Since I've moved to Sioux Falls I've liked the town quite a bit. There's plenty to do and everyone is rather friendly. The town has its act together too. Schools seem to be mostly nice and there is never bad traffic (at least in my opinion). However, there is one thing that drives me nuts. The stop lights arn't timed and if they are, they need to be recalibrated.

If you don't know what timed stoplights are, it works like this: If you're moving at the speed limit in a downtown area you should hit every stoplight green and not have to stop or hit the gas to go flying through. It seems that I'm always cutting it close or needing to stop quickly. I've noticed it mostly coming down Dakota Ave. , but I''ve also noticed in on Minnesota, 41st, and Louise.

This bothers me in many ways. First of all I'm wearing the brakes off my car because I hit every light! It takes me much longer to get places too. I have a GPS system in my car and it does a good job of projecting the time I will arrive at my destination. There are times when I am only 2 minutes from my destination, but because I wait at so many lights it actually takes 5 minutes.

The other way it bothers me is how it wastes gas. Everytime I have to get back up to speed I can feel the gallons of gas being wasted. Really, its a way that we could help with the conservation of oil if we didn't have to speed up over and over again.

Luckily Sioux Falls doesn't have a traffic problem. If they did, we'd have a much bigger situation on our hands with this because we'd be backing up traffic for miles. Sioux Falls and the state of South Dakota has impressed me with its ability to stay on top of things and be up on its technology. I hope someone notices this problem and changes the timing.