Cheap Thoughts: Traffic light outages

A cold front blew through two nights ago, knocking out power with freakishly-strong wind gusts. Police all over the city were directing traffic through dark intersections. As I drove through my third dark intersection, I questioned why we were tying up police officers in a dangerous job like directing traffic when efforts could be better spent getting the traffic lights up quickly.

Police could arrive with a small generator which could be plugged into the box to provide temporary power to the intersection’s traffic lights. Perhaps chaining the generator to the nearest telephone pole.
Continue reading

Cheap Thoughts: On-demand escalators

Something caught my eye when I walked by the empty Raleigh Convention Center last night: every escalator in the place was chugging along though there was no one in the building.

What a bunch of wasted electricity! These are hefty machines and they’re left running? And though it would be an improvement if someone would come by and manually shut them off, what would be even better would be to give the escalators the ability to turn themselves on when needed.
Continue reading