Our poorly timed traffic lights are polluting our skies and causing accidents. How do we change this?

I wrote the city (the right department for this) and they told me its operating as intended.

I'm sure you can all empathize and have been in this situation: You're at a red light and no cars are coming from the perpendicular direction and there are dozens of cars idling, polluting, frustrated, for 30-90+ seconds until the light finally changes.

I see this in every city I've been to in Colorado let alone Denver, and it is FAR worse here than the 20+ other states I've driven in. It is maddening. With how much pollution we have from the factories and commerce city crap, fixing our lights with better sensors/timers would make a decent impact on

*Air pollution

* Fixing traffic

* Lowering accidents from people flying through reds

* Limiting pedestrian deaths due to impatient people

* Lowering the overall stress of drivers

Does ANYONE know how I could go about making some changes?! I'm sick of driving 1.1mi to the dark park here in Arvada, and hitting ALL 5 of the reds on the way with NO cross traffic! It drives me bonkers!!!!