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I was interested to see Reagan Emmerling’s Jan. 11 OpEd in the Bangor Daily News about red lights in Bangor, which the headline calls a “growing problem” in Bangor. It’s a problem that’s been growing for more than 45 years; I wrote a very similar letter to Emmerling’s around 1979, and followed it up with another in June 2010. In June 2010, I noted that there were 20 traffic lights between Dirigo Drive in Brewer and Burleigh Road in Bangor. Driving that route, I had to stop for 11 of them, and I timed about seven minutes I wasted waiting, burning gas, polluting the atmosphere and becoming frustrated.
Monday’s paper indicates a solution may be coming in the Centracs system, though no timeline is given for installation. After waiting more than 45 years, I’m not going to hold my breath until traffic flow is improved. And it should be noted that traffic flow could be greatly improved for now, if not perfected, by someone with distance measurements between lights and a stopwatch, as I suggested in 1979.
Lawrence E. Merrill
Bangor
