It blows my mind how many people don't realize that's what those circles near the stop bar of an intersection are for, and will then stop 3+ car lengths behind the stop bar, and then can't figure out why the light is never going green.

> two signals closely spaced in a row on a major roadway. If one signal gives a green but the next one doesn’t, cars can back up

This is a major problem at an intersection near me that I used to have to drive through frequently. Two intersections, only about 500 feet between them, and MOST traffic during rush out coming from just one of the directions, yet the lights were often exactly out of sync. The first light would be red while the next one was green. Then the first would go green while the other went red, and traffic would only move about 500 feet then stop for 2 minutes. The backup would last well over a mile.

> The obvious next step in efficiency is coordination of most or all the signals within a traffic network. This is the job of adaptive signal control technologies, or ASCT. [..] These types of systems can dramatically reduce congestion

My cynical ass would not be surprised at all if oil/gas companies were lobbying against ASCT because idling cars are buying more fuel. Wouldn't be too hard to convince people that an ASCT would cost too much to implement while not producing significant traffic benefits.