Fancy pants new cameras to help you drive better!

Hey, the city’s about to add more traffic cameras, but not the kind that capture evil people running red lights in their fancy imported sports cars. The cameras will monitor cars and control the redness and greenness of the lights, increasing safety and hopefully improving the Awesome Traffic Flow Efficiency Equation (ATFEE). This, by itself, is both boring and uninteresting news.

But, as the Leader-Telegram points out, it marks a new direction in the city’s traffic sensor technology, and I gotta be honest, the old tech sounds really damn cool. Most of the city’s lights are controlled by underground wire coils that produce a magnetic field. When your car/scooter/hovercraft enters the magnetic field, the street knows you are there, and the lights change accordingly. Sure, these new cameras are more effective and less prone to environmental damage, but .... underground magnetic field-producing coils! Very retro-future-ish.

But hey, safety counts for something, I guess. One of the intersections to get the new cameras (this summer) is Washington Avenue and South Farwell Street. The plan is to make the intersection more pedestrian/bicycle friendly because it sucks pretty bad right now. The L-T interviewed Aaron Ellringer from Just Local Foods (located on that corner), and he said, "People can't send their kids to the store to get eggs because of the traffic at this corner."

The city also plans to remove the concrete island on that intersection, ending the “right turn no stop” freedom of cars turning from Washington onto Farwell.

posted by Mike Paulus

Comments (8)

Aryn Widule 03/11/10	Well I'll be. You sir have just made my day. Excuse me, I'm going down to visit my tattoo artist and having 346.37(1)(c)4 put on the back of my hand. I am also always going to wear a watch from now on.
AgentPendrell 03/10/10	I JUST heard about that law, and I will be taking full advantage of it, because magnetic coils actually SUCK and are WORTHLESS because my scooter does not register. If these cameras are just noting the presence of cars, are they the type that records color video that is then kept? Because if not, go-go gadget cameras, because the timing of lights around this city is terrible. Just terrible.
pookums 03/10/10	Ooooo, I almost forgot the tasty tidbit of Wisconsin state statute that's of interest to velocipede/motorbike/scooter people: 346.37(1)(c)4. Basically, if you're sitting at a light and it's taking forever to change and there's no one around, and you've been there for like, 45 seconds and you want to GO, because that dreamy Nick Meyer is at The Joynt and you SOOOOO want to hit on him, just do it, 'cause it's legal. BOOYAH.
Aryn Widule 03/10/10	I'm not saying cameras are the answer, but relying on the sensor coils is also a pain for a very small percentage of the population. I'm just saying, like, give me a timer or something after it gets dark outside? If anything it would cause people flying home wasted from the Happy Hollow cause to pause once in awhile on Clairemont, because yes, my particular two wheeled vehicle is too heavy to lay down... also it's old, and if it's tipped over even a little it causes coolant to leak out everywhere. Why the city doesn't just start making regulations that cater to my particular situation, I'll never understand.
pookums 03/09/10	Aaron, et all obviously haven't taught their kids/themselves the über cool velocipede laydown trick that triggers the induction coils. Motorbike/scooterdorks can't do it 'cause they're too heavy. Velo = win. Camera/basilisk technology = slavery
Ben Harris 03/09/10	They should also put the cameras up or at the very least sensors for all of Lake Street downtown. When I'm trying to get out of Dewey and Lake, the light takes well over five minutes to change.
Aryn Widule 03/09/10	Super cool magnetic science aside, I've found that for people who ride motorcycles, or scooters for that matter, oftentimes the sensors don't pick up on you until a car comes behind. I can't count how many times I've sat at a red light waiting for a car to come and activate it, or had to make a series of right turns to bypass the lights on Clairemont after 10 o'clock.
Trae Dorn 03/09/10	Note to self: If the new traffic cameras go up, start kidnapping kids sent to the store to buy eggs. That'll get the magnetic coils back...

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