdbuz]

At least DC has been doing this since the 70's. It's the 21st century and Southern California is JUST NOW starting to sync up their traffic lights!

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Vegeta99]

I think traffic circles are great. However, you're right about people not knowing what to do. My city just replaced 4 lights on an access road with roundabouts, and you aughta see how many skid marks are there from cars just sailing straight through the intersection instead of going 180 degrees around to circle to keep going straight!

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Rick17JJ]

Some of the traffic circles in Sedona are only about half the diameter of ones on Highway 89 in Prescott and Chino Valley or on Highway 89A in Cottonwood. The slightly larger traffic circles work best. When buildings already exist close to the intersection, they only have room to build the smaller traffic circles. At less built up intersections, they usually build slightly larger traffic circles.

The two smaller traffic circles at the intersection of Highway 89A and Highway 179 in Sedona are awkwardly small, although the traffic flow is probably better than when the traffic light was there. Not being a resident of Sedona, I can't say for sure. Was originally referring to the traffic circle at the intersection of Highway 89 and Willow Lake Road in Prescott, Arizona, where the traffic light was replaced with a traffic circle. At that intersection, the traffic flow was much improved after the traffic light was replaced by a traffic circle.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[sjames]

Given all the people who apparently think yellow means floor it and red means just a few more seconds to go, the odds are not good that people will remember that light out means 4 way stop. It's hard to get through an intersection when it's blocked by dented cars and people yelling at each other.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[bigngamer92]

Do you value your life during a power outage?

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Rick17JJ]

Here is an article with a photo of the local traffic circle that I mentioned. I have not yet seen anyone try to sail straight through this traffic circle by climbing over the 6 foot high circle of dirt in the center. Your traffic circles must look slightly different.

Traffic circle photo and article

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Lorens]

I am suggesting that we should have been building more traffic circles and less traffic lights. But of course, most Americans are unfamiliar with using traffic circles, and think of them as those weird confusing European things.

Confusing? Oh, that's badmouthing perfectly well understood traffic circles like the Swindon Magic Roundabout: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon) http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=51.562865,-1.771371&spn=0.000859,0.002843&t=h&z=19

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[OMEGA Power]

Especially in the Washington area (proud home of the worst drivers in the US) where things like using turn signals are already considered a sign of weakness.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[JohnnyBGod]

Is it that way all across the US?

In my country, it's a hierarchichal thing. You're supposed to follow traffic officer's directions, variable message signs, traffic lights, road signs, road markings and general traffic rules, in that order. If one doesn't exist, you just follow the next. Though yeah, in practice, it doesn't count for much.

Re:When the system fails, shut the lights off.

[Vegeta99]

Oh wow. Yeah, those are massive. Ours are tiny little things with a garden in the middle that's removed every October.

Have a taste of living in Los Angeles!

[non0score]

So the default behavior is basically traffic lights in Los Angeles on a normal day? I feel soooo sorry for them. ;)

Re:Have a taste of living in Los Angeles!

[Unnngh!]

The DC metro area is the second most congested in the country next to LA, so, it's probably worse than you may imagine.

Re:Have a taste of living in Los Angeles!

[Dynedain]

But the joke is that LA traffic lights aren't centrally coordinated. They may actually be, but it sure as hell doesn't seem like it. After all, this is the city that's spending millions of dollars to install protected left-turn lights.

LA traffic instructions:
Green light: wait for the intersection to clear.
Yellow: GO GO GO!!!!
Red: Make a left.

Re:Have a taste of living in Los Angeles!

[BenVis]

Installing left turn lights? Most of the protected lefts on my commute are being uninstalled. Maybe they're just moving them from one intersection to another. That sounds a lot like something they'd do in LA.

It could've been worse

[davidwr]

If there had been a widespread power outage, most of the lights would have been dark.

Um, what's the protocol when the traffic light is all-ways flashing black/black? *groan*

Re:It could've been worse

[Golddess]

It's supposed to be like an all-way stop.

Supposed to be.

Re:It could've been worse

[FrigBot]

A few weeks ago in Edmonton here, at the intersection of 82nd Street and 112th ave, the traffic lights were broken for some reason. And surprisingly, people knew it became a 4-way stop and generally were behaving properly. I got through with no problems. No cops were around to direct traffic, and this was rush hour. I was impressed.

Re:It could've been worse

[Zerth]

Unless one road is a higher grade of road, then the primary road becomes continous and the crossroad is just screwed.

Happened to the main road outside my plat last hurricane. Couldn't get out unless you want to get t-boned by someone enjoying the new lack of stops/cops, I had to take the back way out and play 4-way stop for 5 miles. Should've biked.

From the 1980s

[Sponge Bath]

According to this it was a Data General main frame from the 1980s and not from the 1970s. Anyone know what model?

Re:From the 1980s

[afidel]

Hmm, I know of a company that started out as a specialist in aftermarket support for DG boxes, wonder how hard they have looked for replacement parts.

Re:From the 1980s

[idontgno]

Hmmm... probably an Eclipse MV machine. I worked with a ten-year-old MV/10000 back in the day (early 90s). That makes it the right timeline.

Re:From the 1980s

[RoverDaddy]

Interesting. I'm old enough to remember that during the late 70's or so, Honeywell used to advertise a system like this during "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau". When the same show gets the same ads practically every week (there was also a memorable ad for Burlington textiles), they stick in your brain. I wonder if Honeywell supplied this system, using the DG equipment.

Re:From the 1980s

[SnarfQuest]

I'll bet the delay in fixing it is searching ebay for replacement parts. Even if DG still exists, I doubt that they are still supplying replacement parts for nova's, which would be my next guess as to what they have.

Re:From the 1980s

[Curlsman]

Is the popular definition of a "mainframe" now anything designed or manufactured before MS Windows was released?

Re:From the 1980s

[idontgno]

I thought about that too. All those press references to "1970s" and "Carter-era". But these are the same geniuses in the Fourth Estate who called the thing a "mainframe", so their ignorance is manifest.

I apply the BS test here. If anyone tells me they have a Nova (even a late-model Nova 4) controlling all the traffic lights of an entire metropolitan county adjacent to the District of Columbia, will I cry shenanigans? In this case, yes. I've worked with Novas, PDP-11s, and Perkin-Elmer 16-bit minis. I'm familiar with their capabilities. You would have to be coder of absolute godly skill to write the realtime control software to safely manage dozens (scores? hundreds?) of street lights in only 64Kbytes of core (or RAM, whatever).

Whereas the most primitive Eclipse would have ample horsepower to do the trick.

So I still say Eclipse. Certainly, the comparative newness of the Eclipse over the Nova doesn't help the parts situation at all, because they're both dead as a doornail, support-wise. EMC end-of-lifed the last and greatest Data General line, AViiON, nearly a year ago.

Re:From the 1980s

[WinterSolstice]

I guessed wrong - I had guessed it was VMS (since I've had experience with VMS doing traffic control).

Not that my point of 'guess they need to find whoever they laid off in order to outsource' is all that far gone either way :D

Re:From the 1980s

[WarlockD]

It sounds like the system they are using is more of a scheduler program as the way the article said it, it sounds like the lights themselves are independent and just need timing data. That it all it might be doing is sending down a signal to tell the built in clocks of each of the lights to turn on and off at curtain times and to do some logging. They said in the article how they have to look though traffic cameras and "tweak" the system. It might just be a gloried interface with a clock for all we know.

Still, makes me wonder what they are going to replace it with. Werther it be an Eclipse (witch your properly right) or a Nova, it lasted 20+ years without being replaced, and it doesn't look like they NEED that much power for it. What are they going to spend the money on? A shiny new Dell? I really hope they are making something that lasts instead of something that a consultant is brought in for.

Re:From the 1980s

[tsstahl]

Anyone know what model?

Model 2-BIS, for the extra fire control program space.

--Your obscure reference of the day

Re:From the 1980s

[Parker51]

More details (in PDF):

Modernization of the Montgomery County Traffic Signal System

Re:From the 1980s

[sjames]

That would explain the lack of parts. DG has been gone for 10 years.

Let me guess, the migration plan started yesterday right after it failed!

Re:From the 1980s

[Sponge Bath]

The picture of the Data General equipment looks like the MV Series, maybe the 3000. The terminals also look like the ones in the MV/2500 picture. The processing units in the traffic control pictures have name tags: Darlene and Candy. I guess that is the redundancy they are talking about.

Re:From the 1980s

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped working for the company that built the system about 3 years ago. It was a customized version of the Data General as I recall, but I can't remember the exact model it started from. It's been patch together with duct tape and bailing wire for years. Systems like it were used across the control until everybody else figured out this constituted a 'bad idea' and moved more of the processing to the controllers on the street. I worked with guys on and off for several years trying to convince them to change, but they didn't want to hear about it. It would have killed their budget for 'managing' the traffic as manually as they do (they actually have a helicopter and spotter plane they fly every day to spot trouble areas) so they were very obstinate about it. Those jokers got what they deserved.

MontCo $$

[headhot]

For those who aren't familiar with Montgomery County, MD. It is one of, if not the richest counties in the nation. I find it amazing that even in a county like this, the public infrastructure is crumbling.

They had a massive water main break earlier this year that made the national news.

Re:MontCo $$

[JWSmythe]

    No one fixes infrastructure until it's broken. That's pretty standard everywhere.

    Los Angeles has had an increase in water main breaks also. They fix the spot as they break. If I remember their numbers, they expect about 400 to 700 main breaks per year.

