All Blog Posts Tagged 'trial' (5)

Utica NY is getting rid of some of its traffic lights. A month of lights flashing will be followed by a month with lights hooded over.…

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Public sector jargon can do "tangible harm", says an MP select committee. "Civil servants have phrases like 'stand ready'," said David Blunkett, "which actually means 'we're doing nothing about this unless absolutely forced to do so'." It echoes the lights-off trial agreed by Westminster on 8 April, then neutered and delayed by TfL (who claimed the credit for the idea along with Boris, who turned down the proposal in 2008).

Tomorrow's Sunday Times is covering Bristol's plans to follow Portishead in switching off lights at a number of junctions. It was inevitable that as soon as one trial showed that we're better off left to our own devices, others would follow. The bandwagon is rolling. But as I've said in a piece for the Bristol Evening Post, lights are only the symptom of the underlying cause of our problems on the road: priority. Priority imposes unequal rights, it sets the stage for competitive… Continue

Traffic light de-commissioning in Portishead is "a terrific success" and spreading, not only to the town's two remaining lights - which would make Portishead the UK's first traffic light-free (and congestion-free) town - but to Weston-Super-Mare, where a big switch-off is in prospect, and to roundabouts at M5 exits from Weston to Bristol. This is partly about a successful challenge to 80 years of traffic policy and practice. Meanwhile, the country at large remains in the grip of high-cost… Continue

Day 2. For motorists it's a dream. Chronic consecutive queueing has given way to sociable simultaneous filtering. The congestion conjured by traffic controls has vanished into thin air. "It's a million times better," said the owner of an estate agency on the junction. "Fabulous," said Olivia Jackson, a passer-by, echoing the views of many. But Ken Rossiter, partially sighted, said driver re-education should have preceded the trial. My sentiments too: I proposed an accompanying public awareness… Continue