Signal timing around York Region left reporter seeing red at times

Yorkregion.com
July 30, 2015
By Lisa Queen

You’ve got to be kidding me, not another red light.

Ever feel like your drive on York Region roads is a seeming series of stops and starts as you get slowed down by one red light after another?

In an unscientific test to see if that’s true, my husband, David, and I drove a number of regional roads Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

To ensure we were driving the speed limit, we put the car on cruise control. We didn’t drive over the speed limit, but, at times, had to slow down for traffic.

What we found was smooth sailing at times and the frustration of repeated stops at others.

While not a safety issue, improperly synchronized traffic lights are a headache for drivers because they interrupt the flow of traffic on major roads, Brian Patterson, president of the Ontario Safety League said.

“It’s significant and beneficial when it’s done properly and the most frustrating process when it’s not,” he said, adding drivers travelling at the speed limit should, in theory, be able to drive through a long series of green lights.

“Generally, when they are first set up, they are good for two years and then construction and traffic flow changes. If there are construction constraints, it seems the guy who knows the magic code for the system has retired.”

With the amount of construction and growth York Region is experiencing, Patterson would like to see a review of the region’s synchronization, with updates every two to three years.

“It really is to everyone’s benefit when it is first set up, but often I don’t think they monitor it enough over the life cycle of the roadway,” he said.

Richmond Hill Councillor Vito Spatafora and Markham Councillor Jim Jones, chairperson and vice-chairperson of the region’s transportation committee respectively, could not be reached for comment.

The region conducts an arterial corridor review every year, which sees 20 per cent of its traffic signals monitored. That results in the entire network being reviewed every five years, Brian Titherington, the region’s director of road and traffic operations, said.

While he would prefer to review the system, which includes 840 signals, every two to three years as Patterson suggested, he argued it’s a question of resources.

“As a traffic ops guy, I would love to have that ability, but we’re also in a system where we have to be funded through taxes and we have to find that balance in terms of how much it costs to have people go out and do these studies,” he said, adding the region is replacing 100 traffic signals a year over four years.

Titherington’s department fields questions and complaints about traffic signals from many residents.

“Trust me, we get a lot of interested engagement from residents on signals. We don’t get a lot of emails saying, ‘We just got a green light and it was fantastic, thanks for the good work.’ It’s a touch point for a lot of people,” he said.

Traffic signalization is a complex system that has to take into account the needs of many users, including drivers on regional roads, drivers trying to enter regional roads from side streets, drivers making left turns at intersections, pedestrians including seniors, children and people of various abilities who may take longer to cross the street and cyclists.

“The auto user is only one user and there’s so much more going on. We do spend a lot of time analysing our intersections,” Titherington said.

“Nothing we do out there is by chance.”

David and I started out Monday at 1:23 p.m. at Bathurst Street and Mulock Drive in Newmarket.

We were on a roll, sailing through five green lights before hitting a red at Bloomington Sideroad.

Once we got through that, our drive was, once again, an easy route as we passed through seven green lights before getting a red at Elgin Mills Road.

Two more greens and then a red at Major Mackenzie Drive.

From then on, Bathurst became a bit more stop and go.

Of the 21 lights from Major Mackenzie to Steeles Avenue, we had to stop at eight red lights - Valley Vista Drive, Teefy Avenue, Ner Israel Drive, Autumn Hill Boulevard, Flamingo Road, Centre Street and at the Promenade Mall.

All in all, we didn’t feel the trip down Bathurst was particularly frustrating.

We picked up our traffic light count again on Hwy. 7, heading east from Weston Road.

Of the seven lights we encountered, three were red.

But it was the traffic jams that prompted us to bail on Hwy. 7 at Keele Street.

Heading north on Keele, of the 11 intersections we went through, we hit red lights at Administration Road, Bowes Road, Cromwell Road and Major Mackenzie.

While it obviously would have been better not to face any red lights, David and I felt the number of times we had to stop on our route since we left Newmarket was not too onerous.

Then we drove along Major Mack.

We hit red lights at Peter Rupert Avenue, Dufferin Road, Sir Benson Drive, Bathurst, Trench Street, Yonge Street, Bayview Avenue, at the Ontario Small Claims Court, Frank Endean Road, the Leslie Centre Plaza, Leslie Street, Woodbine Avenue, Warden Avenue, at the Angus Glen Community Centre and Library, Angus Glen Boulevard, Kennedy Road, William Berczy Boulevard, Markham Road, Donald Cousens Parkway and Ninth Line.

That worked out to 20 red lights of the 40 signalized intersections we drove through.

And a couple more intersections, at Ilan Ramon Boulevard and Hwy. 404, where we could have stopped but went through a yellow light.

Driving up Ninth Line, we hit red lights at 19th Sideroad, Millard Street and Bloomington, again half of the signalized intersections through which we travelled.

On Tuesday, we started out at 9:20 a.m. by taking Bayview south from Mulock.

Like Major Mackenzie, we encountered several red lights.

From Mulock, we went through four green lights before a red light stopped us at St. John’s Sideroad.

We then hit red lights at Wellington Street, Stone Road, Vandorf Sideroad, Bloomington, Stouffville Sideroad, 19th Sideroad, Centre Street and Major Mackenzie.

Of the 14 intersections from Wellington to Major Mackenzie, we hit eight red lights.

We then swung east over to Woodbine and headed north to Keswick.

Red lights brought us to a stop at Russell Dawson Road, Elgin Mills, Bloomington, Aurora Road, Vivian Road, Davis Drive, Mount Albert Road and the Hwy. 404 off ramp south of Ravenshoe Road.

Of the 21 intersections we drove through on Woodbine, eight were red.

On the way north, we hit all green lights through Keswick, but heading south, we hit red lights at Old Homestead, Wexford Drive, Morton Avenue and Arlington Drive.

While Titherington said he sympathizes with drivers’ frustration hitting red lights, he suggested it may not be as bad as it feels.

“People’s perceived delays are a lot longer than your actual delays,” he said.