Traffic question

Last time I was in Vegas, I rented a car and checked out some new places. As I was driving around, I noticed a couple things. The red lights were extremely long and the yellow lights turned to red real quickly. Maybe it was my imagination or I was just impatient but has anyone noticed this too?

Agreed. But you know what you get when you have extra long red lights? Extra long green lights!

Because Vegas is a new city built in a flat desert at a time when land was extremely cheap, the roads are extra wide. That makes for big intersections, ones that actually take longer to traverse. Combine that with the fact that there tends to be a mile or more between signaled intersections (which allows a lot of traffic to be stored between signal changes without stacking into prior intersections) Vegas' engineers have opted to make signals longer.

Drive 5 miles of surface streets in Vegas, and you won't pass through nearly as many signaled intersections as you will in Boston or Bloomington or Burlington. You'll also drive faster when you are moving. You won't stop as often, but when you do, it'll be for a longer time.

No one stops for red lights anyways so it doesn't matter how long they are red....lol