All Blog Posts Tagged 'traffic-lights' (39)

Online exchange re Road to Nowhere videos (at my mjcassini YouTube channel): 'janhanjanhan' wrote, "Removing lights can only work for intersections with little traffic where lights make us stop when it's safe to go (as said in Part 1). Removing lights from major intersections would result in chaos - everyone would block each other in the intersection, or just one direction would…

If, instead of rule by priority (a traffic engineering model), we lived by values of equality (a social model), then the cogs in the current machine that clash – above all safety and efficiency – would mesh. Like shuffling cards we'd merge in turn. Congestion would melt away and roads would be safe. The spanner in the current works – priority – stems from railway engineering. Clearly rail needs segregating from road – trains need greater…

Recently I submitted a proposal for a FiT solution at the Westleigh T-junction near Bideford. The junction has a bit of an accident record, and Devon Highways want to install traffic lights. Hans "shared space" Monderman used to say shared space was for urban rather than rural locations. But if you accept the advantages of equality over priority, FiT could work almost anywhere, especially at junctions where single…

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If mobile phone use is banned because it takes our eyes off the road, should traffic lights, speed cameras and speed limits be banned for the same reason? On our way back from Folkestone the other day, on the outskirts of London, we hit congestion. Almost invariably, the snag was traffic lights blocking natural flow. At the junction of Sidcup Rd and Court Rd we had to endure…

Returning from Sainsbury’s in Vauxhall to Waterloo at 8 this morning, a driver managed to cut his journey time by over half, with matching savings in fuel use and emissions. How? By ignoring the barrage of red lights that sought to block his progress, even though there was no traffic, let alone conflicting traffic. The route took in the small signal-controlled roundabout on the south side of Lambeth Bridge, which conjures…

There is an excellent piece about traffic lights as symbols of state control here. It seems to have been prompted by my videos. Know what a minarchist is? Nor did I. But I must be one.…

Killer signals and railings on the rampage again: http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/4794

The idea of questioning traffic lights is a still surprise to some people. Yet traffic lights are only the most visible symptom of a dysfunctional system. The need for reform goes a lot deeper. Piece here.

From The Northampton Chronicle & Echo: "Motorists had to be careful during rush hour in the town centre after the traffic lights in Upper Mounts were hit by a power cut at about 3pm. The failure also affected local businesses, including the Mounts Baths, which was closed until 5pm. The…

How often do you approach a green light, as I did on my bike just now, only for it to change to red before you reach it? Meanwhile the poor suckers on the other road have been waiting while no-one was using the green. The controllers tell us they have ITS (intelligent traffic systems) which can sense demand. No, the most intelligent system is the human ability to negotiate movement and to make subtle adjustments in the blink…

Boris’s transport adviser, Kulveer Ranger, was quoted as saying, "There are few things more annoying than sitting at a traffic light on red for no apparent reason, and we've now identified 145 sites where we think the signals may no longer be doing a useful job." Of course I agree with his first point, but his second? Out of 6,000 signals in London, he and his well-paid team can find only 145 useless sets? Jeez. I wish I was…

Isn’t it a thing of beauty to see the individuals of a species interacting spontaneously? A kindle of cats, a murmuration of starlings, a colony of bats, a passell of possum, a scatter of skateboarders, a relish of road-users negotiating movement without the "help" of traffic controls. Are traffic managers blind to the beauty of natural flow? Certainly they seem bent on forcing us, like unforgiving parents, to submit to their…

The other day I was crossing the road at a junction with a traffic light but no pedestrian signal. A woman driver in a Golf turning left into my path hooted at me in anger. I stood my ground and tried to say that the Highway Code tells drivers to give way to pedestrians at junctions. "But I've got a…

Ian Perry spotted these 3 excellent short pieces by California architect, Arrol Gellner:

http://djcoregon.com/news/2010/05/14/urban-plannings-black-eye/…

No room on this site unless I delete other videos, which I might at some point. Meanwhile: The Road to Nowhere, Part 1 (7.33') - a tighter edit of an earlier piece:…

Having already paid the odious con charge (odious in its operation and odious because it was imposed before deregulation was even tried), I drove to the City of London to check the new building on the skyline (the Heron Tower by Liverpool Street). I might regret the decision because of an unforced error, which I'll describe in a minute. The number of red light stops that are forced on you is farcical. One set of lights after another,…