Green Thursday: It's all in the timing

It's fair to say no one likes stop and go traffic from out-of-sync traffic lights.

Untimed traffic lights not only waste your time but also dollars. According to the National Transportation Operations Coalition, out-of-sync lights are costing the average household 5 tanks of gas a year. At $4 a gallon, that's easily $240.

Experts say re-timing lights is a relatively easy fix. It's a question of where do you put your resources. The U.S. is one of the few countries that doesn't widely use adaptive traffic control, where lights are automatically adjusted based on demand.

Politics can be blamed, it's not popular with elected officials because you can't have a ribbon cutting when you re-time the signals. The benefits are very subtle, and if your community is strapped for cash (and who's isn't?) What you do is let things slide that are not obvious to the public.

If every jurisdiction around the country were to re-time their lights, it would save 17 billion barrels of oil a year. Another benefit would be in emissions.

Time to call city hall.

Every Green Thursday we post information vital to the survival of the planet.