How smart are you?

I was thinking about ranting how poorly roads are controlled in the area where I live, but that's an easy target. For more than one reason.

But, here's an example. Road A and Road B cross at ninety degrees, standard crossing. Road A is highly traveled, while Road B is not. For every one hundred cars on Road A, Road B will have one or two. At this intersection for many years, Road B had a stop sign. But, recently, this intersection was turned into a four-way stop. The result? Road A's travel time between two highways used to be about five minutes. Now, it's closer to fifteen. Road B was unaffected.

Another example. Road X and Road Y also intersect. However, Road Y flows about a quarter of the traffic of Road X, resulting in their intersection having a stop light. Both roads are a single lane in each direction (two-lane roads). There isn't room for turn lanes on Road Y due to existing structure. Also, about half of Road Y traffic turns onto Road X. The problem? There are no turn lights, therefore if a person on Road Y wishes to turn left, the entire string of cars behind them is stuck, usually for a second or third signal rotation. The solution is quite simple. Instead of both directions of Road Y receiving the green light simultaneously, each direction would receive the green light by itself to empty the queue. Four miles from this intersection, on Road X, is another similar situation. But, that traffic light is set properly to allow the slower of the two roads to empty the queue from each direction without left turn issues by sequencing the light in those three stages.

So, what is intelligence?