The timing was done in the 70's, and it never worked. The city would argue that its traffic engineers were highly competent and had timed it perfectly, but all the drivers knew better.

It's like the TV sound engineers who'd argue that the commercials are not set to be louder. Yeah, I know, dynamic range compression, but I'd put VU meters on the sound and the loudest sound in the TV show was quite a bit lower than the average sound on the commercials.