I like them a lot better since you can still take a left if no one's coming. If you're at a left turn with a red light, even if no oncoming traffic is coming you're screwed til the signal cycles back to green. With the protected left turn signals (ones with no red) you can squeeze through the intersection when the ball lights turn yellow.
Some intersections in RI if no one else is at the intersection and you wait long enough, you'll get a green arrow without having the wait, but if there's no oncoming traffic and there is traffic on the side road, the side road will get the green first and left-turners have to wait longer. It's a waste of time IMO. Who wants to sit and wait at a red light for ten minutes? I'd much rather have the freedom to make my left turn when I please.
Maybe. I know along Airport Road in Warwick, RIDOT installed cameras next to the signals on the masts. They're not red light cameras though. They're video detection cameras, which uses the camera to detect vehicles. Maybe they were having issues with the loop detectors. Loop detectors aren't good with lifted vehicles or motorcycles since the metal frame is not close enough and doesn't cover enough of the loop detector to send a command for a green light. The video detection is supposedly better but I'm sure it has its drawbacks too.
BTW have you seen all the RIDOT LEDs going up? they haven't done anything up in the East Providence/Pawtucket area but almost all the freeways south of Cranston are LED now! I-295 is LED from the malls in Warwick all the way to Rte 44 except for at Rte 37 because those are NGrid owned lights. They're in the middle of changing over the I-295/Route 6 interchange to LEDs and in the middle of swapping the Rte 37 lights over to LEDs. They haven't touched Rte 146, I-195, Rte 99, or I-95 north of the Airport Connector. RIDOT plans to be all LED by 2017!
By 2040 traffic lights will be a thing of the past, they will put controllers in the cars and the government will make them turn go and stop, CA WI NJ said no way so they are heroes. Yes, I hate the LEDs they look like crap
I like the white light over the stinky orange but I agree, the fixtures don't look as nice. And from far away, the LED's light looks very blue and hurts my eyes. I hope those self-driving cars never become legal. Imagine how many accidents there would be? Terrorists would hack the cars and make them crash into each other and the technology itself isn't reliable enough. I don't feel comfortable having the car drive itself on the road with me on the road. Have people become so lazy they don't want to drive anymore?
Yeah it's all about keeping up with the Joneses lol. RI wants to be a part of the hype. Did you notice all the LEDs RIDOT and Providence put up have special photocells that allow the lights to be wirelessly controlled? Another NSA feature lol.
Yep. Right now RIDOT hasn't hooked up the system yet, but they can shut off individual lights anywhere in the state from their office in Providence and can program the computer to shut them off at certain times. They can also dim individual lights and make them strobe to indicate an evacuation route if needed. But remember, if THEY can control them wireless, so can anyone else, so some hacker in Russia could screw with RIDOT's street lights if he wanted to. I don't get why they didn't just keep the old relay systems. There was nothing wrong with them. But that's not good enough. They have to buy these $150 photocells to waste all the taxpayer's dollars.
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BTW have you seen all the RIDOT LEDs going up? they haven't done anything up in the East Providence/Pawtucket area but almost all the freeways south of Cranston are LED now! I-295 is LED from the malls in Warwick all the way to Rte 44 except for at Rte 37 because those are NGrid owned lights. They're in the middle of changing over the I-295/Route 6 interchange to LEDs and in the middle of swapping the Rte 37 lights over to LEDs. They haven't touched Rte 146, I-195, Rte 99, or I-95 north of the Airport Connector. RIDOT plans to be all LED by 2017!