If you could keep your car in top gear, you'd likely see even more at lower speeds. But proly the car downshifts, so's you cain't. But, if you have a manual, check it out.
In NYC, on one-way avenues, traffic lites are generally swquentially timed, but congestion is so bad this winds up being essentially moot, ceptin after midnight.
But, on two-way avenues, I believe sequentially timed lites is an impossibility.
But, what they sometimes do on two-way avenues is anticipate the direction of the heaviest flow of traffic during the am and pm rush-hours, and make that direction sequentially timed, but just for the rush hour.
I disagree, tho, about the design of modern engines/tranny's. True, they are more sophisticated unto themselves, but the car makers still shoot themselves and us in the effing feet by not allowing us to upshift in an automatic. Lugging the engine generates significant increases in mpg's -- like, 20-50%, yo. Which I lernt from my perty neat ScanGuage. Still available.
Still tryna figger out how my 1971 Datsun 510 got better gas mileage than my effing 2007 Honder Shit. So much for 36 years of effing technology and pyooter chips.
I must say, there was more room under the hood of that datsun than most cars have in their trunk. :) Manual steering, yo..... Man, you didn't want to have to park that car in a tight spot! :) And, of course, no A/C.... :( But then, there was no global warming back then.... :)