    Who cares about the old mini/mainframe running the traffic lights. If it's run since the 70's or 80's, it'll run forever. I always love that intelligence. I like to laugh about it more when it fails too. :)

Re:MontCo $$

[Wonko the Sane]

I find it amazing that even in a county like this, the public infrastructure is crumbling.

Why do you find it amazing? Even in a rich county there's not much money left over for good infrastructure after all the mandatory spending on bribe and kickback entitlements.

Re:MontCo $$

[nomadic]

No one fixes infrastructure until it's broken. That's pretty standard everywhere.

Well, not since the tax-cut/reduce-government fanatics came into power.

Re:MontCo $$

[sexconker]

Well, not since the tax-cut/reduce-government fanatics came into power.

I would like to believe you are from the future - a future full of tax cuts and reduced government.

However, I know you are just an idiot.

Re:MontCo $$

[dkleinsc]

No one fixes infrastructure until it's broken. That's pretty standard everywhere.

Sometimes not even after it's broken. Or more commonly, when it's broken, there's a half-assed temporary repair that becomes the permanent repair until it breaks again.

The biggest reason for doing this is short-term-ism: If a politician manages to save money now, it doesn't matter to him that somebody else 10 years down the line will have to spend far more money to clean up the mess after the system failed. So each administration (at any level: state, county, and municipal governments are far from immune to this) tends to do it's best to pass the buck on to the next guy, and the easiest way to do that is to simply not do repairs until something breaks.

Re:MontCo $$

[CannonballHead]

Yes, because now that we have raise-tax/increase-government fanatics in government that have already passed stimulus money to presumably increase work on the infrastructure, we have seen a marked increase in fixing infrastructure before it breaks.

Re:MontCo $$

[nomadic]

I would like to believe you are from the future - a future full of tax cuts and reduced government.

Funny, I know the income tax has been lowered in the past few years; why do you think the I also know that since the 1990s the government has privatized several formerly public institutions, with mixed results. The anti-tax/small-government fanatics haven't gotten everything they wanted, all they've done is change the discourse so large-scale, necessary but non-emergency projects can't get built because the second any government state, city, or federal, is not in a state of financial crisis that crowd starts screeching for tax cuts.

Re:MontCo $$

[xaxa]

No one fixes infrastructure until it's broken. That's pretty standard everywhere.

Everywhere != the USA.

Perhaps you should write to your senator and tell him what "maintenance" means.

Re:MontCo $$

[SputnikPanic]

This is Montgomery County, Maryland, we're talking about -- tax-cut/reduce-government fanatics NEVER come into power here.

Re:MontCo $$

[kriston]

Washington DC and its surrounding suburbs were one of the first localities to have centralized traffic light control systems, and by centralized, I mean *centralized*. Washington DC's system is also very old and up to a couple of years ago would fail on a regular basis (I believe it has been replaced). Like Montgomery County, the Washington DC system directly controlled all intersections.
Faifax County's system is also centrally controlled but the main difference is that the traffic light sets are semi-autonomous. If they cannot contact the central system they use whatever the last schedule was up to seven days later (they are fully computerized and know the date and time and remember the signal patterns).

Re:MontCo $$

[skeeto]

I don't think those people ever came into power. Taxes always get higher and government always gets bigger.

Re:MontCo $$

[jthayden]

You don't get rich by paying your taxes and you don't get elected for spending money on something now that can be put off til later at three times the price.

Re:MontCo $$

[sexconker]

Seems to me I pay more and more (as a %) of my money to various taxes every year.

Seems to me I lose more and more freedom to the government every year.

Tax cuts here and there don't mean shit when we're passing out the trillions like candy and funding pork projects like we're Kermit the fucking Frog.

You really are retarded if you think the government has gotten smaller and taxed people less over the course of, well, ever.

Re:MontCo $$

[nomadic]

Oh stop whining. It "seems" that you pay more in taxes every year? Why on earth should anyone trust your subjective feeling as compared to previous years? Look at the tax brackets with the IRS by year. Look at your state income tax history. Be analytical.

Re:MontCo $$

[sexconker]

Idiot.

"Seems to me" was a nice way of saying "Hey moron, you're fucking wrong, the fact of the matter is...".

Be analytical?
You're the one who's ignoring every single tax on every fucking thing that isn't included on your annual return.

They fucking tax alcohol and cigarettes and aluminum and gas and electronics and now they want to tax fucking juice and soda and carbon.

If you think your tax rate is anything near what you fucking file for, you're a moron. EVERYTHING is taxed out the ass.

Re:MontCo $$

[nomadic]

"Seems to me" was a nice way of saying "Hey moron, you're fucking wrong, the fact of the matter is...".

Oh, what was "However, I know you are just an idiot" a nice way of saying?

You're the one who's ignoring every single tax on every fucking thing that isn't included on your annual return.

See, this is what I mean by being analytical. Or at least read more closely. You made the claim that you are paying more and more in taxes. I point out that the federal income tax rate has gone down. Your response is "but look at those other taxes."

The argument is over whether the overall tax burden has gone up or down. For your rant to make any sense, you would have to claim those other taxes have gone up in such a way to counteract the reduction in the federal income tax. Cigarette taxes have gone up, which is a good thing. The federal fuel tax has dropped dramatically, though. I'm not sure how state sales taxes have trended, but I do know the idea of sales tax holidays has become more popular.

So why don't you offer some concrete proof that you are paying more in taxes this year than last, adjusting for any pay increases you've had. In other words, show me that you pay more now than you would have a year, 5 years, 10 years ago with the same income. At the state level more

Now logically, what you said is a non sequitur. It would only make sense if you said these other taxes were also increasing. Do you understand? I think you can learn something very valuable from this exchange, seriously.

Re:MontCo $$

[sexconker]

You continue to be an idiot.
Overall taxes have gone up.
The value of the dollar continues to spiral mercilessly downward.
The government ooze seeps further and further into our alleged rights.

There is no debating this.
If you want numbers, get them yourself.

Non sequitur? What the fuck? Logically, what I said makes perfect fucking sense. Overall, taxes have gone up. It's provable, You do the math.

Pay increases? Son, we're all on paycuts and furloughs over here. Maybe when you grow up and get a job and pay taxes you'll understand, but it's clear you have the financial knowledge of a 14 year old.

Why the fuck would I waste my time proving something so obviously to an idiot who so obviously just wants to troll?

Re:MontCo $$

[nomadic]

Overall taxes have gone up.

Prove it.

Non sequitur? What the fuck? Logically, what I said makes perfect fucking sense. Overall, taxes have gone up. It's provable, You do the math.

Pay increases? Son, we're all on paycuts and furloughs over here.

Maybe you should have gotten a better education and job.

Re:MontCo $$

[sexconker]

Maybe you should get an education, then a job, period, because you obviously don't know shit, and you have zero tax liability.

Not only that...

[yakatz]

on the same day, the PDU for the D.C. Metro (subway and bus) communication system failed, leaving no communication for the bus system (including fair collection machines), leading to more travel trouble.
Got all those conspiracy theorist wondering if they are related.

Re:Not only that...

[yakatz]

Here's a link: http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/PressReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=4133
---
(Sorely needed feature: edit a post)

Re:Not only that...

[FooAtWFU]

The fair collection machines were unfair!!!!! oh noes corruption in government!!! where is the transparency obama promised us?!?!1111

(did you mean: fare collection machines?)

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[halivar]

Green lights are often blue to accommodate reg/green color blindness.

Job opening in MD...

[iamhigh]

But you'll never make it to the interview on time, as traffic moves at the speed of my old TRS80... wait a minute...

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[colfer]

The added blue is for people with red-green colorblindness. Maybe it's a matter of degree. Or 90 degrees. Were the lights horizontal instead of vertical, by chance?

Off-topic, I lived in a city in the 1980s where some traffic lights were still on the side of the street instead of overhead. So many out of towners were running reds and wrecking the city had to put in the overheads.

This is reassuring...

[wirelessbuzzers]

The upside in this is that the lights still work when the controller is down. They don't go flashing red, stay red, turn off or something worse.

Re:This is reassuring...

[natehoy]

Right. A failure of this system is not an issue of safety, just of horrible, horrible inconvenience.

Re:This is reassuring...

[JWSmythe]

    IANATE (I Am Not A Traffic Engineer), but I've had the opportunity to talk to some over the years. From what I recall of those conversations, most, if not all, traffic signals are failsafe. They cannot have colliding greens, and they won't generally just turn off. Even in the event of a power failure, they're suppose to stay up on batteries for a while.

    I have seen their failsafe behavior fail though. I was once driving on a dark foggy night. Visibility was very very poor. I was staying in my lane, but I couldn't see much else. I had a long drive in a rural area, and I was coming into an urban area. I expected to see street lights and traffic lights, but there were none. As I was driving, another car shot across the road just ahead of me, missing me by just a few feet. He didn't see the traffic light that wasn't working either. I called the police, so they could station an officer there. Their response was "Are you crazy? No one can see at that intersection. He'll get hit." Hmmm, good logic. At least no one got killed there that night.

Re:This is reassuring...

[Shadyman]

Indeed. However, you can take heart in the fact that each intersection has its lights controlled by a computer (an embedded microcontroller or microprocessor), which is usually installed in a grey box at one of the corners. This controls the intersection's lights, including crosswalks, and takes input from inductive sensors in most lanes. If any part of this computer fails or does not pass sanity checks, the lights flash red, requiring a team to visit the intersection's box to diagnose and fix the problem.

