Easier driving in Portland

Looks like Google Maps has quietly added non-freeway traffic in the Portland area. One thing I love the most about the iPhone is near instant easy access to Google Maps’ traffic info. It saves me a lot of time on the road. There are a few notoriously bad areas though which I drive through blind and fairly often drive into bad traffic. Now I can avoid them when they’re congested.
I am curious though to see how accurate the info proves to be. The lights at intersections have traffic sensors, but I’ve never seen evidence that they were networked or feed data much of anywhere. Much of the congestion could go away if the lights were talking together and being cycled in conjunction with one another instead of in competition with one another.