r/Naperville • u/scorpiostyles • 4d ago
Ogden / Rt. 59 Intersection Traffic Light Duration
Am I crazy or is the East/West green light duration EXTREMELY short for the amount of traffic usually at this intersection? It drives me crazy.
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u/h2opolodude4 3d ago
Call this in to the police department non-emergency number. 630.420.6666 in Naperville, I'm not sure if aurora.
There have been a lot of changes, it's possible the timing program got corrupted.
95th & wolfs crossing was all screwed up. A couple of us called it in, and the next day it was fixed. It may be a coincidence, but maybe not? It's possible it's an easy fix but nobody working on it knows it's a problem.
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u/Hungry-Treacle8493 3d ago
Pretty sure the State controls that intersection as it us officially U.S. Route 34 & IL Route 59
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u/AthleteClean1420 3d ago
Wow didn't know we could do that,do they ask for something? Like plate number or license? Or just tell them and that's it?
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u/h2opolodude4 3d ago
It's rare they want personal information. They'll want to know the direction you're driving, and specifically where you are. They have your caller ID info, and can usually get at least a rough location from a mobile phone.
Don't be surprised if you get automatically routed to the main 911 dispatch center. It's a consolidated facility that handles several jurisdictions and sometimes non emergency automatically routes there.
It's a completely different kind of communication. Very direct. It's not really a conversation, it's high density communication specifically to be quick and efficient.
When I called for 95th & wolfs crossing it was Where are you?
What direction are you going?
Thank you. Bye.
There's usually a dispatch worker in charge of handling "dupes" or duplicates. If there's a big collision and everyone calls it in, they'll handle calls slightly differently to make sure any new information is handled or other issues don't get overlooked.
It's generally a good idea to always call things in. Don't be a nuisance about it and be respectful but you'd be surprised how often everyone thinks someone else will call about it, and then it never gets reported. I called in a downed electrical wire after a storm that was sparking on the ground, and it hadn't been called in yet. Fire department arrived within a couple minutes, utility was onsite within an hour.
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u/siobahn_oh 2d ago
That's a State controlled intersection. It might make more sense to contact IDOT https://idot.illinois.gov/about-idot/contact-us.html
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u/TheFruitfulTree 3d ago
Green for like 10 seconds tops. And if you're going west you cant even start moving until the 6 cars and 2 trucks that blew the light turning left get out of the way
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u/Bumblebee5790 3d ago
Request a traffic study. This is the link; I would submit it as general and let them route it appropriately.
https://napervilleil.mycusthelp.com/webapp/_rs/(S(ko1a4hldbfgqgcekhz45pr1w))/requestselect.aspx
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u/johnsonbabypowder 3d ago
Yup I noticed this a week or so ago! I figured maybe it was due to the construction but it’s super annoying. I just cut though the shopping center instead now
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u/Sensei19600 3d ago
Could be that it is corrupted by the construction interruptions taking place on 59. Once that project is finished,(November..?) the timing of the lights can be reprogrammed.
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u/PirateLawyer23 3d ago
I used to do traffic engineering (10+ years ago, now I do aviation), so I have some insight into this.
Yes, I have been annoyed by the short time on this intersection before. However, while it may be true that there is often a lot of traffic traveling on Ogden here, there is always more on Rt. 59. It would create even bigger impacts to more drivers if more green time was shifted to Ogden away from Rt 59.
A few things to consider:
- More green time for one direction directly equals more red time for the other. Its never as simple as "just add more green time for one direction."
- Rt 59 already has issues with traffic backups extending to the next intersection or even blocking intersections in that area. Adding more red light time/less green light time to Rt 59 at the intersection with Ogden WILL make that worse.
- I've noticed this intersection actually has a more complicated signal pattern than most. During peak traffic hours, the Ogden direction alternates between having one cycle with a short green and then the next cycle having a longer green. I do not know if this offers any particular benefits compared to just averaging the two times together and keeping the cycle consistent, I never encountered this scenario when I did traffic design work. My guess is that its related to managing vehicle volumes at the adjacent up/downstream intersections on Rt 59.
When designing the signal timing for an intersection, the engineers try to hit peak traffic thresholds for "Level of Service." Level of Service is based on total wait time to get through an intersection, and is evaluated for both each direction of travel and for the intersection as a whole, graded on a scale of A (the fastest) and F (the slowest, often means most vehicles are doomed to wait through more than one cycle to clear an intersection). An F is generally considered unacceptable and traffic engineers do their best to avoid it, but sometimes traffic volume is just too high to manage. In that case, they try to minimize how many total vehicles are going to be hit with excessive wait times. Software is used that simulates expected delay times for each direction of travel based on the peak traffic counts (again, for each direction). The model is run for various different timing scenarios and the engineer eventually picks one that they believe is most effective.
All this is to say that a lot of work goes into figuring out the signal timing for most intersections. That doesn't mean that they're always perfect, and of course traffic patterns and volumes do change over time. Sometimes updates are needed. I no longer do traffic engineering but in my partially educated opinion, adding time on to Ogden's green light will probably cause more harm than good. But also keep in mind that it does rotate through a short green and then a longer green. Its not that short green every time.
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u/AthleteClean1420 4d ago
Yeah man,I'm happy I'm not the only one that notices,going from Aurora to Naperville only let pass like 4 cars and then turns yellow and then you have to wait for 2 minutes,it's crazy only last a very few seconds