In this case, the article says it's just a matter of the intersections not knowing what time it is, saying "...[w]hen they were supposed to switch to morning rush mode, from 7 to 7:30, they kept rocking along at a rhythm better suited to Sunday morning."

IIRC, older systems used a dial-up modem to report problems to head office, or receive new instructions from it, whereas newer systems use DSL to communicate. The article says, "...[t]hey know where the problem is, but they just don't know what it is... The server seems to be sending the signal, but the conduit is not transferring the information to the signal lights."

Re:This is reassuring...

[jimbobborg]

Right. A failure of this system is not an issue of safety, just of horrible, horrible inconvenience.

You obviously don't live in this area. When anything like this happens, road rage incidents skyrocket. Maryland has some of the worst drivers I've ever seen. And Maryland doesn't require that drivers use turn signals. I hate driving through there, especially on the highways. The posted speed limit is 55, but I get about 20% of the drivers blowing by me at over 80. Montgomery and Prince George's County are the worst of the bunch.

Re:This is reassuring...

[natehoy]

Anecdotes like that describe EXACTLY why I don't live in that area. I like a somewhat more rural life, even if my effective wage is a lot lower than it could be, my cell doesn't work everywhere, and I can't get Chinese takeout at 2AM. :)

I hear ya, though. I guess it would be a safety issue. But not as severe as, say, all the lights going dark or staying on a particular setting or something.

The lights are still working autonomously, and probably become quickly irrelevant as people ignore the "you shouldn't pull into an intersection, even with a green light, unless there's enough room for you on the other side of it" rule.

At least once gridlock happens, the cars aren't moving fast enough for anyone (at least anyone who remains inside a car) to be seriously hurt. (grin)

Re:This is reassuring...

[natehoy]

It all depends on what you mean by "require". Sometimes, when I lived in Kentucky, I wondered what would happen if I used my turn signals in the presence of a cop. Would I get pulled over for "distracting other drivers with annoying flashing lights"?

Turn signals in some areas are counterproductive. They tell the enemy (other drivers) what you intend to do, and that's bad because they'll do whatever they can to prevent you from doing it. Especially in Lexington and Louisville, but probably true in other areas of the country as well. :)

Re:This is reassuring...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one can see at that intersection

what are the red & blue lights on top of cop car for?

Re:This is reassuring...

[Anonymous Coward]

what are the red & blue lights on top of cop car for?

For pulling over a citizen and stealing money from them.

Re:This is reassuring...

[FrigBot]

In Alberta you get serious demerit points for not signalling during lane changes. I always signal when changing lanes, but sometimes I don't bother when making a routine turn when there's nobody behind me. I too have noticed your phenomenon of people inhibiting your intentions when you signal, by speeding up or whatever. Yes it's annoying, seriously. Also, I have noticed I sometimes drive a little too close behind the guy in front of me, and I think it's because some wanker will pull in front of me, no matter how little room I"m leaving in there... And why do semi's around here travel in the middle lane always?

End Gripe

Re:This is reassuring...

[Brian Feldman]

Turn signals in some areas are counterproductive. They tell the enemy (other drivers) what you intend to do, and that's bad because they'll do whatever they can to prevent you from doing it. Especially in Lexington and Louisville, but probably true in other areas of the country as well. :)

Especially true in Montgomery County, Maryland, as well.

Re:This is reassuring...

[mcgrew]

Even in the event of a power failure, they're suppose to stay up on batteries for a while.

Not in Springfield. When the power goes out, the lights do too.

Re:This is reassuring...

[Leebert]

Huh?

TA 21-604:
http://law.justia.com/maryland/codes/gtr/21-604.html

"(c) A person may not, if any other vehicle might be affected by the movement, turn a vehicle until he gives an appropriate signal in the manner required by this subtitle. "

Re:This is reassuring...

[mgblst]

It sounds like a blackout, you know, when there is no power. Even the most sophisticated circuitry and programming have problems with that.

Re:This is reassuring...

[CptNerd]

Maryland only this year started talking about requiring lane-changers to signal. I've been living in the DC area long enough to recognize when someone is going to change lanes in front of me by the way they drive next to me as they pass. I also learned early enough to assume everyone who drives around me is going to act in the most massively, dangerously stupid way possible, and prepare accordingly. If someone is in the far left lane of 4 and they slow down, that means they're about to cross all 4 lanes to take the exit in a couple hundred feet. I've also noticed distinct differences in the types of stupidity the drivers in the two states display. Marylanders hate the concept of any car being in front of them for more than a few feet, and if they are unable to pass, they must tailgate. Once they pass you, they can get in front of you at any point greater than 4 inches ahead of you, without signalling, because you're now behind them and no longer exist. Basically, Maryland drivers assume there is nothing important behind them, and nothing should be in front of them.

Virginians drive with the basic concept that red lights have a "freshness time" on them, so that if a light is "fresh red" it can be safely run, because everyone who has a "fresh green" light knows they can sit and wait for 5 or 10 seconds before they have to pull out, especially for left turn lanes. Virginia has a whole lot of left-hand exits off the Interstates, which is great because you can take an exit at the highest speed possible, or because you can piss off all the Maryland drivers by slowing down the fast lane in order to take the exit safely. Oh, and Marylanders will stop at a light with at least one car length of space between them and the car stopped ahead of them.

I used to tell people who don't live here that using a turn signal is a sign of weakness, because you're submitting to the other drivers' authority, you can be safely ignored, and actively prevented from merging, changing lanes, or turning, by any means necessary.

Re:This is reassuring...

[tengu1sd]

Don't forget that DC area drivers look at on ramps as a pit stop area. They will charge down the ramp and just before merging into traffic, suddenly come to a complete stop. After the full stop, they wait until they can jump in front of oncoming traffic. Bonus points if they can force the lead car to stop and get rear ended while they charge ahead down the main drag. I lived there for three years, and I was always afraid I was going to rear end some lack wit on a ramp.

I blame Dan Snyder

[Parlett316]

Fire him.

70s computer

[icebike]

Damn! 70s? Talk about Return on Investment.

The WashPost, in another article touts Fragile Technology.
I reach for my 70's era calculator and estimate the operational life of 34 years for this system. Some Fragility. Who or what at the Post has been there that long.

Wonder if its some ancient PDP version or an small IBM mainframe. The article is scarce on details. Parts for either are getting hard to find except in the scrap market.

Still you have to wonder why it wasn't ported to some other platform if nothing else as an exercise in disaster preparedness. Any commodity computer could do the job.

There is a lot of stuff like this still in service. I saw a PDP 8 monitoring turbines in a hydro Power station, and asked about where they get that fixed. The reply was it never broke down, but they had stockpiled 6 replacements, tested each yearly, just because they realized how old it was. Nobody knows exactly what it does anymore.

Re:70s computer

[Atmchicago]

Still you have to wonder why it wasn't ported to some other platform if nothing else as an exercise in disaster preparedness.

Sadly, part of the reason is we Americans spend lots of money on our military, which prevents us from spending on infrastructure. This and the bridge collapse are just examples of what happens when you let your infrastructure lag.

Re:70s computer

[tibman]

It seems like at that point they could replace the computer with a microcontroller. Or even run the old software on a new computer emulating the old hardware?

I'm not critisizing, just proposing a possible improvement.

I remember that same scenerio happening in the Army a lot. Because so many soldiers come and go, complex systems quickly turn into black boxes and inertia keeps everything together. But as soon as something breaks, it's back to pen and paper or doing it all in excel. Hiring contractors to come repair it only means that the problem will occur again someday (not to mention it costs money!).

The best solution i've seen to these kinds of problems is barney level continuity books. Just lots and lots of documentation. Then that documentation must be well labeled, organized, and affixed to the complex system in a way that it can't ever get lost. I guess in a way it makes the solution open source?

Re:70s computer

[QuantumRiff]

I did love how the article mentioned that they are working on installing more reliable equipment. WTF? 30 something years is not reliable enough? Are they wanting the next one to work for 50?

Re:70s computer

[SnarfQuest]

Computers used to be built to last. Repairs would be at the board level, but those were usually rare, maybe once a year.
Buy a PC nowadays, and you'll expect to have to replace it within 3 years. Capacaters exploding off the motherboard is a frequent problem for me, no matter what brand. Laptops usually lose the backlighting shortly after the warranty period ends.
Computers may be smaller and faster, but they're a lot less reliable.

Re:70s computer

[icebike]

True enough for consumer grade gear.

Server class machines are still much better.
The last server I replaced was 12 years old. Died of a lightning strike.

Re:70s computer

[telso]

I reach for my 70's era calculator and estimate the operational life of 34 years for this system. Some Fragility. Who or what at the Post has been there that long.

Washington Post? 1970s? Any big events during that time that are still relevant today? I know there's something, I just can't gate my mind around it....

Re:70s computer

[LoudMusic]

True enough for consumer grade gear.

Server class machines are still much better.
The last server I replaced was 12 years old. Died of a lightning strike.

Not to mention modern computers do a hell of a lot more than a computer from 30 years ago. There's plenty more to fail in my desktop PC than there was in whatever was controlling this traffic system.

Re:70s computer

[tool462]

By "70's era calculator", I hope you're referring to your own brain. :)

Re:70s computer

[Hatta]

You misunderstand. They have reliable equipment, and they are installing more of it. So they are installing more reliable equipment.

Re:70s computer

[icebike]

Hell no, the brain is way older than that, which is why I use the calculator.

