Wednesday, January 28, 2004

... And Traffic For All: I've visited a little more than half of the states in the U.S. at least once. And everywhere I've been, I've heard the same two things.

The first one, somebody always says, "We have a saying here. If you don't like the weather in [Fill in State Name], then wait a minute -- it'll change."

Okay, so weather is unpredictable everywhere. The second one is rather silly. When driving through a city, I always hear people say, "Every other state in this country coordinates their traffic lights so you hit only green lights if you're driving the speed limit. But our state is the only one that doesn't do that." This is usually preceded or followed by cursing.

So you can call Snopes -- that one isn't true either. As far as I can tell, nobody coordinates their traffic lights so drivers hit all greens. And if somebody figured out how to do it, I'm sure it would be implemented at the municipal level, not by the state government.

I bring this up because Washington, DC, is trying to coordinate its traffic lights on some major streets so drivers can sail through mostly green lights. The jury is still out as to whether it's working, but the idea sounds promising.