Getting Rid of the Red Light
We’re approaching midnight and the streets are bare in the city of Chicago. Michigan Avenue whirs with the sounds of my brakes and the gentle drill on the pavement. It’s been weeks since this street has been under construction and almost 2 years since the city has been freed of the constant pester of hammers. Joel Kostow had quite the idea since the immersion of iPhones but who would have thought that it would take Chicago this long to get rid of them.
Joel Kostow, my close colleague from MIT, sat next to me on the car ride back to our hotel. He told me his story of how he wanted to change the world and how quickly he had advanced in the world of programming. Amazed as I was, I knew that I was sitting in the presence of a great mind and one of history’s curators was in the passenger seat next to me.
In the wake of the digital age, Joel Kostow of New York City had gotten tired of space. The world he lived in was no longer spreading itself across lands but instead condensing themselves into minuscule bricks to communicate. The books that he read as a child of horses galloping beyond county borders or ships that sailed between seas were no longer present. “Connecting” had written itself a new definition and the only way to do so, was to go digital.
In 2015, Joel Kostow saw that his world had progressed in the art of seclusion. As a program developer, Kostow noticed how fast users were withdrawing from one another. The world that fought two wars to be united was suddenly disengaging with his inventions. In the bittersweet paradox of connection and new technology, users no longer wanted to be together. Joel Kostow saw society become slaves to machines and he knew that the only way to fight against his disturbance was to join them.
One day while driving through the streets in a taxi in Chicago, he saw how distracting stop lights had become. Illegal as it was, drivers were preoccupied with phones in one hand and steering wheels in the other. Instead of enjoying the beautiful architecture that Chicago offered, he spent most of his time observing drivers and the pressures they had while operating a moving vehicle. The effects of going digital had created a big mess. From watching colors that indicate when it was time to let go of the brake, to changing radio stations, to even gazing off into the views, he found his next muse.
Joel Kostow went back home to New York City and saw that users were going through the same thing. That’s when he went off to create a software that reduced space. After months of working on his software, Kostow invented a program that eliminated street signs and stop lights. Drivers can now approach an intersection 500 feet away and the front windshield will illuminate which colors the stop light was. This new invention also showed drivers what streets they were on and whether or not they should prepare to stop. Voiceovers was an option signaling drivers, “Prepare to stop: light is turning to red,” or “You are approaching State Street.”
After two years of awaiting approval, the removal of stop lights and street signs was underway. City commissioners found this new software full proof and the use of telephone wires were useless. Electrical poles were getting too messy. Car companies followed suit and started to develop cars to adhere to the new software. America had found another use of going wireless.
This new software allowed drivers to keep their eyes on the road and also prevented distractions. Cars would prepare their drivers to stop and also act as a GPS implanted in the cars windshield itself. The wireless connection was installed underground and would facilitate any movement 500 feet from the intersection.
Modernized street lights would still exist, street signs would still be in placed, but the need for electrical wires were now sinked underground to avoid the clutter already found on the streets. Big cities loved this idea and every city was now implementing it.
The reversion of going back to colonial days of illuminated street signs was a classic and the world adored this idea. The connection was felt between passengers in the car and time was no longer spent screaming at each other of when to stop or where to turn- the machine would do it for you.
As time progresses, we are only mere users of these inventions. There are generations that come after us and Joel Kostow had written a new era. I can not wait to see what else can become of this world.
