Christopher Mims
The world is *full* of collective action problems we *could* solve except it would require, well, collective action.
Our civilizations are so big and complicated that we have trouble doing that, because how even to prioritize?
I found one of those collective action problems. I want to tell you about it. It's such a perfect exemplar of the form.
The best part: there is a (new!) known solution.
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Christopher Mims
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So what if we could start to solve congestion in cities without the huge spend required to update all our 300,000+ traffic lights?
That's the idea behind new systems from the U of Michigan, and Google.
Project Green Light uses existing data from mapping apps, and/or connected vehicles, to figure out traffic densities 24/7, then tell cities how to adjust the timing of their traffic lights.
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Christopher Mims
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🚦 A major source of congestion in cities is poorly-timed traffic lights.
(Yes, I know, we should just have fewer cars.)
🚗💨 They're also a *huge* source of lung-killing pollution. It's 29x worse at intersections, because of those stops and starts.
You might say "oh, how foolish, surely there is a 'smart' traffic light option?"
💰 And there is. But it's expensive. Good luck paying for it at all 300,000+ of America's traffic signals, much less the billions worldwide.
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