The Mayor of London is planning to trial
left turn on red for cyclists. No, what needs trialling (to prove the obvious) is substitution of main road priority with
no priority - to provide equal opportunity for all road-users and to stimulate safe, efficient filtering. Then we won't need traffic lights, or the green wave
trumpeted by the DfT. Along with amber-flashing lights at side roads, the green wave has worked in Germany for decades. As usual, the people in charge of…
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Added by Martin Cassini on April 14, 2009 at 18:30 —
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The rules of the road alienate us from each other and our surroundings. They negate the civil manners that structure social interaction. In life, we are sensitive to the needs of others. We take it in turns. When traffic signals break down and standard rules don't apply, the same considerate behaviour emerges. Instead of inefficient consecutive queueing, we get good-natured simultaneous filtering. People say the rules of the road should be obeyed. I say they should be abolished.
Added by Martin Cassini on April 13, 2009 at 22:00 —
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In today's Observer, Sebastian Faulks notes that local objections to a new bus route through his W11 conservation area were ignored. As predicted, average occupancy is low, with empty buses - called a 'Boris' - commonplace. The area, writes Faulks, has been turned "into an 18-hours-a-day skid-pan-cum-test track for roaring, empty single-deckers." Coincidentally, when getting the paper, I had noted buses speeding between lights, and braking sharply at red. As mentioned in my article…
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Added by Martin Cassini on April 12, 2009 at 8:30 —
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Marked by flowers is the spot at the Elephant & Castle where a cyclist was killed this week. Next to it is a congestion charge sign. Livingstone preferred to spend millions on punitive control than on making roads fit for people.
Elephant & Castle is typical of our roads that are allowed to carve through communities and dominate the public realm at the expense of quality of…
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Added by Martin Cassini on April 11, 2009 at 16:30 —
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All Local Authorities in Wales have failed to respond to the offer of training or more information on the Manual for Streets according to one of its authors. The document is based on solid research and has won much praise and many awards and yet Local Authorities continue to design streets as they always have...
Only one person at a presentation on the Manual for Streets organised by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, held in the council offices of Cardiff Council out of…
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Added by Ian Perry on April 10, 2009 at 22:30 —
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An as yet unnamed female cyclist was killed on a London road yesterday, the third this year. It happened at Elephant & Castle roundabout. If there were no traffic lights on that lethal racetrack (I use back streets to avoid it), and if the street design encouraged egalitarian space-sharing instead of competition for green time, would she, along with all the others, be alive today? Related item
here.
Added by Martin Cassini on April 9, 2009 at 16:30 —
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Maybe I'm a dying breed - the kind of ped who crosses the road diagonally, using the middle of the road as a safe haven, taking the shortest route between two points. Pythagorean, John Adams would say. Yet peds these days seem to take the long route devised by the engineers. How often do you see a ped press the pelican button, only to look up, see the road is clear, and cross against their red? When they've long gone, traffic is halted at the red just called - for no-one.
Added by Martin Cassini on April 8, 2009 at 14:00 —
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On his visit to Turkey, President Obama said, "We stand together in the fight against injustice and intolerance." He was referring to the twin threats of terrorism and inequality, but presumably he opposes injustice and intolerance wherever they rear their evil heads, i.e. on the roads too, so welcome to the struggle, Mr President.
Added by Martin Cassini on April 6, 2009 at 18:03 —
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Driving in London after a break, I was re-awoken to the stupefying incompetence of a system that stops you time and again at one red light after another, and then makes you wait an age for no reason. It is clearly, "criminally" responsible for delaying us and producing chronic congestion. If I drive on after seeing nothing is coming, am I a criminal? The law says I am. I'm an RLJ = a 'red light jumper'. If the police stopped me, I'd say, Give me a good reason why I should wait when nothing is…
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Added by Martin Cassini on April 4, 2009 at 23:30 —
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Clever article by Michael Blastland about spurious journalistic use of numbers
here. Some good comments too. The author cites traffic lights in disdain at Prof Mackay's loose use of the word 'huge', when in fact the CO2 savings from changing traffic lightbulbs to LEDs would be negligible (how many engineers would it take to change them anyway?). Having witnessed efficient flow and civilised interaction between all road-users at…
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Added by Martin Cassini on April 3, 2009 at 23:00 —
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Today’s announcement by the DfT was mainly about roadworthiness, but as ever, the sentiment behind the closed fist of enforcement is mean-spirited. It bespeaks ignorance about the system flaws over which the DfT presides. The prerequisite for safe roads is civilised interaction: the very thing the rules of the road subvert, and the DfT loves to enforce. The other basis for safe roads is intelligent design that communicates context and stimulates civilised conduct. If the DfT ever discusses it,…
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Added by Martin Cassini on April 1, 2009 at 20:30 —
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The following press release has been issued by Ashford Borough Council this week. This is very positive news.
