Engineering Flow

Today I sat on Hiawatha at a traffic light with cars in all directions in the same paused position. Four directions, no movement. 

As I sat I listened to a story on the radio about set designers who choreograph an “intricate ballet” for the stage crew to perform as they transform the stage from one scene to the next.  According to the story, the sets could take 45 minutes to change over if not for the finely tuned sequence and system designed for transitioning the sets. However, as reported by one of the set designers, the intermission lasts as long as the audience uses the bathrooms and no one is waiting for the sets.  

I think the folks responsible for managing the flow of traffic on Hiawatha might be well served by heading north on their subject of attention and taking a slight jog toward the river to consult with the Guthrie or perhaps veer onto Riverside and discuss the finer points of flow with Mixed Blood.

Or they could just apply a useful principle for designing an effective traffic management system: When one light is red, the other should be green.