On the podcast: The ‘invisible urbanism’ of traffic signals

Portland’s traffic signal guru, Peter Koonce,
in our podcast studio.
(Photo J.Maus/BikePortland)

When you change something about a traffic signal, people don’t notice. They simply obey.

Well, mostly.

Maybe that’s why signals have quietly become one of the most important and unique ways that Portland has made itself a better place for walking, biking and driving cars at reasonable speeds rather than at noisy and unsafe ones.

In this month’s episode of the BikePortland podcast, Jonathan, producer Lillian Karabaic and I interview one of the wizards behind the curtain of Portland’s unusually safe streets: Peter Koonce.

Koonce, the division manager for Portland’s signals and street lighting division and one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in municipal government, talked with us about all the tricks in the city’s signal system that you never even noticed. And as always, we close with a transportation tip of the month, Lily’s favorite tweets about TriMet and the uncannily appropriate song that Lily found for the subject of the show.

Curious about Portland’s amazing bike-friendly signals? Then don’t miss the PedalPalooza ride Koonce is leading next Monday to show them off.

Stay tuned for our next episode, when we’ll discuss the importance of bike fun with guest Carl Larson.

You can subscribe to our monthly podcast with Stitcher or iTunes, subscribe by RSS, sign up to get an email notification each time we upload a new episode, or just listen to it above using Libsyn.

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peter koonce, podcast, signals