We’ve all been there – cruising along the road, and then suddenly having to come to a complete halt. Stuck there interminably, and for no good reason. And then, just as suddenly, we’re on the way again.
No not traffic jams and gridlock, unwanted and unneeded traffic lights!
Why do councils suddenly see the need for more artificial interruptions to the traffic flow, when it has been working smoothly until now? Is it some sort of training exercise for new traffic engineers – give them a quiet intersection to see if they can stuff it up for the traffic?
There has never been a request from the public – “please can we have some lights installed at this intersection”. No, the council always knows best what we all desperately need, even if we don’t say so.
Having traffic lights, including the pedestrian crossing lights, running on an automatic cycle is a complete waste of effort. If there are no pedestrians or crossing traffic, why does the rest of the traffic have to stop and wait for their red light to change to green?
Any competent council would see from a quick survey that there is not enough traffic to warrant any form of control. But no, the councils have to justify their existence, and the only way to achieve that is to make the traffic stop needlessly. It has cost the council (ie US the Taxpayer!) money to study the intersection, time for planning the phasing, resources for building and installing the system, and then ongoing maintenance when impeded motorists take out their frustration on the lights.
And what has it all achieved? Nothing – no improved flow, no better clearing of waiting traffic in the side streets and no facilitation of pedestrians crossing (there were none there to start with!).
Just get rid of the lights, and let the traffic take care of itself without interruption.
This entry was posted on February 3, 2009 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Social Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Waste of Time, Money and Resources
By goodtalkingWe’ve all been there – cruising along the road, and then suddenly having to come to a complete halt. Stuck there interminably, and for no good reason. And then, just as suddenly, we’re on the way again.
No not traffic jams and gridlock, unwanted and unneeded traffic lights!
Why do councils suddenly see the need for more artificial interruptions to the traffic flow, when it has been working smoothly until now? Is it some sort of training exercise for new traffic engineers – give them a quiet intersection to see if they can stuff it up for the traffic?
There has never been a request from the public – “please can we have some lights installed at this intersection”. No, the council always knows best what we all desperately need, even if we don’t say so.
Having traffic lights, including the pedestrian crossing lights, running on an automatic cycle is a complete waste of effort. If there are no pedestrians or crossing traffic, why does the rest of the traffic have to stop and wait for their red light to change to green?
Any competent council would see from a quick survey that there is not enough traffic to warrant any form of control. But no, the councils have to justify their existence, and the only way to achieve that is to make the traffic stop needlessly. It has cost the council (ie US the Taxpayer!) money to study the intersection, time for planning the phasing, resources for building and installing the system, and then ongoing maintenance when impeded motorists take out their frustration on the lights.
And what has it all achieved? Nothing – no improved flow, no better clearing of waiting traffic in the side streets and no facilitation of pedestrians crossing (there were none there to start with!).
Just get rid of the lights, and let the traffic take care of itself without interruption.
Tags: traffic, traffic lights, intersection, gridlock, traffic jam, pedestrian crossing
This entry was posted on February 3, 2009 at 2:27 pm and is filed under Social Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.