I agree, this morning I sat thru two green lights as the intersection at Murfreesboro Rd was blocked. I was late for work!!! There was a Police Officer in an adjacent parking lot observing the situation, this didn't make a difference, the cars still blocked the intersection. I like Ricks idea, an officer standing at the intersection, flagging them over. It is common sense to know when to go or not go when crossing an intersection, even when the light is green!

This story reminds me of my every day run in with the same exact scenario. We could pay off the national debt with the amount of citations that could be issued . All of the idiots that seem to think it is OK to sit at idle in the middle of Murf road blocking others from getting to there destination need to realize they save ZERO time when doing so!! Someone please take action!!

This is the definition of "gridlock". In New York "blocking the box" is a $500 fine. I believe the only fine Metro can issue is for running a yellow light (which is illegal in Tennessee for some reason). Interestingly, several studies (Cornell U, et. al.) have shown that ONE person began the chain of events that leads to gridlock by unexpectedly slowing down in normal traffic flow.

I can only imagine that a MNPD officer flagging someone over would make traffic even worse considering it takes them about 45 minutes to issue one ticket (for some reason). However, if the public got the hint that they will get cited for "blocking the box" it may help decrease incidence in several years.

From Cornell: "Based of simulations of a stochastic three-phase traffic flow model, we reveal that at a signalized city intersection under small link inflow rates at which a vehicle queue developed during the red phase of light signal dissolves fully during the green phase, i.e., no traffic gridlock should be expected, nevertheless, traffic breakdown with the subsequent city gridlock occurs with some probability after a random time delay. This traffic breakdown is initiated by a first-order phase transition from free flow to synchronized flow occurring upstream of the vehicle queue at light signal. The probability of traffic breakdown at light signal is an increasing function of the link inflow rate and duration of the red phase of light signal. "

@ "Genius": Yes but the officer would not be blocking the intersection if they would place a red light camera at the Murfreesboro light flagging all those people who run the red light every day who block the lane from people crossing making them wait through another cycle of lights. They simply would send a ticket to their address and after they would receive their ticket in the mail, I can promise you they would never block that red again. Its the same people every day who do it. They go down Murfreesboro road instead of taking the interstate every day and block that red light every day. After they receive that ticket in the mail, they'll think twice about running the red light next time and blocking traffic from going.