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Lessening the wait: Changes approved to city's traffic signal timing strategy
By Bill Conrad, bconrad@starlocalnews.com, @Bill_PlanoStar on Twitter
With a population of more than 260,000 people, traffic congestion in Plano will always be an issue. However, a new plan produced by city traffic engineers should at least minimize congestion along major roads during peak travel hours.
Lloyd Neal, the city's traffic engineering manager, said the city currently balances the signal times on less-traveled side streets with those at major arterial roads. While this keeps delays on side streets at a minimum, it increases congestion along major roads, a problem Neal believes he have a solution for.
"My recommendation is to operate our signals in full coordination with arbitrarily shorter cycles during the off-peak period," Neal said. "What that does is, during the peak period, it allows you to get the movement of traffic in and out of the city that you want. But during the off-peak period, like mid-day and late at night, you have the ability to reduce some of that side street delay."
"I would be in favor of improving the progression on the main arterials at the expense of the side streets, rather than vice versa," said Mayor Phil Dyer.
City Manager Bruce Glasscock said while delays will be lengthened for some motorists, there is no solution that will make everyone happy.
"You can't have it both ways," he told the council. "The complaints I get and send to Lloyd deal with the progression on the arterials. They say, 'Why can't I get on Legacy at 75 and go to Preston? Why am I stopping every other light?' As Lloyd said, we have shifted and given more emphasis to the side streets and when you do that you limit the availability to have a true progression on your arterials."
The following are comments from the readers.
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
Jack wrote on Mar 13, 2013 11:34 PM:
" I'd like to see the city's response on the 121 service road. Try driving southbound on the service road. Amazing you hit EVERY red light. My conspiracy theory is this is intentional. The city in concert with NTTA have every incentive for mistiming the signals with the revenue sharing arrangement. This is a disgrace to citizens for this type of shenanigans to be going on and points to corruption at the highest levels of city gov't.
All this points to corruption at the highest levels.
I'm calling out both Llyod Neal and Bruce Glasscock to walk the talk. "
All this points to corruption at the highest levels.
I'm calling out both Llyod Neal and Bruce Glasscock to walk the talk. "
Dcc041 wrote on Mar 20, 2013 3:12 PM:
" I drive East/West on Parker road daily. When I get to Willow Bend the light is always Red for the East/West traffic on Parker. This road is next to Plano West High school and has very little traffic on it. It is a shame to hold up hundreds of cars that travel Parker Road for one or two cars to go up or down Willow Bend. We need someone here to teach what they preach! "
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Go sit at, say, Parker and Independence during normal daylight timed and watch the N/S traffic clear, but still, the E/W traffic must sit & sit & sit til the 'timed' traffic light finally decides to allow E/W traffic 20 seconds of time to move up a bit.
Then it's back to 2 minutes of N/S traffic movement again..
Wait! Let 's offer green arrows to empty turn lanes while we're at it!
The traffic light sensor system in Plano used to be the very best I've encountered.
Now the attention focuses on traffic that's 'going to be here' instead of the traffic that's already here. "