Re:70s computer

[the_one(2)]

Don't forget cheaper. You could buy enough computers for redundancy so at least one would last 30 years.

Re:70s computer

[RAMMS EIN]

``Are they wanting the next one to work for 50?''

Sure, why not?

Re:70s computer

[Poingggg]

I once visited a factory for cattle feed where all silos were controlled by an ancient PDP computer. This was a few years ago. When I asked why it was not replaced by a more modern machine the answer was that all timings for the diverse outlets of the silos (and thus the mixture of the products) were so precise that it would be nearly impossible to reproduce on another platform, taking into account things like the speed of commands executed in programming languages, processing times of cpu etc.
I think it is possible for a complex system like a huge traffic control system might have similar issues, where a fraction of a second can make the difference between a free flow of traffic and congestion. (Although, while typing this it starts to sound less plausible...).
Anyway, my €0,02 are in now.

Re:70s computer

[maxume]

Sure, why not (well, unless it is more expensive than the occasional failure).

Re:70s computer

[MrPhilby]

Loving that change of heart as you type away.

Re:70s computer

[sjames]

Sure, then, but it's 30 years later now and nobody's making spare parts anymore, so it *WAS* reliable and now it's not.

Re:70s computer

[uninformedLuddite]

i have an old pdp-11/23 in the garage with a couple of vt-100s. I switch it on every now and then and it still works fine. these machines were considered to be becoming obsolete and replaceable in the 1970's. The only problem it ever had was a MUX that went insane. easy fixed and still runs like a dream.

Re:70s computer

[ConceptJunkie]

While your point is valid, military spending is a small fraction of the reason for this. Entitlement spending far, far outweighs it, and since so much of that is wasted, if not outright stolen, we often aren't even getting anything in exchange for an adequate infrastructure.

Re:70s computer

[ShooterNeo]

Well, it isn't plausible. There's a dozen ways you could make the timing accurate to a millisecond using modern hardware IF you knew what the timings SHOULD BE.

That's the rub, though. You may not be able to tell by looking at the machine code for that ancient computer what exactly it is doing, and what timings the programmers originally intended. There might be all kind of hidden hacks needed for that particular application.

Re:70s computer

[Poingggg]

I am just repeating what the guys at the factory told me, I did not make it up.

The plausibility issue was with the traffic control system where, on one side I can imagine that timings have to be very precise, but on the other hand I can hardly imagine that is should be millisecond precise.
But indeed, it is pretty important to know what the timings should be in the first place.

As far as I understood the timings in the factory had been pragmatically tweaked and refined during the years, so I think is would be hard to reproduce them on another system. And maybe the same is true for the traffic control system.

I do!

[NoYob]

...i bet a coke no one knows the root passwod,...r

it's "password"!

This is government, you know.

Re:I do!

[natehoy]

Silly billy! The system is now protected by a new set of rules. You have to have upper and lowercase, a special character, and a number.

The password is now: P@ssw0rd

See? The system is now completely secure!

normal for Fairfax County

[mdmarkus]

Just across the river in Fairfax County, Virginia, this is the normal behavior for lights. In fact, i suspect some of them are timed so as you get released from one light, the next one (200m away) turns red.

Re:normal for Fairfax County

[jimbobborg]

Fairfax County is in cahoots with the oil companies to make us burn more gas waiting for the lights to turn green. They also work for brake pad manufacturers, who make a fortune from people who have to slam on the brakes from 55 mph while driving on the Fairfax County Parkway. I hate driving through there at any time, but it's worse during rush hour since every moron is out driving and won't maintain the speed limit.

Re:normal for Fairfax County

[dsieburgh]

Ha. Very true. I used to live in Arlington... Someone posted on washingtonpost.com yesterday about this situation by say: "So Montgomery County today, is just like Northern Virginia everyday..."

Reliable?

[Caviller]

Quote "The county is in the second year of a six-year program that will bring in more modern and reliable equipment."

Reliable?!?!?! If this thing was built back in the 70s and just now has crashed badly....how much more reliable could you be? I can't get a modern motherboard to last more then 5-7 years before something goes wrong with it....if i'm lucky.

Re:Reliable?

[jbeaupre]

You misunderstand. Switching to equipment that reliably dies every 5-7 years will bring in yet more modern equipment each time. Rinse and repeat. Thus the program successfully brings in more modern and reliable equipment.

Re:Reliable?

[gfreeman]

how much more reliable could you be?

11 more reliable.

ObQuote

[spongman]

"You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"

Re:Waiting for it...

[hardburn]

Hackers, nay. I was waiting for someone to reference Michael Caine being seen running flat out through side streets in a Mini.

Wait... Modern? Basic?

[mr_josh]

Let's not go crazy here, I mean, there's not a whole lot that's relatively modern about this if the thing was developed in the friggin' '70s and operates without an efficient backup system. If anything, it's an example of how much society would _BENEFIT_ from a modern system.

Sane default

[colfer]

That's a sane default at least. Never overestimate a large software system...

Here's a piece about traffic lights optimized for furry bicyclists... http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/09/default-to-green.html ... such as "having a simultaneous green phase for bikes to go in all directions at once."

Re:Sane default

[Jedi Alec]

That's a sane default at least. Never overestimate a large software system...

Here's a piece about traffic lights optimized for furry bicyclists... http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/09/default-to-green.html [blogspot.com] ... such as "having a simultaneous green phase for bikes to go in all directions at once."

Ok..I realize we dutch people aren't the most attractive in the world...but calling us furries is a bit over the top to be quite honest. Heck, I get away with shaving twice a week.

And for the record, between my home and work there's 1 traffic light(train crossing). If I were to take the same route in a car there'd be 5 at least.

Where?

[Itninja]

From TFA: "They know where the problem is, but they just don't know what it is," she said. "The server seems to be sending the signal, but the conduit is not transferring the information to the signal lights."

I can tell you where it is. Right there on layer 4. Does that help? Then try layer 8.

Re:Where?

[Amouth]

Yea when i read that - it sounds to me less like a "computer" problem and more like the common "backhoe" problem which is the fear of every sys/noc admin

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[beadfulthings]

Well, you're semi-correct. The pink light is actually yellow or amber. We call it pink because pink is almost red.

Blame it on Vista?

[cashman73]

I was going to say we should blame this on Windows Vista, until I saw the part about the computer system dating back to the 1970s, so that wouldn't work. Still, there's got to be some way we can put the fault on Micro$oft? Maybe the computer was in need of some necessary maintenance, and the technician whose responsibility that was was too tied up in a game of Minesweeper or Solitaire, or something?

Re:Blame it on Vista?

[Mostly a lurker]

there's got to be some way we can put the fault on Micro$oft?

Most people on /. are too young to properly comprehend the situation. Blaming Microsoft for everything that goes wrong in IT only became standard operating procedure in the 1990s. Since the system is supposedly based on a 1980s era Data General mini, we need to resurrect our blame processes from that era. This failure was clearly engineered by IBM. Not only that, but they are using their huge muscle to block third party maintenance of the hardware.

Re:Blame it on Vista?

[WMD_88]

Someone probably hit the reset button on the old mini, thinking it would fix things like Microsoft taught them. ;)

Re:Blame it on Vista?

[dangitman]

Easy - Vista's so bad they didn't upgrade the computer for 30 years in anticipation of Vista's release.

Re:Blame it on Vista?

[CptNerd]

Vista is generating Higgs bosons which travel back in time to cause disruptions 30 years in the future.

Or something like that.

Shouldn't be too much of a problem...

[OpenGLFan]

...you can always call work and say you'll be late. Unless you've got T-Mobile.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[scorp1us]

The blue is from appraching the light too fast. You're aproximately going 20% the speed of light. SLOW DOWN.

unfortunately...

[davidwr]

The last time I remember being at a light that was out, it was night and the nearby street-lamps were also out.

Unless you knew there was a cross street there, you were likely to plow right though it.

Just Skynet Running Some Tests

[HangingChad]

The resulting chaos is a yet another stark reminder of how much modern civilization relies on behind-the-scenes automation to deliver and control basic services and infrastructure.

Just Skynet trying to figure out how to bunch up targets when it seizes control of our Predator and Reaper UAV's.

dare i say it?

[stoned_hamster]

"firesale, stage one" now please excuse me while i talk to the nice FBI guys arriving at my door in the next 5 minutes.....

It can't be that bad..

[Mr_Miagi]

The traffic here in NYC hasn't suffered at all!

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[thickdiick]

I have traveled extensively inside the USA and have never seen one such occurence. Tell me, does it appear blue to color blind people only? I was under the impression that RED YELLOW & GREEN colors were always in the same place to accomodate color-blind people, who can still see the light shine from each spot.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[David_W]

Off-topic, I lived in a city in the 1980s where some traffic lights were still on the side of the street instead of overhead. So many out of towners were running reds and wrecking the city had to put in the overheads.

DC still has those, at least in the more "historic" areas. Drives me nuts every time I go there as I'm always afraid I'm going to miss one.

Re:CENTRALIZATION

[gregraven]

Amen. Just as bad as the initial centralization is that each failure of centralization results in more calls for increased centralization! D'oh!

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[realityimpaired]

Interesting the different solutions that they come up with in different jurisdictions for colour blindness... In Quebec, for example, they use different shapes for the different signals. A red square is stop, an amber diamond for stop ahead, and a green circle for the green light... often traffic signals will have two lamps for the red, as well, one on either side of the signal (which is horizontal).

But using blue instead of green for colour blindness is a really good idea, too. interesting. :)

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[windex82]

Except there not even in the same place depending on the area...

