In my daily drive (or bicycle ride) to work through mostly residential neighborhoods, I encounter multiple intersections that require stopping with six stop signs, two traffic lights, and one trip over railroad tracks. A few patterns for my suburban trip and including these stops:

-The majority of the stops occur along an important north-south road in the community that is one lane each way, goes past houses of various kinds, and has a speed limit of 30 mph. Both traffic lights involve this road with only one light involving a four lane road.

-My average speed is roughly 12.5 mph. If I could go the 30 mph allowed on most of the trip and there were no stops, my trip should be more like 5 minutes long.

-Most of the stops are pretty short except for two kinds. The traffic lights can cause a wait of up to a minute and a half and the busier one can be longer if I have to wait through multiple lights. The train crossing obviously can wreak havoc with a typical trip with a stop for the train and then heavier traffic afterward as a long line goes down the road. Most of the time, I do not encounter a train and I now have a decent sense of when the passenger trains come during the morning and evening rush hours.

The average American one-way commute is now 26.9 minutes so my commute is much shorter than many. But, that time factor can obscure distances – a 20 minute commute in a more rural area is going to cover more distance than my 12 minute drive in a residential suburb and a 35 minute commute in a major city might be a different distance.

One promise I have read about involving self-driving cars is that they will be much less impeded by intersections. Because vehicles will be able to communicate with each other, stopping at a stop light for 1+ minutes or a required stop at a stop sign in light or no traffic could be limited. Removing all that stopping and starting would also be good for the environment because of reduced idling.

I assume all of the stops are there due to safety concerns and trying to keep traffic flowing in all directions (based on traffic counts, accident reports, and road and planning guidelines). But, it would be great to see in the next few decades changes to how many stops and starts vehicles must make.