Slower = faster?

[Autobahn88]

Well, our town is getting a bit out of hand with stop signs and lights. It is quite the conversation piece around the water cooler. We had a stretch of road that 5 to 10 years ago had 7 lights. Now in the past 2 years the total number of lights has risen to 14. Same stretch of road and 14 lights. It is no wonder I see so many cars everyday running red lights. And they call this safe?

Our town was also voted the 3rd worst town in Canada for carbon footprint pollution per capita. The study also takes into account traffic lights and stop signs. Apparently, we have way more signage then required.

 

[mechanicx]

I'm sure you can have too many lights. But at a busy intersection with people going straight and turning left it is total chaos without a light. A lot of modern cities only allow you to turn right unless at a light. A saw that a lot in Washington DC area. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

 

[CBR.worm]

Hmmm. Sounds interesting. I live just north of West Palm Beach, I have not noticed any of these new designs, but my wife did see a bicyclist get hit down there a couple days ago.

I do remember driving somewhere in Europe, probably Italy where there were very few road markings. It seemed insane, but I did not see an accident. I flew back into Miami and was driving north on I95 which is 6 or 8 wide lanes, perfectly straight and saw a handful of crashes. It made me think...

 

[Spyder7]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I'm sure you can have too many lights. But at a busy intersection with people going straight and turning left it is total chaos without a light. A lot of modern cities only allow you to turn right unless at a light. A saw that a lot in Washington DC area. I'm not sure how I feel about that.


There was one bad intersection where they put in a new set of lights to reduce the number of accidents. Before it had the standard set of lights and you can turn right on a red here, so long as you yield the right of way to other traffic first, and only turn when the lane is clear.

The problem was that it was a two lane that, just before the light, split into 4 lanes: one going left, one straight, and two turning right. Drivers turning right had a badly obstructed view, and accidents resulted from "creeping" out into traffic to get a clear view, or proceeding but missing a blind spot due to an obstructed view.

Fix was simply to put in a separate set of lights for the two right lanes, and signs indicating no right turn on a red light. Problem solved and its one of a very few instances I can think of where more lights were a necessary thing here. But better street planning would have eliminated the problem before it needed such a fix.

That's really the problem here in general: bad planning. Or more accurately, they build a road that works well for what it was initially designed to do. But then they allow the area to be over-developed, provide no major routes to compensate for the increase in traffic, and then simply throw in more and more street lights and 3 way stops as a band-aid to try and reduce congestion and the rising accident rate.

And when a new subdivision is built, particularly for the more affluent, the new lights are installed and working even before the homes are finished. Result of all this is that its faster to loop around the city to get where you want to go. At least until they ruin that by putting traffic lights on our only express route that is free of (way too many) traffic lights.

-Spyder

 

[The_Jeff]

We have a lot of these intersections here. I hate 'em.

Two lanes to pump more cars through a traffic light, then they all have to remerge. Repeat at the next intersection.

As a courtesy if I'm 2nd in line I stay in the left lane in case someone else wants to turn right on red. Then of course the bozo in front of me turns out to be wanting to turn left... so it's a hassle to cut right and go around him.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Spyder7

And when a new subdivision is built, particularly for the more affluent, the new lights are installed and working even before the homes are finished. Result of all this is that its faster to loop around the city to get where you want to go.


In Canberra, they use roundabouts to make this sort of elite functionality work.

A single roundabout can turn a line of 3 cars coming onto an arterial route into half a mile of plebs sitting on an aterial.

Repeat until every Porsche doesn't have to brake.