Pythagorean skills denied

[Martin Cassini]

Some of my favourite writing on the subject of counterproductive traffic control is by (Prof) John Adams. He calls pedestrians "Nature's Pythagoreans", i.e. we have an instinct for geometry, preferring the shortest route, often diagonal, between two points. But traffic engineers seek to structure our movement into a sequence of staggered right-angles, often involving backwards progress through pedestrian traffic islands (called "pens": yes, they see us as sheep). The revamp of Oxford Circus suggests the writings of people like John have percolated through the tarmac brains of traffic engineers. Traffic lights are being retained, but railings removed and diagonal crossings installed. Progress of sorts, but it still misses the point that signals discourage positive interaction between different road-users (and stamp on us with a gigantic carbon footprint). Plenty more to say on this. Comments please!