Why did it take the USA to implement synchronized traffic lights more than 40 years after Europe?

Question

Stopping at every single red light contributes enormously to pollution, unnessessary extra fuel consumption, and frustration. Europe implemented the synchronization more than 40 years ago, even though traffic density is as great as California's.

Some official blame it on the Cities reluctance to cooperate.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to install synchronization than import those extra millions of barrels of oil to compensate for this insufficiency?

Learn from the Europeans how to do it, or change responsible management.

Answer 1

The same holds true for (round abouts). Other countries have them and seem to keep the flow of traffic pretty even. Pretty neat idea to look only in one direction and yield before entering. Prevents the confusion at a heavily traveled 4 way stop intersection.

We have one here in my area that is on a trial basis, and seems to work quite well.

Answer 2

The signals are already synchronized if they belong to one agency.  If they belong to different agencies (state, counties, cities) the problems are at least threefold:

1) It is difficult to decide who will control the master controller of the synchronized system.

2) Different agencies may have different signal controllers that have incompatible communications protocols, thus they cannot talk to each other and cannot be synchronized.

3) There might be the question of who will assume liability when an accident occurs in a signal belonging in a shared system.

But I agree there's a multitude of benefits - a synchronized system minimizes travel time, lessens air pollution, saves gas consumption, and reduces rearend collisions.

Roundabouts work well in an intersection with moderate traffic volume and low speeds, such as there are gaps in the traffic stream where vehicles can safely merge.