Some are red on top green on bottom and I've also seen red on the left and green on the right, i've also seen left turn green on the left, red, yellow, green, right turn green on the right.

Some places have the lights directly overhead, some place them off to the side of the road, some are in the middle of the intersection suspended by crossed wires...

I have traveled extensively inside the USA and have never seen one such occurence.
I haven't traveled very extensively at all and have seen all of the above... perhaps you're not paying very close attention? Back to the main point though, I wouldn't exactly call them blue (the ones I've seen anyway) they are just not the same primary green your accustomed too and are more of a teal color.

NIH

[rakaur]

I work at the NIH in Bethesda, MD and live in Baltimore County, north of Baltimore City. It normally takes me an hour and a half to get home, but lately it's been three hours or more. That's okay though; I carpool and get OT for working in the car via MiFi.

Call Tom West!

[wandazulu]

He seem to know how the machine works.

This Failure Outlines Greater Issues ...

[neonprimetime]

... who cares about nation-wide traffic light outages ... especially in comparison with nation-wide power grid outages. Exactly why it is not always a good thing for the big bad government to control everything at one central point ... I personally think that for items like this, we need it piece meal ... so that we ensure we don't have nation-wide issues that could potentially put us at risk.

Re:This Failure Outlines Greater Issues ...

[maxume]

The power grid outages generally aren't control failures, the cascades result from attempts to share power over enormous regions (which requires keeping the whole grid in phase, which means that failures tend to cascade).

Losing a little efficiency to high voltage DC interconnects would add quite a bit of resiliency (the efficiency is mostly lost in the AC-DC-AC conversion, not in the DC line).

Re: Are you kidding?

[colinnwn]

We barely have driver education to get your license. Actually in many states there is no requirement for drivers education if you are 18 and can pass the driving test. There are no requirements for ongoing education/training unless you count the silly 8 hour defensive driver course for those that get traffic tickets. People have trouble with the concept of yielding here.

We have a few roundabouts. Believe it or not, frequently every entrance has a stop sign instead of a yield sign. Kinda defeats the purpose.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Thud457]

Green lights are often blue to accommodate reg/green color blindness.

I don't believe that. What are the odds of someone having both : a) color-blindness and b) up-down-blindness ?!!!

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[NeutronCowboy]

I believe you haven't noticed the pattern. If lights are aligned vertically, the red light is ALWAYS on top and the green one ALWAYS on the bottom. If they're aligned horizontally, the red light is ALWAYS on the left. The arrangement is always the same, regardless of where the traffic light is exactly located.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[rnelsonee]

That's actually a bumper sticker I've seen around DC (Goddard Space Flight Center is in a suburb):

On a red field:

"If this sticker is blue, slow down!"

Nobody's moving ...

[PPH]

...except for a bunch of Mini Coopers driving down the sidewalks.

And if they had been using roundabouts...

[macraig]

... to mediate traffic instead of traffic signals, they wouldn't have needed the aging old single-point-of-failure computer in the first place, because roundabouts (a) require no computers, (b) require no electronics at all, (c) require no electricity, and (d) don't require maintenance. What's more, since they allow motorists to preserve some momentum in all but the most congested traffic, gas consumption from forced arbitrary deceleration and acceleration is reduced. The only intelligence they require isn't of the artificial sort at all, only a smidgen of it from the motorists using them. They are un-powered and self-adjusting to traffic flow.

Would anyone like to take a stab at how much energy and man-hours is expended on the traffic signal network in the United States every year?

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Hatta]

The only intelligence they require isn't of the artificial sort at all, only a smidgen of it from the motorists using them

That's your problem. The average motorist possesses no intelligence at all.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Darth_brooks]

(d) don't require maintenance

Other than pot hole filling, plowing, drain maintenance (if applicable), line painting, and median maintenance.

So really, other than additional engineering to the right of way, installation, and changes to existing pedestrian right of ways, you've got a bang-up idea there.

Disclaimer: I'm actually a supporter of roundabouts, I just prefer the right tool for the job.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[ThrowAwaySociety]

The only intelligence they require isn't of the artificial sort at all, only a smidgen of it from the motorists using them.

Which is why they are not used. What was your point again?

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[fridaynightsmoke]

As a UK resident and driver in the true home of the roundabout, I wish to tell you that roundabouts are not a panacea.

Roundabouts work best for light to moderate traffic, where all 4 directions and all movements (left turn, right turn etc) are fairly equal in demand. For heavy traffic, they very quickly congest as traffic builds on the roundabout and blocks all entry. Indeed, round here most busy/large roundabouts have traffic lights on them as well, with varying degrees of success.

As for "gas consumption from forced arbitrary deceleration and acceleration is reduced" - I strongly disagree. Here roundabouts are used as a form of 'traffic calming', ie a deliberate obstacle to slow traffic. With a traffic light its a 50/50 chance between stopping completely and carrying on at cruising speed. With roundabouts there is always a decelerate/accelerate cycle, which depending on the design of the junction can be quite severe. In Birmingham (UK) and elsewhere. there was even a recent fad among local traffic engineers to plant high vegetation on the sightlines for approaching traffic to force all vehicles entering the roundabout to slow to below 5mph to be able to see traffic on the junction. On some examples here you have maybe 3 ft before the roundabout itself where you can see oncoming vehicles.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that roundabouts are rubbish and traffic lights are good, but theres different solutions to different problems. Replacing non-synchronised traffic lights with roundabouts in a situation with very heavy traffic would have a very much worse result.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Quirkz]

Having lived and worked near roundabouts, I can assure you that the theory and the actual results about roundabouts are not the same. The theory is good. In practice, they're much, much worse than simple lights. Human intelligent behavior is a lot harder to come by than artificial intelligence.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[IsoRashi]

My car has been hit once by a motorist failing to yield at the AC Airport circle. There have been plenty of other times when someone did something stupid (and illegal) and stepping on the brakes was the only way I avoided a collision. I absolutely hate the circle in Somers Point. I honestly have never witnessed someone coming off the bridge yield to traffic in the circle. Sometimes during the summer, though, I like to go have a bite at the Point Diner and just watch the tourists get all jammed up.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Rick17JJ]

I have been very happy with the traffic circle which replaced the traffic light near where I live. It is on a two-lane highway in a smaller city here in Arizona.

I was very sceptical when the state said they were planning to replace the stop light with a traffic circle. But, the traffic circle has been able to handle the traffic much more smoothly than the stoplight did. I rarely need to wait more than a few seconds to get through the traffic circle, even during rush hour. I also usually do not need to make a complete stop, which saves gas and reduces the wear on my clutch.

As you mentioned, no electricity, computers or electronics are needed. It keeps working just fine, whenever the power occasionally goes off after a summer thunderstorm, for a few minutes.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[macraig]

I know what you're saying, but in spite of all the stupidity I witness daily I guess I still get too altruistic/optimistic where reason and intelligence are concerned. I think I know why: I still just can't truly comprehend, believe, that people aren't rational, even after witnessing evidence to the contrary. I have a limited "theory of mind".

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[macraig]

Figuring out what conditions distinguish your positive experience from some of the other very negative ones described here seems to be the real challenge. There aren't very many here in my neck of the woods.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[csartanis]

Oh god... I can't imagine what driving in a city like NY or Chicago would be like with roundabouts at every cross street!

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[day2day]

How do you handle pedestrians in a roundabout?

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Rick17JJ]

I can think of several possible differences, of here vs. elsewhere. For one thing, it is best if the traffic circle is not too small. It was possible to make this traffic circle whatever size the traffic engineers wanted, due to the lack of nearby buildings at the intersection. In built up areas, they can usually only build small tight traffic circles, where there is less time to react to what the other drivers are doing.

Anther factor is the little snow or ice we get, melts quickly at this altitude in Arizona.

One major disadvantage for having a stop light at that intersection, was that there was a small hill on one side of that intersection. Frequently, a moving truck was stopped at the red light, near the front of the line, it took too long to get the slow moving truck moving quickly again. During heavy traffic, that resulted in the light turning red before the people at the end of the line could get through. When it was converted to a traffic circle, the trucks could usually avoid having to make a complete stop, and keep moving.

This traffic circle is at the intersection of a two lane highway and a two lane road. I do not have any experience with how they work on intersecting four lane roads. But at this location, the traffic clearly flows much better during heavy traffic, that it did when the stoplight was there.

Many drivers in the U.S. do not know who has the right of way in a traffic circle. The people in the circle have the right of way (at least here in Arizona). Drivers entering the circle have a yield sign. Divers who mistakenly think they have the right of way, when they don't, have a much less positive experience going through the traffic circles.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[rts008]

10 points for each one you hit? (15 points if they are pushing strollers, or in wheel chairs)

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[xaxa]

This traffic circle is at the intersection of a two lane highway and a two lane road. I do not have any experience with how they work on intersecting four lane roads.

Checking your terminology:
"two lane highway" = 4 lanes total, 2 in each direction?
"two lane road" = 2 lanes total, 1 in each direction?
"four lane roads" = 4 lanes total, 2 in each direction?

I'm having trouble finding an intersection between two four-lane roads with a basic roundabout. Two four-lane roads suggests both are quite busy, so usually the roundabout is raised (or lowered) so traffic on a main road can continue underneath it. See the northern one here where the A34 continues straight through. The 4-lane A34 ends at the roundabout in the middle.

