Another Great Idea and Proposal From the Star

First it was Steve Kraske's idea about renaming the J.C. Nichols fountain, in last Saturday's paper, and now this.

Editorial: End the aggravation of out-of-sync traffic lights

And really, to whom has this not occurred? To whom of us, as we drive around the Kansas City metropolitan area, has this not struck as a good, even important idea? How many times have we been caught at a read light, sitting there, when no other cars are at the other cross street lights?

It can be maddening.

We read all the time how our computers and computer technology is making incredible breakthroughs and doing untold new, wonderful things for us. Shouldn't synchronizing traffic lights be one of them? And doesn't it seem like it wouldn't be that difficult or complicated, too, for us and the computers?

It would achieve actually a few really great benefits for us, as a city and people and even the nation.

• We'd waste less time so we'd be more productive. That could easily be shown as good fro business
• We'd waste less gasoline
• We'd pollute less since we wouldn't be sitting at these traffic lights, waiting, doing nothing other than running our car's engines
• We'd have far less frustration and even anger. The likelihood it could cut down on some road rage seems very likely
• We could and would likely improve the air quality we're annually being reminded of in the Summer months

Those benefits alone are enough to make this a very worthwhile endeavor.

The Federal Government is funding research on driverless cars, for pity's sake.

Columbus snags $40M grant for driverless car hub

Before we go off giving federal tax dollars for driverless cars, how about we improve existing traffic technologies so its as effective and efficient as it can be, first? Doesn't that seem like a good and smart idea?

Let's get this party started---and on both sides of the state line.