Raise the Hammer

roadrash,

Correct: Average may be a hair under 50kph

BUT: Eastwards 7:15pm Main St heading James-towards-Wentworth, there is definitely a speedup sequence over a kilometer covering 4-5 intersections (roughly east of James street), when you're driving eastwards, that synchronization speeds up temporarily to approx ~60kph. Even GPS speedometers on iPhones (more accurate than physical speedometers affected by tire diameter differences, air pressure, and still remains highly accurate in Hamilton urban canyon effect due to new iPhones simultaneous aggregated GPS+GLONASS ability), show sustained speedups of the synchronization for a roughly kilometer-long subsegment stretch.

Then try driving eastwards after the peak, such as at 7:15pm where you're not blocked by peak period traffic -- you'll notice the traffic light synchronization speedup pattern in a Main Street segment somewhere between James to Wentworth. Start waiting at a red light at James Street, facing east wards and you'll see the green lights eventually start to race ahead a little bit faster than 50kph (Beginning roughly after the next intersection after James, forgot if it's that one, or the one before/after). At least during some portions of the day, the speedup occurs in this very precise segment, during the evening homewards.

At some point, somebody needs to dashcam it and line-it-up with Google Map distances, and math-calculate average synchronization speeds for different 1-kilometer segments. I guarantee you that not each kilometer of Main Street has exactly identical synchronization speed, often because of minor tweaks to improve flows on the north-south streets.

I notice they tweak timings all the itme, so this does not always happen, but it has consistently happened for eastward drives somewhere between 6:30pm and 8:30pm, the whole platoon is averaging 60kph even with a police car amongst it. (car speedometer 62.5kph, iPhone GPS speedometer 59-61kph). Everyone assumes 60 is the limit when the sync'd lights are encouraging 60 for a full kilometer in one subsegment of eastwards Main -- there are no speed limit signs in this segment.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-07-31 10:10:24