You can also see some other roundabout features (remembering traffic drives on the left):
- Filter lanes, so traffic turning left doesn't have to stop at all, e.g. driving north from the A34 to the A44 (at both the big one and the little one)
- On the large, high (ish) speed roundabout, traffic enters almost at a tangent. On small ones (e.g. in the industrial/whatever it is bit) it enters much more sharply
- There is some weird decorative stuff on the middle one. And I bet the planners groaned when they saw the railway line that runs through it.

Oh, wow. That one must have traffic lights (looks like they couldn't fit a bridge in for the main road, or didn't want to). It does have two four+-lane roads though. That's very unusual.

Short-of-space motorway junction (or not much used, so building 1 bridge rather than 2 is preferred).
Lots-of-space (for England) motorway junction, with massive roundabout. I think you can see where the old road used to go through the middle (?).

Seven Dials, Covent Garden, London (presumably predating motor cars -- yep, Wikipedia says 1690!).

Finally, the Magic Roundabout, Swindon which has traffic going round in both directions, and is actually five small roundabouts.

Right, I'm off to take my medication.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[MrPhilby]

Trust me, it's a revelation. Smooth entry, smooth exit but people need to be educated on which lane to be in on approach.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Rick17JJ]

By a two lanes, I meant one lane going each way on each of the roads. However, I now realise that my vague description does not actually quite accurately describe the the intersection, since entering it from one direction the Highway is 4 lanes (2 lanes each way). Highway 89 going North of Prescott, Arizona is actually 2 lanes each way until a few hundred feet north of the traffic circle, where it funnels back down to 1 lane each way. A few miles north of the traffic circle, the highway goes back to 4 being lanes (2 lanes each way).

The intersecting Willow Lake Road has one lane of traffic going each direction, with significant traffic going and coming from only one direction of Willow Lake Road.

The slight hill on the south side of the intersection may seem insignificant, but when there was a traffic light there, it would take too long to get a stopped truck near the front of the line moving at a reasonable speed again.

The traffic circle is at the intersection of Highway 89 and Willow Lake Road (not Willow Creek Road). It does not use a traffic light for any direction (only yield signs).

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Eil]

They've started constructing roundabouts here in Michigan. I did some traveling when I was younger so I'm pretty familiar with how to manage a variety of traffic management features, including the roundabout. If you're not from the mid-west, let me tell you something: Until very recently, there were no roundabouts in Michigan. They weren't just rare, they were completely non-existent. They aren't even taught in driver's training. In the last few years, I know of three that have been constructed.

There's one in downtown Lansing that's especially fun. It's been there for a year and every single time I have to go through it, the driver ahead of me stops dead at the entrance for at least 15 seconds before they figure out what to do, even when there's no traffic around. When I finally make it into the roundabout, the other drivers think the Yield sign is merely a suggestion. Or they think that the cars already in the roundabout are supposed to stop and let them enter. And then they honk and/or wave the finger at you when you don't.

What pisses me off the most is that these roundabouts seemed to be put in for looks or to burn up capital more than anything else. On one I-75 exit, they put in two roundabouts on top of a bridge. It was completely unnecessary. Half of the traffic has to navigate two roundabouts right in a row. Not to mention that it's an industrial area and the exit was frequently used by big semi trucks, the natural enemy of the roundabout. And this is in a fairly rural area, too. Green arrows and double-lane turn lanes are about as sophisticated as these drivers can manage.

I can't say how progressive Maryland's drivers are about new traffic management features, but it would be a complete wreck (literally) to roll out roundabouts in many parts of the U.S., even if they can theoretically improve traffic flow.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Ant P.]

Roundabouts are a good idea if done right. The ones where I live are anything but. Here's my personal favourite; normally all the lanes are congested. In rush hour most of the exits are too which makes it even more fun.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Rick17JJ]

Here is an article with a photo of the traffic circle that I am referring to:

http://www.dcourier.com/print.asp?ArticleID=55222&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Rick17JJ]

This article suggests that it is usually not a problem for pedestrians or bicyclists. The photo is of the traffic circle near where I live, which was built to replace the traffic light which had previously been at that intersection.

Traffic Circle in Prescott, Arizona

Most of the motorists only slow down to about 20 - 30 miles per hour while passing through that particular traffic circle, unless someone in the circle with the right of way causes them to slow down more, or momentarily stop. Not very visible in the photo, is a small triangular little island to stand on before attempting to run across the last stretch of the crosswalk, as the cars pop out from behind the mound of dirt.

From a pedestrian standpoint, it seem to me that there are advantages and disadvantages to either type of intersection.

In a conventional stoplight type intersection, I once ended up on the hood of a woman's car while roller blading across a crosswalk. The woman appeared to be slowing as if to stop for the red light. So, when the sign said "walk," I took off. But, she was rolling through the red light with "California" stop, instead of making a complete stop. She only hit me at about 10 MPH, and I was wearing a helmet, knee pads, wrist pads and elbow pads, so I was not hurt.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[woolio]

In the US we have a few (but very few) roundabouts. I can say that I am one of the few to actually have driven through one of these in the US.

I can't say I liked the roundabout intersection. I always found it to be rather indirect and well...roundabout.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[RocketRabbit]

Roundabouts suck. They are terrible for pedestrians and terrible for cyclists, and really terrible in heavy use areas.

Look kids, Big Ben. Parliament.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[devonbowen]

I once heard that traffic circles generally increase the number of accidents but decrease the number of fatal accidents. So that's also a factor.

Devon

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[gtall]

Hehehehehe...you are suggesting roundabouts for Maryland drivers? That's like inviting them all to a demolition derby. I doubt you could get them all to agree in which direction to round. Think the 5th horseman of the apocalypse, the first 4 would have been merely warm up.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[fridaynightsmoke]

This: http://www.cbrd.co.uk/indepth/magicroundabout/ is more informative than the wiki article.

I in fact grew up in Tamworth, a similarly roundabout-endowed place with a junction similar to that in Swindon

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Hognoxious]

I've never driven a snowplow, but I think it would be kind of difficult to plow snow in a roundabout.

Snowploughs aren't restricted to traveling in straight lines. In any case, turning at a regular cross junction requires a sharper turn than a roundabout.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Hognoxious]

Many drivers in the U.S. do not know who has the right of way in a traffic circle. The people in the circle have the right of way (at least here in Arizona). Drivers entering the circle have a yield sign.

Then how can they not know who has right of way?

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[Hognoxious]

I'm having trouble finding an intersection between two four-lane roads with a basic roundabout.

I take it you've never been to Milton Keynes. Most of the places where an H road crosses a V are like that.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[some-old-geek]

None of that makes up for the fact that roundabouts are stupid.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[cbciv]

While the advantages you listed are true, traffic circles (what we call "roundabouts" here in the D.C. area) have cons as well.

We have quite a few of them in the District. I used to drive through Washington Circle (Google Map) every day on my way to work. They work well for areas with moderate traffic or where one of the streets has heavy traffic and the other(s) only light traffic. Unfortunately, that does not describe the traffic in the D.C. area, including Montgomery County. We have the second worst traffic in the country, after Los Angeles. We have traffic lights on some entry ramps for our highways to regulate entry so that the four and six lane highways don't get backed up as much. That's how bad it is.

Also, circles require more room than intersections. A lot of our major roads around here have three or four lanes going in each direction. A three or four lane circle would take up quite a bit of space and becomes more daunting to navigate.

Are circles better than unsynchronized traffic lights during a D.C. rush hour? Possibly. Are they better than synchronized traffic lights the other 360 days a year? I doubt it.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[skeeto]

Oh man, I can definitely see that. It's all slow and parallel in the traffic circle, so accidents aren't dangerous. But at the same time people turn into complete idiots in traffic circles, weaving between lanes like there is only one, cutting across other drivers (like exiting directly from the inner circle across a lane, or not exiting the outer circle when it ends), and not signaling anything. I go through one twice every day and I have to actively avoid other driver's mistakes on a weekly basis.

Re:And if they had been using roundabouts...

[jgurling]

As a UK citizen now living in Canada (where things are basically the same in cities), one thing struck me about the road system overall. The whole city-planning grid layout thing means that there are an *insane* number of 4-way stop-sign junctions. To me they are more of a concern than traffic lights just due to sheer density of them. You look on a map and think "great, it's a straight line, I'll be there in no time", but you have to stop and start so much and it seems so backwards (to me, at least). Takes more time, wears out your brakes, uses more fuel... Perhaps it's a call for mini-roundabouts, or maybe just more give-way signs (called "yield" signs in Canada). When I see the occasional one here, I'm taken aback to my home country and think "gee... why aren't there more of these here?!"

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Smallpond]

That's why in my town we have Braille traffic lights.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Red Flayer]

If lights are aligned vertically, the red light is ALWAYS on top and the green one ALWAYS on the bottom.

Except for one light in Buffalo, NY.

The folklore is that the Irish workmen thought that green should always be on the top.

The light has been reaplced, IIRC, several times, but remains the only inverted traffic light in the US.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[icannotthinkofaname]

Zero, unless you'd like to point me to someone who naturally sees an inverted world.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[lowrydr310]

According to this article/blog/posting, the blue lights come on when the signal is red, so police can clearly see that the traffic light is actually red, enabling them to identify drivers who run a red light. Unless, however, you're referring to another example (I searched briefly, but couldn't find any info on blue lights replacing green lights)

Color version

[Dareth]

I had the color version of the TRS-80. I thought saving code on cassette tape was better than sliced bread!

