Civil and environmental engineering chair featured in article on superstreets
"Public perception, however, usually shifts when a superstreet is built, experts say.
Motorists navigate its course with ease and swiftly acknowledge the benefits: faster-moving traffic, less waiting at signals, fewer crashes and virtually no fatalities if there is a wreck, said Joseph Hummer, a professor and chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Just ask Austin Dickson of Holly Springs, North Carolina, population 30,000. The design has worked so well there, the town has three superstreets with another on the way.
"I was skeptical at first, and due to the introduction of more lights, I didn't find that logical by any means," Dickson said. "The goal was to improve flow, but I didn't see how lights would achieve that."
Every turn in Holly Springs' superstreets, including the U-turns, has a signal for safety. It will be the same for Port St. Lucie, Crosstown project managers said. A motorist waiting to make a U-turn, for example, will queue up in a turn lane to await a green arrow.
After his first drive through the first superstreet, Dickson changed his mind, he said.
"If you're keeping a constant rate of speed and not really gunning it to the next light, it's a really smooth drive through a really congested area," he said.
For Jim Dunlop, North Carolina Department of Transportation congestion-management engineer, the only drawback to superstreets - balancing all the benefits - is that they bring change.
"It's the fear of the unknown," Dunlop said of the initial anxiety.
Florida will be the 11th state to use the superstreet design, according to the Federal Highway Administration. The design typically cuts travel time by 20 percent and reduces the number of collision points from 32 at a conventional intersection to 14, Hummer said.
In San Antonio, Texas, for example, the installation of a superstreet on U.S. 281 reduced southbound travel time during morning rush hour by nearly 10 minutes, according to government data.
Although superstreets move their main-highway traffic faster, drivers wanting to cross Crosstown Parkway on Floresta actually would experience a slight delay, Hummer cautioned. It would take them an extra six seconds to execute the U-turn, according to city documents."