Driving You Crazy: Why are the lights not timed on Coalton Road going from McCaslin Boulevard to Highway 36?

BROOMFIELD/SUPERIOR — Jalah from Superior writes, “What's driving you crazy? I live in Superior and drive daily on Coalton Road from McCaslin Blvd to Hwy 36. It is driving me CRAZY that the lights are not timed on this road. Often times I am stuck sitting at a red light with no cars traversing the other way and then I will often hit a green light, followed by 3 red lights and then a red light even though I am traveling the speed limit. I just want to know what is up.”

One of the most frustrating parts of any commute is having to wait at a traffic signal when no one else is going the other way. When I drove the corridor, I noticed the same thing as you did. I never had a good continuous flow having to stop and then go and then stopping again, and I drove it several times outside of the morning rush.

I posed your question separately to the Broomfield and Superior public works departments. Broomfield told me the city does coordinate with Superior on paving and striping of Coalton Road, but the traffic signal timing is not necessarily coordinated with each other.

The City of Broomfield told me the way it has the Coalton Road/Flatiron Crossing signals set up is they are programmed to coordinate flow along Coalton/Flatiron. This means the timing prioritizes those roadways. The Town of Superior told me it uses a combination of video detection, radar, loops, and time-based schedules at its Coalton Road intersections depending on how they are used in different directions, at different times of day, on different days of the week.

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Broomfield said there are other factors that can impact this signal coordination. While the city uses a combination of video detection, radar detection and induction loops along Flatiron Crossing, Broomfield told me the signals are programmed offsets to best allow traffic flow between the Broomfield signals.

“This factors in directional traffic and cross street traffic so it is sometimes difficult to get this perfect, but traffic simulation models, like SYNCHRO traffic, that we utilize during design, can optimize this for us,” the City of Broomfield said.

The Cubic Corporation created a software program called Synchro Studio that “empowers traffic engineers and transportation planners to design and optimize traffic signals, corridors and networks to improve mobility, reduce congestion and enhance safety.”

Public Works and Utilities Program Supervisor for the Town of Superior Alex Bullen told me, the department will go out and monitor this important corridor fairly frequently, doing traffic counts and field observations.

“This corridor is of particular interest for several reasons – it is crossed frequently by people accessing schools/pools/parks/trails/retail, the traffic patterns changed significantly during COVID but have started bouncing back in the last few years," Bullen said. "That plus the general industry move towards protected lefts using a new type of signal head called a 4-section (also known as FYA or flashing yellow arrow), advanced detection (as opposed to stop bar detection) is becoming more affordable, and the public demand is growing for more comfort while crossing the street as a pedestrian as well as more visibility for aging eyeballs… so we’ve been giving this area quite a bit of attention with upgrades to the hardware and adjustments to the timing."

Broomfield said it last completed a full retiming of the signals on Coalton/Flatiron in October/November of 2023. The city does quarterly and annual inspections on all signals to confirm that they are operating correctly and maintenance activities are performed as needed. The city said retiming of traffic signals every five years is generally considered good engineering practice but may be done sooner if there are roadway changes or new developments that significantly alter traffic flow.

“There’s a lot of side street traffic there, so if the minimum greens are low on the coordinated corridor then you’ll hit reds,” Bullen said. “Combine that with programmed delays, pedestrian crossing guidelines… it is surprisingly complex when you peek under the hood.”

Denver7 Traffic Expert Jayson Luber says he has been covering Denver-metro traffic since Ben-Hur was driving a chariot. (We believe the actual number is over 25 years.) He's obsessed with letting viewers know what's happening on their drive and the best way to avoid the problems that spring up. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or listen to his award winning Driving You Crazy podcast on any podcast app including iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Podbean, or YouTube.