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Caue]

yeah but if you can't see the color, it's kind of hard telling which one is lit at 11 am on a sunny day

in other words

[circletimessquare]

modern civilization

relies on

modem serialization

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Smelly Jeffrey]

It's called the MUTCD. Read it!

Bad traffic to worse traffic

[whitelabrat]

Traffic here is normally awful, but thanks to this it was really bad this morning.

Sweet!

[Brian Feldman]

This is my home county for the past eight years, and I think the default traffic patterns are actually probably going to be a significant improvement. I am not a traffic engineer but I am amazed at the number of lights in the county that have clearly wrong behavior where most of the time there is a green light going in the direction there is no one at all traveling at that time of day.

Gridlock in Montgomery County?

[BlueAtlas]

Nothing new here. If you have only two highways (495 and 270), with no east-west flow, you get gridlock, and you get it often. This is no different than a semi flipping over on 495, or a stalled car on Rockville pike, causing bailout to a traffic grid that hasn't been able to handle it for over 20 (30) years. The fact that Potomac was affected is a good thing. Those entitled citizens would never consider a bridge to cross the Potomac River into Tyson Corner to ease such congestion, which is exactly the choke point in this entire region.

SUMO?

[starseeker]

Maybe they could make some use of the GPL code from the SUMO project? http://sumo.sourceforge.net/

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[EkriirkE]

Don't forget about the multi-cluster lights as is prevalent in congested cities (LA). Some will have 5 or 6 lights in one module, red yellow, double red, double green, arrows

Interesting Book on the Subject

[getagrip]

"Intelligent Transport Systems: Cases and Poliies" by Roger Stough on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=fs-SYjIS88oC&lpg=PA110&ots=HcpCMSKdgw&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q=&f=false

RED SHFT

[SteveFoerster]

When I was a teen, I had a car with the license plate RED SHFT. Most people saw it and thought, "Red car, stick shift, who cares?" but I did get that enthusiastic thumbs up of understanding from maybe one person in ten thousand.

Re:RED SHFT

[rachit]

I think most people read it as "red shaft"...

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Fulcrum of Evil]

I've seen some places in the US, where the green light is blue. I still haven't figured that one out, but I tend to go for the blue light, and stop for the pink one.

Japanese traffic engineer? Ao == green or blue, according to your pref.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[rossdee]

"The blue is from appraching the light too fast. You're aproximately going 20% the speed of light. SLOW DOWN"

If you're doing .2c then its going to take you months to slow down (at any acceleration the human body can take)

ASSHO

[Migraineman]

"The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) was founded on December 12, 1914. Its name was changed to American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials on November 13, 1973" ... after members became fed-up with the acronym.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[DinDaddy]

And then the wind cries Mary.

Not the computers fault

[xxuserxx]

Did the computer "fail" or did the engineers blow off "High Availability" This is 2009 most legacy systems can be emulated.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[DinDaddy]

Gilligan did in that one episode where he drank the weird native concoction.

So now they work like the lights in Northern Virgi

[bsane]

When the system failed, it caused all signals to default to stand-alone operation, rather than the highly-tuned synchronization that usually serves to facilitate traffic flow during rush hours.

So now they work like the lights in Northern Virginia?

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[icannotthinkofaname]

Rephrase: Zero, unless you'd like to point me to some real person who naturally sees an inverted world.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[228e2]

They are all over Evanston Ill, the city bordering Chicago to the north. I ran 2 in a row before my friend told me the lights are on the side.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[DinDaddy]

Let's just see you try that line on the police.

"I would have slowed down, officer, but it would have either taken too long or crushed me, so I didn't bother."

Google

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> When the system failed, it caused all signals to default to stand-alone operation,

Here I thought it was gonna be some stupid design flaw only exposed when the system broke down, but defaulting to stand-alone behavior when the controlling master system breaks down is the proper thing to do at that point.

It's interesting how said efficiency allows for fewer roads and lanes than otherwise would be needed to handle that much flow.

That about sums it up...

[Tetsujin]

I mean, Wheeljack must have had some kind of computer failure if he thought it was a good idea to give the most physically powerful Autobots the most feeble brains available...

And, really, he could have skipped the whole transformation thing. It was quite awesome enough having a big metal dinosaur tromping around kicking ass...

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[danlip]

I am "color blind" - like most people termed such, I'm actually just slightly red-green deficient. I fail the Ishihara (dot-pattern) color test but can see most colors quite well including the red, yellow, and green in traffic lights. I think I have seen the blue lights that the parent and GP are referring to, and I hate them - they are pale blue, almost white, and blend in perfectly (for me) with the mercury vapor street lamps at night, so that I don't even realize the traffic light is there until it turns yellow in front of me. I certainly hope they are not done for the benefit of color blind folks cause they suck for me. (luckily most street lamps are sodium now, so its not as big a problem)

Inverted traffic light - actually Syracuse, NY

[penguinchris]

Being from Buffalo I was curious that I'd never heard of that - turns out it's actually in Syracuse, which is two cities east of Buffalo (Rochester in between) and about a two and a half hour drive :)

Here's some info,

And here's a photo.

Re:Inverted traffic light - actually Syracuse, NY

[Red Flayer]

Doh. Thanks for the polite correction.

Re:Inverted traffic light - actually Syracuse, NY

[penguinchris]

Thanks for pointing it out in the first place - now I have someplace I need to check out next time I pass through Syracuse :)

Re:Inverted traffic light - actually Syracuse, NY

[Barumpus]

I am originally from Syracuse but living in the State of the Retired. The last time I went back north and drove through that area, I was just about to run the light when I realized it was inverted. The end result could have had a bad outcome due to me not paying full attention.

If you do drive through that area, keep it in the back of your mind. You may find yourself in my position thinks the bottom light is lit, I can continue moving forward. The look of shock on that lady's face was priceless. Not because I almost ran the light, but because I was from Florida and under the age of 80.

Re:Roundabouts

[mschuyler]

Roundabouts certainly take up less space than cloverleaves, but to suggest they are 'the answer' is problematical. Anyone who has driven in a country with extensive roundabouts, such as Great Britain, knows rush hour traffic can be backed up at a roundabout just as easily as it can with a stoplight. And when you have several roundabouts within a few feet, it gets worse fast. Unless you've been through a triple roundabout with buildings in the middle while dealing with an unfamiliar right-hand drive car in the left lane, I maintain you haven't lived.

Roundbouts are getting more and more popular in America. Any new or revised intersection is a candidate. Where there were none in my county a decade ago, now there are dozens.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[cayenne8]

The ones I hate are the lights that for some reason, you cannot see what light is on at ALL till you are right up on them.

Those seem the most dangerous to me, I know they're trying to do that to get you to slow till you can see what color light is lit, but, really....I'd much rather see them from a distance.

Well, at least I'm not seeing these types of signals as often anymore...mostly going to the led ones down here in NOLA.

I was just out there and it is an issue of safety

[Anonymous Coward]

I was *just* out on the affected roads in Montgomery County and I can tell you exactly why this failure of this system IS an issue of safety -- more than a few of the people who live/work/commute in this County are self-important idiots who refuse to wait 5 minutes for the traffic light to turn from red to green during rush hour so they just stomp on their car horn and proceed to drive through the red lights!!! This wasn't happening one or two cars at a time either, it was walls of them all acting as though the traffic lights were off rather than just changing more slowly than they should be.

THAT is an issue of safety.

I also saw a Montgomery County Police car drive through one such intersection while people were doing that and he/she did not stop to deal with the situation.

Ah, maybe not the "computer"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read TFA, down a ways, it seems the problem is not in the computer at all, it's in the conduit that distributes the signals. Maybe just a dope with a backhoe.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I have traveled extensively inside the USA and have never seen one such occurence. Tell me, does it appear blue to color blind people only?

The red light has a nontrivial amount of yellow and the green light a nontrivial amount of blue, for the convenience of the red-blue color blind (the commonest type of color-blindness).

For people with "normal" color vision (the commonest form of color vision, that is - there are a considerable number of rarer color vision variants), it's a lot easier to see the blue in the green light than the yellow in the red. The red light isn't obviously orangeish. But the green light is almost "teal", a color that some "normally sighted" people identify as (greenish) blue and some as (bluish) green.

I was under the impression that RED YELLOW & GREEN colors were always in the same place to accomodate color-blind people, who can still see the light shine from each spot.

Yes the position is also standardized, as an aid for the (much rarer) totally color blind.

they do more then that they are linked to other li

[Joe The Dragon]

they do more then that they are linked to other lights and some areas with 3-ways / ramps lights need to be linked or things will back up real bad.

Typo: Make that "red-green" as the commonest form

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... for the convenience of the red-blue color blind (the commonest type of color-blindness).

Typo: For the convenience of the red-GREEN color blind ...

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[JWSmythe]

    I know exactly what you're talking about. It's either a convex glass lens, or a Fresnel lens. I've seen both. I think they're to increase range, and reduce side visibility, but ya, I've driven up on them, and depending on the angle, they may disappear or appear. Visual signals should always be visible (duh). :)

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[JWSmythe]

    It's worked a lot better since I installed the inertial compensators. :)

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[mcgrew]

Not necessary. My dad is color blind, and as long as the traffic engineers aren't stupid enough to install the lights upside down there's no problem -- top light means stop, bottom light means go.

He did get a ticket in Arizona once because the light was installed upside down.

He has a far greater problem with stop signs, and still curses them for changing the color from yellow to red back when I was a kid. If there's foliage behind the stop sign the sign's virtually invisible to a color blind man.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[slipperguy]

If lights are aligned vertically, the red light is ALWAYS on top and the green one ALWAYS on the bottom.

