I’m a regular traveler along Franklin Street in Portland — one of the city’s most important transportation links connecting Portland’s downtown and peninsula area to I-295. Over the past few months, the lights are so out of sync that traffic regularly backs up onto the interstate highway during the middle of the day and Franklin traffic backs up from 295 to Congress Street most afternoons by 3 p.m.

I don’t know if this is a city or state responsibility but no one seems to pay attention. I often think that the very people who have the ability to resolve this chronic man-made problem sit in the same traffic as the rest of us — watching four cars squeak by the traffic lights before turning red again.

This is just dumb.

David Shaw
Portland