Traffic Trivia

1868 The first traffic signals (semaphores) are installed in London.

1910 First reference to traffic jam in describing the increasing automotive congestion.

1914 Garrett Morgan (1877-1963), an African-American inventor and son of former slaves, invents a prototype for electric traffic signals in Cleveland. He later receives the first patent for such a device on November 20, 1923.

 

1968 German mathematician Deitrich Braess proves that for some traffic patterns, increased road capacity (even if the total number of individual drivers does not increase) can lead to more congestion. Phenomena becomes known as "Braess's Paradox."

1992 Kai Nagel and Michael Schrekenberg, a pair of German physicists, invent cellular automata. The now widely used computational technique drastically altered the structure and variety of theoretical models of traffic patterns.

2004 The intersection at Fifth and University in Hillcrest gets new "countdown" pedestrian warning signs.

Traffic calming solutions for the Fourth/Fifth/Sixth Avenue corridor have been studied recently. For more information call the Uptown Partnership at (619) 298-2541.