The city of Utrecht received 5,000 answers when it asked which traffic lights should go
Traffic lights generally exist to regulate car traffic, so it doesn’t always makes sense when cyclists have to obey them too.
As part of the campaign Utrecht Fietst (Utrecht Cycles) the city asked its citizens which traffic lights were redundant, Verkeersnet reports. Motorists, cyclists and pedestrians rose to the occasion and sent in a whopping 4,760 reports between February and April. The city then presented responses for each junction on an interactive map (click the “i” icon hovering over each traffic light).
In June the city started to experiment with disabling the traffic lights of seven junctions with a further three junctions scheduled for an experiment later in 2015 in which traffic lights will be shut down during quiet times. These experiments will last six months before evaluation. Cyclists will get an additional free right on red at four junctions.
(Link: Rad-Spannerei; photo by Martin Fisch, some rights reserved)
Very interesting as the trend in some UK cities is to put more traffic signals in linked by computer to control the traffic.
From what I understand (skimming cycling activists’ blogs), the Brits value ‘traffic flow’ highly, and traffic is almost always interpreted as private motor vehicles. In fact if you didn’t have cars, you’d hardly need traffic lights, so it’s not surprising that a society like the Dutch (that values mode choice) reduces traffic lights.