After Hurricane Outages, Miami-Dade Could Make Traffic Lights Solar-Powered
In the wake of Hurricane Irma, power outages shut down almost 70 percent of traffic lights in Miami-Dade County. The result proved what most of us already instinctively knew: Literally no one in South Florida knows how to use a four-way stop.
"Once we got back to normal and the lights were still not fully functional, it was mayhem," says Miami-Dade County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava. "Traffic is such major problem here that not having traffic lights only compounds the problem."
Levine Cava has an idea how to prevent that chaos after the next hurricane: Solar-powered traffic lights or, at the least, backup generators for signals. Levine Cava has written a resolution asking the county mayor's office to study how much that move might cost.
"We lost power at more than 1,900 intersections and it took many days to get them all back on line," she says. "Solar traffic lights could make us more resilient to storms, saving us money, protecting the motoring public, and ensuring our police can fight crime instead of direct traffic."
Read more: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/after-hurricane-irma-outages-miami-dade-could-make-traffic-lights-solar-powered-9838151