Except for one light in Buffalo, NY.

It is actually in Syracuse, NY

Re:Roundabouts

[Hubbell]

There are so few in america, or atleast here in connecticut, that they don't even TALK about them in driving schools, atleast not the one I went to. I live down the street from one (1mile away) and the number of assholes who don't know how to drive in them even though the entrance is clearly marked YIELD people still blow into them, and people in them still stop for those at the entrances. The number of times I've wanted to gun it instead of braking and just pushing the person in front of me over the 40ft steep drop on one side of the circle are too high to count.

What old computer?

[Nefarious Wheel]

"Big computer in Rockville, MD" ... from the 70's ... XDS Sigma series perhaps? Xerox had a big presence in Rockville way back then, and their computers were definitely big. Not particularly powerful, but they did have hardware interrupt and that was fairly new in the early 70's and they did a bit of traffic control work (generally via TRW). In the late 70's, it could have been a PDP-11 of some stripe or even a DEC 10. Anybody have any particulars?

floppies!

[recharged95]

"The system remains down Thursday, with no ETA in sight.""

Can't find those 5.25" floppy disks for DOS 3.1 I see. Time to check ebay.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Avalain]

I always thought that these were used mainly when two intersections were close together so that you wouldn't think that the green lights for the second intersection were meant for the first one. At night it can sometimes be hard to judge the distance.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Spellvexit]

I'm red-green colorblind, and for the most part, I don't have much of a problem distinguishing between the red and green. There are some times, however, where I have to think a bit harder to discern the two colors -- I'm not sure if it's the lights themselves or the ambient lighting (bright sunlight hitting the signal, cloudy weather, what have you), but from time to time the colors look awfully similar. In those situations I don't think about the alignment of the lights (i.e. if the top one is lit I should assume it's red) -- I either look "harder" or observe the other drivers. The alignment of the lights rarely play a part in my discernment of the signals.

I'd certainly appreciate green lights with more blue in them. I've noticed "bluish" green lights before, but I always figured it was just a given manufacturer that made the lights a bit more blue. In traffic intersections where mistakes can cost lives, I'd much rather rely on color than alignment. I know that if alignment were the only queue, I'd adapt, but there's something more primitive, direct and powerful about using color.

Why not emulate?

[Kaenneth]

I've seen a lot of projects like NES, Apple ][, Amiga... emulators so that old games can be played on modern machines...

Are there not such projects for old Mainframes? Might be an excellent way to replace such systems... unless the costs of the required stability testing, software licensing issues and such would be too much... also custom hardware I/O may be difficult to adapt... (Anyone know where to get a USB 8 inch floppy disc drive or 110 baud modem?)

Probably better to replace such incredibly old applications anyway.

The reason for this...

[kaellinn18]

...is that the state of Maryland does not have a proper driver's test. There isn't even a ROAD TEST. You go to the DMV and drive around the goddamned parking lot for few minutes. As a transplant living in the state, it scares the living hell out of me driving on the road with these people. Driving here, you either learn to anticipate all manner of stupidity, or you die.

Redundancy!

[Puff_Of_Hot_Air]

Props to whoever mantains this system that the issue does occur more frequently, but this is a problem with a simple solution. Redundancy. The system is probably too old to be configurable to automatically swap, but a simple setup with two servers allowing a manual hot-swap, is all you need. Not a difficult problem to solve.

Re:Redundancy!

[vaporland]

Since this is a Data General system, they could achieve instantaneous, cheap redundancy by utilizing the open source minicomputer emulator SIMH. http://simh.trailing-edge.com/.

This software allows modern microcomputers running Windows, Linux or MacOS to transparently emulate many legacy minicomputer and mainframe systems, including Data General NOVA and ECLIPSE environments.

They could slap in a couple of Xeon server blades, replicate their existing software environment and not have to spend a cent to reinvent the wheel (pun intended). It's not like traffic control technology has made major scientific strides in the last 30 years. If it had, we'd be building light rail instead of offramps...

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[webdog314]

Being color deficient myself, I want to strangle whoever in California decided it would be a good idea to make a RED ARROW. Color problems aside, what the frak is that supposed to mean?! "Go... NO WAIT!"

Data General, you say? Then this seems appropriate

[Eil]

In fact when I've a floppy of a maximum diameter,
When I can call a subroutine of infinite parameter,
When I can point to registers and keep their current map around,
And when I can prevent the need for mystifying wraparound,
When I can update record blocks with minimum of suffering,
And when I can afford to use a hundred K for buffering,
When I've performed a matrix sort and tested the addition rate,
You'll marvel at the speed of my asynchronous transmission rate.

Though all my better programs that self-reference recursively
Have only been obtained through expert spying, done subversively,
But still for input vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I've built a better model than the one at Data General.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[treeves]

Maybe.
But we have Braille on drive-thru ATMs around here. No joke.
(I know: they just use the same ATMs in drive-thrus as in other locations. It still strikes me as funny.)

Replacing a 1970s system

[AndroidCat]

The county's chief traffic engineer, Emil Wolanin, said replacing the 1970s-vintage system would not be easy.

And will the replacement system be Y2K safe?

server password

[Lorens]

As for the single computer, i bet a coke no one knows the root password, the system administrator is long gone and the programmers are very long gone.

Reading TFA (but you have to go to the second page, oooh), it seems that they're a bit more clueful than that.

"The server seems to be sending the signal, but the conduit is not transferring the information to the signal lights."

Maybe in a day or two they'll contact a network engineer :-)

Simple to fix

[zmollusc]

Just switch all the traffic lights off.
Seriously. I have never, in decades of driving, seen longer queues at broken traffic lights than when they were working. This is especially true at a busy crossroads on my old route to work, working traffic lights meant a queue of 12 - 20 cars in each direction whereas broken traffic lights had less than 5 cars in any direction. Same roads, same time of day.

The traffic light manufacturers must be bribing the local councils and highways departments pretty good.

drink less

[Hognoxious]

More likely you're seeing two sets of lights, but then you're probably seeing two roads as well.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Hognoxious]

If there's foliage behind the stop sign the sign's virtually invisible to a color blind man.

Is he also blind to white octagons and the letters S,T,O and P?

Wolfram Alpha will save the day!

[mattr]

Okay look, technology has advanced to the point this probably works for 90% of the time awesomely. Just get a modern server, and someone fueled with Coke in front of it. The combo is way more powerful than whatever they had originally.

First make an api to the switching network, then map the nodes to match the geography roughly, using google if you must. Throw a machine learning algorithm that simulates lots of ants (okay cars for this project) going through the traffic signal graph and each can have a few characteristics like average speed to destination, gas consumption, frustration, etc. The traffic signals can be tweaked by hand or you can give them genes for different oscillatory patterns.

If you start with the main arteries first I bet you could quickly develop a traffic signal plan that works great. How much you want to bet this could be done by a bunch of suitably competent types with a nice big prize in a hackathon? Now I'm not saying to plug the network into Wolfram Alpha's server farm but it just might work...

The real problem is...

[hesaigo999ca]

>The resulting chaos is a yet another stark reminder of how much modern civilization relies on behind-the-scenes
>automation to deliver and control basic services and infrastructure
No the real problem is the fact that someone decided that keeping a computer from 1970 running till today to run the traffic system!!!
We have dual core processors for 300$ at futureshop, seriously, what could ever make someone decide to leave such an old system in place to run things....hopefully they learned their lesson, and will be installing the new technology soon.

Maryland county people should ask for the city council to report back any other such situations to pass a vote on whether to replace all the aging technology!

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[CptNerd]

I've noticed in some places the traffic lights have embedded halogen flash bars in front of the red light that flash when the light turns red. I wasn't sure why but it makes sense to alert color-blind and inattentive drivers.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Hognoxious]

Does this occur at a complex junction with one or more separate turn lanes? If so I'd imagine red arrow with green circle means you can go, except if you're going the way the arrow points.

But I'd say separate column for each lane or direction would probably be clearer.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[M-RES]

Surely that's to distinguish direction that the signal applies to, particularly when there are separate signals for a lane turning than for a lane carrying straight on.

Here in the UK we generally have these arrows to indicate either a 'filter' on just the green light in addition to the main green light (where you are turning across the oncoming traffic and their signal has just turned to red, or hasn't yet turned to green).

Although there are occasions where the directional indicator arrow is used for all 3 colours, especially where a multitude of light clusters make a junction particularly confusing for anyone unfamiliar with the road layout.

Conversely to TFA, I've noticed that whenever traffic lights fail over here, traffic has a greater tendency to flow much better, because the majority of people's natural courtesy to each other allows for them to 'take turns' crossing a 4 (or more) way junction.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[mcgrew]

A big red octagon stands out. A green octogon with half inch lettering against a multicolored green background does not.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[Hognoxious]

A big red octagon stands out. A green octogon

Comparing apples and oronges.

And as to the letters being half an inch high, where do you live - toytown?

Seriously, if his eyesight is that bad he shouldn't be driving.

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[justthinkit]

Yup, you're right!

Re:Report from the field: "Drivers very confused"

[DRACO-]

Downtown Houston is like that. Every time I go to downtown Houston I have to remember to watch for lights on the side. I've almost ran lights because I didnt notice them as I am used to my home town, 6 intersections 2 way stop signs... 1 intersection 4 way stop sign. 6 2 way... then a t-bone 1 stop sign. (small town)