No matter how great the location is for a commercial property, one must still be able to access it from some other location. Access means you must travel, and travel means inevitably your path will cross with that of someone else — an intersection!
So who gets to go and who has to wait? Most of what you learned in driver’s education still applies. But traffic control devices take a lot of the guess work out of it.
According to the City of Naperville, within the city limits, Naperville has just over 3,400 intersections, controlled by stop signs, yield signs, and traffic signals. Interestingly enough, only 155 of those intersections are controlled by traffic signals. That’s a good thing, they are not cheap. They run between $200,000 and $250,000 and cost approximately $2,000 a year to maintain and operate.
The newest and coolest traffic signal in Naperville is part of the Route 59 / I-88 redevelopment. Those lights are part of the Diverging Diamond traffic control system. While traveling north and south over the Route 59 overpass, you are diverted to the opposing lane, eliminating (or minimizing) the need for traffic entering or exiting I-88 to wait for a traffic signal.
From the bird’s eye perspective, the configuration looks like a diamond.
I know. How anyone gets excited about waiting for the traffic light to turn green is all perspective. When the lights are out due to a storm, traffic can become nothing to get excited about, so working lights in that case are great.
