There’s nothing worse than driving in traffic while commuting to work — except sitting at a long stoplight during that commute, of course. The duration of a stoplight varies from state to state, town to town, even intersection to intersection — and some are much longer waits than others. There’s an infamous traffic light in New Jersey that is red for 57 minutes each hour, staying red for 2 minutes, 15 seconds, and going green for only 8 seconds repeatedly. But there’s one city in the United States that’s known for having long stoplights all over the place — Las Vegas, Nevada.
Las Vegas can test the most patient and experienced of drivers — even Waymo cars have been sent there as a proving ground to see if the autonomous vehicles are ready to take on complex layouts. The traffic congestion is considered some of the worst in the country, and the confusing layouts around the Strip have made plenty of roads in the city dangerous. Add in some long traffic lights, and Las Vegas is not a great destination for anyone with road rage.
While it can seem like simply a source of frustration and torture, the long traffic lights are there for a reason. Las Vegas’ large intersections and massive amounts of tourists have made the city’s stoplights excruciating for commuters.
Why Are Las Vegas Stoplights So Long?
There are 1,600 traffic lights in southern Nevada, and not all are equally painful in length. However, the ones located in Las Vegas have caused so much frustration that drivers have started making dangerous moves to escape the wait. The main reason is that Las Vegas is full of large intersections to accommodate all the traffic — both vehicle and on-foot — caused by tourism, which can be over 4.5 million people a year. These massive intersections sometimes have multiple left, through, and right lanes. This means there are a lot of cars and large waves of pedestrians crossing wide streets in all directions. On some intersections with six lanes, it can take pedestrians 120 seconds or more to get across the walkway…