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Originally Posted by Jim in Chicago
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They're moderately amusing when they just stand there and twirl their arms around and blow whistles. The second they take control of the lights all mayhem breaks loose. Honestly, traffic would be better without them.
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I feel like when I first moved to Chicago in 1995 the City dispatched traffic aides or cops or whatever they're called every rush hour to key intersections in/near the Loop, and that they actually kept traffic moving if for no other reason than they simply did not allow "gridlock" behavior, aka "blocking the box." I was working in the Sears Tower then, so I was pretty familiar with the N/S Wacker intersections.
Maybe I was still just a wide-eyed country bumpkin then, but it certainly felt like they had a positive impact. It seems like they must have paid for themselves with the tickets they scribbled out to cars that stranded themselves mid-intersection. But, yeah, they didn't normally override the light change boxes. Not sure how that would help since I thought the City has centralized light controls.