LITTLE ROCK — Dear Mahatma: My faulty memory recalls that several years ago Little Rock spent a huge sum to program traffic lights in downtown to facilitate traffic flow. The funds appear to have been wasted. There is no chance to proceed several blocks along Broadway or Chester without stopping repeatedly for red lights. Green light, your turn, Mahatma. — Tired of Sitting Still
Dear Tired: Before we get in a pickup and drive this route with the city’s traffic engineer, let’s think about intersections the way an economist would.
An economist would see an intersection as a resource, finite in both time and space. And that resource has to be parceled out not just to people who travel one way, but both ways. So while the typical driver sees his needs as paramount, he may have to stop at a red light to let the other guy go. Of course, the other guy also sees his needs as paramount. But that, we suppose, is simply human nature.
Enough philosophy.
Traffic engineers must get red-light complaints all the time. Maybe that’s why Bill Henry, the city’s traffic engineering manager, offered a ride in his city pickup down both Chester and Broadway.
But first he said that traffic signals on both streets are programmed to prioritize north/south traffic at peak hours in the morning and afternoon. Broadway, in fact, has the top priority in the downtown grid because it moves 24,000 cars a day. Chester is the No. 2 priority, because it moves 13,000 cars.
Off we go, at the beginning of the afternoon peak period. Driving at the speed limit, or a little less than the speed limit, we traveled south on Chester from Daisy Gatson Bates Drive all the way to LaHarpe, going through 12 signals and stopping twice.
The light at LaHarpe seemed unusually long, but remember the finite resource, and the fact that plenty of traffic travels on that street during peak periods. Fair is fair.
Then we drove north on Chester, and got nothing but green lights from LaHarpe to Daisy Bates, driving at the speed limit. Or as the sportscasters might say about a hard-hit baseball: This could! It does! Go ... all ... the ... way!
Results on Broadway were similar, but somewhat slower. More traffic on Broadway, including more cross traffic. Don’t those people know we’re in a hurry?
Because newspaper people are notoriously cynical and suspicious, we drove Broadway and Chester without the traffic engineer, just in case he had a secret traffic light changer in his pants pocket.
The second time around, the results were even better on Chester, which on that day appeared to have a bit less traffic. On Broadway, similar results. In fact, from Eighth Street north to Markham and onto the Broadway Bridge, we stopped not once.
The trick was to consistently drive the speed limit. On Chester, 30 mph. On Broadway, 35 mph.
Mahatma@arkansasonline. com
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 03/31/2012