Bicycles and Traffic Signals

Sometimes I do still think about "work." Not often, but occasionally. Today was one of those times.


Today, there was a meeting of the Traffic Signal Association that I belong to. It was being held at my former "work" site so I went. Even better, it was pertaining to a project of interest "Bicycle Adapting Traffic Signal Timing." Ananth Prasad, one of the County's engineers presented the information. The project won a state award. Basically what it's all about is providing special traffic signal timing to bicycles because of the differences in speed and acceleration between them and cars. Longer initial green, longer extension green and longer clearance intervals are the result when a bicycle is detected. You can see a video about the project here. Before I retired, I was involved in the preparation for this project getting the traffic controllers and vehicle detection systems to be able to do this neat thing. More of my thoughts about this topic are here.

Now back to our regularly unscheduled life.