Ever wonder how the modern LED Traffic Light module works? Well now you know. It's a pretty conventional beefy switch-mode power supply, combined with eight colored LEDs.
The traditional traffic light bulb that sits behind often rather dirty colored glass is 116 watts, while a modern one with a power supply uses 11 watts for the red light, 13 watts for the green light and 22 watts for the yellow light. It's a pretty big savings in electricity, and replacement (the old traffic bulbs had a lifespan a fraction of the modern bulb).
Many highway bridges have a long life-span. This map shows a balloon for each highway bridge that is more then 100 years old, per the National Bridge Inventory.
Data Source: National Bridge Inventory. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/nbi.cfm
CHICAGO — Millions of Americans returning to the office but getting there primarily by driving instead of taking public transit led to a significant increase in traffic congestion last year, according to a new report.
The typical U.S. driver lost 51 hours to congestion in 2022, about an hour each week. That's 15 more hours lost to congestion than in 2021, and all that time wasted in traffic jams hit pocketbooks hard, costing the average American driver $869 in lost time, according to 2022 Global Traffic Scorecard by the mobility analytics firm Inrix.
But traffic congestion across the country is still only about half of what it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, as the report indicates the amount of time drivers lost on average in bumper-to-bumper gridlock was about 50 percent below 2019's.
A look at the remaining dummy traffic lights in America.
Number of corners: