While Boris and Westminster congratulate themselves on obvious pedestrian improvements to Oxford Circus (costing £5m) – marking diagonal as well as right-angle crossings – Oxford Street and the rest of London continue to fume at innumerable unnecessary lights. The other day I was in a bus on an Oxford St crammed as always with bumper-to-bumper diesel buses. At one junction we had to wait for three complete signal cycles before we got out of the junction. Why? Because the "experts" who run and…
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Added by Martin Cassini on November 2, 2009 at 19:00 —
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As far as I can see, the scheduled article about the lights-off campaign spreading to Bristol is not in today's paper. Apologies to Members - I tried to broadcast a message but the system isn't functioning.
Added by Martin Cassini on November 1, 2009 at 9:30 —
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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…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 31, 2009 at 17:30 —
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The Guardian has a story about proposals to prosecute parents who "lie" in an effort to get their children into popular schools. Thus is the citizenry criminalised by official bodies who fail to create level playing-fields of high quality. It's the same on the roads. They devise a dysfunctional system of unequal rights, then penalise the people for the malfunctions that follow.
Added by Martin Cassini on October 31, 2009 at 10:39 —
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The use of nitrogen fertilisers to grow diesel from rape seed or ethanol from wheat produces more greenhouse gases than can be saved by using these sources of “clean energy”. Nobel prize winner Paul Crutzen said this in 2007 (reported by Dr Hans Heinrich-Witt in NYT/Observer)
Added by Martin Cassini on October 26, 2009 at 21:58 —
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It's unlikely Shaw was thinking of traffic controls, but this is pertinent: "All professions are conspiracies against the laity." Twenty years ago I worked with John Tagholm on a TV proposal called
Experts can be bad for you. It challenged the medical, legal and planning professions. For the last ten years, I've challenged traffic 'experts'. Yesterday a traffic engineer suggested I didn't understand the complexities. The complexities of a system you promote? I asked. If the 'experts'…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 17, 2009 at 10:30 —
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Another piece by the Bristol Evening Post (link at end) quotes Councillor David Pasley’s surprise at how well things have gone since the lights were switched off in Portishead. An angry man just posted the following comment (I think he’s angry because he’s been saying this stuff for years, and now, with virtually no reference, and certainly no payment to him, other people are shouting Eureka!). - Not everyone was amazed at the improvements brought about by switching off traffic lights in…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 16, 2009 at 11:33 —
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My campaign is spreading, particularly to Bristol.
Article here. They still seem to miss the fundamental point about priority, which makes roads dangerous in the first place and produces a "need" for lights - at least it wasn't picked up by anyone else on BBC Radio Bristol this morning where I was asked to appear.
Added by Martin Cassini on October 15, 2009 at 10:10 —
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News today that BJ might increase the con(gestion) charge because TfL is short of money. The con charge is premature because it was imposed before deregulation was even tried. TfL has 70 managers on salaries of £100,000+. Doing what? Dreaming up more sites for more lights to cause more congestion so they can increase the con charge again. Vile work if you can get it.
Added by Martin Cassini on October 14, 2009 at 22:32 —
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Cycling through Mayfair last night, I came across the aftermath of an accident at the junction of Park Lane and Upper Brook Street. See photos (taken on phone - sorry about quality). According to witnesses and those involved, the Merc turned right at Brook Gate on a green light, while the Honda Jazz hadn’t seen the lights as it headed south on Park Lane. The Honda hit the Merc and rammed it up the pavement. Bikes and railings were bent. By lucky fluke there were no pedestrians present. When I…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 14, 2009 at 22:30 —
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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…
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Added by Martin Cassini on October 9, 2009 at 18:30 —
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Three weeks in, and the lights-off trial at the double junction in Portishead has reduced average journey times for all road-users from 240 to 20 seconds - a drop of 83%, with no adverse safety effects, indeed if anything an improvement. Engineers say it's early days and only demonstrates that no control works at this location. They would, wouldn't they? Extrapolate that 83% of saved time, fuel and emissions across the country, across the decades ..!
Added by Martin Cassini on October 3, 2009 at 12:00 —
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As predicted, the Portishead lights-off trial has seen congestion disappear and courtesy thrive. Public spending cuts are usually linked to deprivation, but cutting counterproductive traffic controls would disadvantage no-one except traffic officials who have fed off our misery and will have richly earned their redundancy.
Added by Martin Cassini on September 19, 2009 at 11:00 —
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If there had been no lights at the scene of this fatal crash, would the "accident" have taken place, or, in the absence of priority and lights, would people have been approaching carefully, interacting sociably, and filtering safely? Story
here. [Back tab to return to site.]
Added by Martin Cassini on September 18, 2009 at 13:00 —
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Man in a convertible sports car. Woman in a convertible driving the other way gesticulates and yells, PIG! He yells back, BITCH! Rounding the bend, he crashes into a HUGE PIG in the middle of the road.
Added by Martin Cassini on September 17, 2009 at 12:00 —
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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…
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Added by Martin Cassini on September 15, 2009 at 20:00 —
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A meta-analysis by the Institute of Transport Economics in Norway found that red-light cameras (RLCs) lead to an overall increase in accidents of about 15%. Rear-end collisions went up by about 40%, right angle collisions down by about 10%. It concludes: "RLCs may reduce crashes under some conditions, but on the whole they do not seem to be a successful safety measure."
Added by Martin Cassini on September 11, 2009 at 20:15 —
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On traffic control, that is. When most sentient beings are at least starting to see the light about traffic lights and thinking about removing them, the villain of this
piece wants more of the things! So last century.
Added by Martin Cassini on September 10, 2009 at 15:00 —
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Below is a link to the latest of three mentions in the local press about my proposed lights-off trial for the potentially charming village of Braunton, near Barnstaple. The reporter quotes me accurately only in parts. So far, reader comments reveal old thinking from inside the box marked priority'. Article
here. (Back tab to return.)
Added by Martin Cassini on September 5, 2009 at 22:30 —
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A pioneering lights-off trial is due to start on Monday, 7 September. It's lower key than Westminster's, but potentially influential. It's the Cabstand junction in Portishead: a double junction, consisting of two adjacent T-junctions, although one also has a petrol station entrance and exit. Currently there are four sets of lights, and separate red/green stages for pedestrians. We will monitor normal conditions, i.e. with lights, for a week, then the lights go off and we'll monitor the results…
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Added by Martin Cassini on September 5, 2009 at 9:30 —
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