From "The Daily Telegraph":
'Carbon dioxide emissions could be cut dramatically by changing traffic light sequences, says the AA.
...
Edmund King, of the AA, said: "Councils should be accountable for CO2 reduction, by upgrading gridlocked junctions, co-ordinating roadworks and reducing waiting times at traffic lights."'
www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/20...6
.xml
Pretty sound stuff.
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Pretty sound stuff.
Of course taking away speed bumps and the redundant intrusive bits of pavement that have appeared all over London (and, I am sure, other towns and villages too) would ease traffic flow and reduce noise, pollution and other wasteful phenomena.
Better speed policies would help too, as I am sure you were about to say FT.
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But that would mean (sorry, I'm going to express heresy here) doing something to help motorists, which as any fule no is tantamount to thoughtcrime nowadays.
And also, too many councils (excluding my own, fortunately) are incapable even of organising reliable refuse collection, let alone arrange this sort of thing.
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I haven't driven in a German conurbation recently but when I last did most of the main roads had sequenced traffic lights such that if you got one on green and then drove a bit below the speed limit you would get the next one on green, and so on. If you joined a route a small sign told you how far to the next lights and the speed you needed to drive at to get the next one on a green. Really helpful and probably way cheaper than traffic calming chicanes and all the other obstructive, user-unfriendly carp we get here!
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In Nottingham, they used to be timed so that they nearly all turned green as you approached them at a sensible pace, over the last few years, they have changed so that every set turns red, and also there are phantom phases, where they turn green only to roads which have no traffic on them as they are hld at a previous set 200 yards away, once they get near the lights, they turn red and stop them again, only then are we allowed to proceed. It is the inverse of efficiency and common-sense. It was introduced into the Local Integrated Transport Policy to "punish the motorist and reduce average urban speeds" when John Prescott was in charge of such things.
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Turn left on red would help as well...
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We've got too many traffic lights in this country. All the useless ones need culling. Get rid of 50% of traffic lights, and turn off the rest past about 10pm at night.
In Sheffield they've recently opened up a new ring road. It's a nice wide road, but there are traffic lights every 100 yards, and a 30mph limit. What's the point of a new road that's supposed to reduce congestion if you're going to cripple it with excessive traffic lights and a lower speed limit?
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where possible traffic lights should be replaced with islands (not the other way round)
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where possible traffic lights should be replaced with islands (not the other way round)
The car haters at Reading borough council replaced a major roundabout with a complex traffic lighted junction last year at great cost. Now they have congestion where it virtually never existed before, even LEAVING the town on a weekend. This thread is absolutely right that much more thought needs to be put into traffic light phasing in the UK, this would save much CO2 and congestion at a stroke. Also, it is interesting that when people talk about congestion, they only talk about pollution and time wasted, which of corse is correct. However they rarely ever talk about the long-term psychological impact on the driving population, which is just as valid, when you see how miserable people often look stuck in needless jams.
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The ones at the crossroads 50 yards from my house always flick to red on all directions if there is no traffic, predominatly late night. Now this is a fairly straight main(ish) road in a 30 limit and does suffer from trucks and boy racers going hell for leather down it and yes the lights slow them down (good) but its annoying when, as a law abiding driver, one knows that the lights will change the second I come to a dead stop at them.
I've often wondered just how much fuel is wasted per week in the needless acceleration away from the lights.
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 16/04/2008 at 22:47
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"All the useless ones need culling"
"where possible traffic lights should be replaced with islands (not the other way round)"
And how about doing away with 99% of traffic lights ON islands? There are 2 sets nearby that particularly annoy me. One set is at J23 of MI (M1/A512 ) and the other at junction of A46 and A6 near Birstall Leics. These light operate 24 hours a day even though they might only be necessary for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening (even that is debatable) when traffic is busy in one direction.
Trouble is, we are treated like imbeciles - if there is an island, why have lights? if there are lights, why have an island? (Though I do admit that at a FEW extremely busy/congested junctions there might be a case).