"Where Ashford leads in urban planning and street design, others follow – that seems to be the message after it was revealed that more than a dozen UK towns are also adopting shared space concepts to help improve their streetscapes.
Last month it was reported that Staines, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Hereford and…
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Added by Ian Perry on April 1, 2009 at 12:39 —
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On a Radio 4 programme about Britishness, our PM listed tolerance, liberty and fairness. On all counts, our traffic control system - with its rabid parking controls, inconsistent bus lanes, proliferating traffic lights, totalitarian congestion charge - represents the polar opposite. Harmless conduct is criminalised in a system based on lethal priority rules which defy commonsense, abandon human values, and are enforced without discretion, compromise or compunction.
Added by Martin Cassini on March 31, 2009 at 9:00 —
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Debates rage around the world over the merits of naked streets, shared space, traffic calming, speed limits and bicycle lanes. Perhaps the Dutch have found the perfect solution.
On the street in the picture, the central white line has gone, but on both sides are 1.75m wide red cycle lanes, with a dotted white line separating them from the main carriageway. This dotted line allows vehicles to enter the cycle lane in order to pass…
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Added by Ian Perry on March 30, 2009 at 23:30 —
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Weak report amounted to propaganda for the lower limit, especially a section with a councillor from Stockbridge (Yorks), who said average speed cameras had made an "accident"-prone stretch of road safe. There was no presentation of low-cost solutions involving intelligent re-design to encourage civilised conduct. Of course I agree with the need to reduce speeds at vulnerable points, but I question the high-cost, revenue-led standard solutions that are always promoted.
Added by Martin Cassini on March 30, 2009 at 17:30 —
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Did anyone read that Boris Johnson got fed up recently by having to wait at red lights on a sunday? Is the a conversion? Can we use this in anyway. Have you spoken to him Martin?
Added by Gary Waldron on March 28, 2009 at 15:13 —
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Eminent Australian QC and judge, Marcus Einfeld, 69, lied over a speeding ticket and is now behind bars for a minimum of two years. Snapped at 36 in a 30 limit, he was concerned about points on his licence. OK, in a sense he is the architect of his own downfall, and as Clive James said, his fall from grace is tragic in the pure sense, but to me it's an example of Lilliputian law bringing about the pointless demise of Gulliver. The news story is…
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Added by Martin Cassini on March 28, 2009 at 13:30 —
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WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION & DELAY
Added by Martin Cassini on March 26, 2009 at 20:30 —
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In
A Pattern of Islands, which we read at school, a canoe capsizes about a mile offshore in the South Seas. The two occupants, treading water, find themselves surrounded by sharks. One panics and is mincemeat. The other keeps his cool and swims towards the ring of sharks. They part and let him go. That literary experience served me when I was out one day walking my border terrier (I was about 12). Suddenly, four barking, snarling Alsatians came running at us through a farm gate.…
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Added by Martin Cassini on March 23, 2009 at 14:00 —
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My main beef with the London congestion charge is that it was imposed before deregulation was even tried, so in my view it is grossly premature. Operationally it's odious too, but that's another matter. Cambridge is plagued by measures which obstruct flow, e.g. a bollard for non-existent pedestrians which turns two lanes into one and causes a permanent mile-long tailback (Coldham's Lane). When I challenged a councillor about this and other examples where simple improvements could ease…
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Added by Martin Cassini on March 20, 2009 at 17:00 —
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Hold the front page!
Manual for Streets ignored in Wales.
Boris Johnson
