Anyone who has ever ridden a bicycle around in the city knows just how dangerous it can be, and it’s for this reason that not as many people have traded in their cars for bikes, as city planners would like. The result is continued congestion and high levels of smog. Now though, the City of Pleasanton, in California has announced that it has put in place a new system to help keep bike riders safe, and hopefully to encourage more to people to move from cars to bikes, thus reducing the amount of traffic on roads.
The problem, as city engineers see it, is that when a person on a bicycle comes to an intersection and finds the light green, they live in fear as they pass through that intersection that it will turn to red, and cross traffic will commence, putting them in danger of being run over. To get around this, the city has installed a system, that the Wired Magazines Utopia editors says has earned the city a Smart Solution Spotlight award.
The system is made of two components, sensors beneath the road, and sensors placed on streetlight poles. The sensors under the road, essentially coils that can “feel” pressure from above, detect the presence of a vehicle and send a signal to the sensors that use microwaves as a form of radar affixed to traffic light poles, which then determines whether the vehicle is a car or a bicyclist. If it’s a car, nothing is done and the system works as originally installed. If it’s a bicyclist however, a timing signal is sent to the traffic light telling it to remain green for a longer period of time to allow the bicyclist time to cross all the way through the intersection before allowing cross traffic to commence.
The microwave radar detection systems, which the city calls “intersectors” run approximately four to five thousand dollars apiece, which is why the city has thus far installed just eight of them in its pilot project. The hope is that the system will work as expected so that the city can then begin announcing the results and encouraging bicyclists to try it out on their own. If that happens, the city plans to expand the use of the intersectors to all major intersections in the city, which should not only make the roadways safer, but could also lead the way in showing the rest of the country how to promote newer, greener ways to reduce inner city traffic congestion.