I remain convinced that most lights are set to CAUSE congestion so that we might consider using public transport (so we sit in the bus in the queue rather than alongside it??).
It's all part of an integrated transport policy - make all travel as unpleasant and slow as possible
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"All the useless ones need culling"
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Yeah, but local and national politicians and car drivers should be very heavily culled even before traffic lights.
Otherwise it will just get worse with fewer lights because of all the halfwits.
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In Sheffield they've recently opened up a new ring road. It's a nice wide road but there are traffic lights every 100 yards .............
I've not been to Sheffield recently, but "every 100 yards" sounds like a bit of an exaggeration to me.
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I've not been to Sheffield recently but "every 100 yards" sounds like a bit of an exaggeration to me.
Probably an exaggeration, but not a massive one. It really is ludicrous the number of traffic light sets on that road. The route is longer and has double the number of traffic lights than the route replaces.
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yer but the spokesman for london transport said. the best way to reduce co2 emissions from transport is to encourage walking, cycling,and the use of public transport. phasing traffic lights to favour the motorist could endanger pedestrians espiecally those less mobile and discourage people from walking. . so a fat lot of good he is.
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Someone interviewed on Radio 2 tonight came out with a good one. Roundabouts are designed by road transport engineers, roundabouts with traffic lights are designed by committees.
I was actually in the queue at one of these at the time in Haverfordwest, where a previously free-flowing roundabout has become a major source of congestion since the council put lights up. When faced with a barrage of complaints because it wasn't working, instead of admitting they got it wrong and pulling them down they just tinkered with the timing which has made no difference.
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yer the truth is some of the council road planners, dont drive, and they live in a nieghbouring village
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On the a240 southbound from Tolworth towards Epsom if the traffic is light then driving at 35mph [ instead of the 40mph limit ] usually guarantees you a "green wave" all the way through.
But it does require very light traffic otherwise the tailbacks at each set of lights mess up the calculation!
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...a previously free-flowing roundabout has become a major source of congestion since the council put lights up. When faced with a barrage of complaints because it wasn't working instead of admitting they got it wrong and pulling them down they just tinkered with the timing which has made no difference.
Similar to Cophall Farm roundabout on the A22 north of Polegate. Think they did actually get rid of some of the lights there - just couldn't seem to get the phasing right and the queues had to be seen to be believed. Used to get on the local traffic news every single day.
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I sometimes go through traffic lights that have broken down, the traffic flows better than when they're working!
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I used to notice years ago that when traffic lights broke down the traffic did flow better. But if a policeman were to be on point duty to replace the lights things really went to hell. As I say years ago - havn't seen a policeman on point duty in ages.
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>>As I say years ago - havn't seen apoliceman on point duty in ages.
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Haven't seen a policeman outside a car for ages either.............. Can the police still walk?
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There was an article on the news the other day about hydrogen or electric cars of the future wher, if the energy to produce hydrogen/charge batteries comes from renewable sources, the cars would be fully 'green' in use.
I wonder what excuse our government will come up with then, to tax or restrict our use of such cars, and thus our freedom?? Because they will come up with some excuse, as sure as eggs are eggs!
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If hydrogen is ever used on a large scale as an automotive or other fuel, it will almost certainly be produced using electricity generated by nuclear power stations. Looks inevitable to me at least in the medium term.
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The reason the Goverment want road pricing is so they've got an easy way to tax all the alternative fuel cars. It's very difficult to tax an electric car you can plug in the mains to recharge.
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We have had road pricing for non-petrol-propelled vehicles for 20 years now. It was set up initially to make the diesel-powered "heavies" pay for the road damage they caused. Buy distance in advance at the rate for the maximum all-up-weight of your vehicle. Because it was set up against the Heavies, the lowest weight is for a 2-ton truck, hence the dearth of diesel cars on our roads. It takes astronomical mileages to make diesel cars pay here. However, our technically-inpet pollies cannot understand that we would require less imported liquid fuel if they would make it worthwhile to buy diesel cars.
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Haven't seen a policeman outside a car for ages either.............. Can the police still walk?
Yes, but only in pairs.
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