Two U.S. cities have reengineered their traffic signals to grant law-abiding drivers earlier green lights, crediting the change for fewer high-speed crashes along residential streets. Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Portland, Oregon, disclosed the results of the programs this week.
The approach builds on a longstanding safety concept known as “rest on red,” in which signals default to red until a vehicle approaches. Albuquerque and Portland added speed sensors that detect a car’s pace. Drivers travelling at or below the posted limit receive a much earlier green; speeders are held at red.
Albuquerque deployed the system on Lead and Coal avenues, parallel one-way streets forming a busy corridor cutting through the city. Officials had struggled for years to curb high-speed crashes there. Punishing drivers with enforcement had little effect. Rewarding compliant ones produced what the city describes as a sharp drop in crashes and injuries.
“We’re finding that the technology itself is kind of its best advertisement,” said Jennifer Turner, Albuquerque’s director of municipal development. “If you come to Albuquerque right now and you’re driving that corridor, you will learn pretty quickly that if you are speeding, you stop.”
Residents along the route report a change in daily life. Isaac Romero, who lives on the corridor, said he once woke at night to drivers racing to beat the lights, and saw cars crash and flip, including one that landed in a neighbour’s yard.
“We had one accident where it’s even shaken the whole house because some guy slammed into a tree,” Romero said. He said fewer drivers now speed through the area.
Portland has rolled out a version of the concept it calls “virtual speed bumps.” Rather than physical barriers, the signals themselves slow traffic by rewarding steady speeds and delaying those who exceed the limit. City officials say the method spreads the safety effect across an entire corridor without construction.
The systems reflect a shift in traffic engineering toward incentives over penalties, a change often paired with the wider spread of sensor and roadway automation technology now entering everyday street design. Both cities frame the tools as low-cost alternatives to speed cameras and physical barriers.
Albuquerque officials say the corridor’s crash decline has held since the sensors went live, and both cities are weighing expansion to additional streets.