America will do anything but use roundabouts and they already do anything but public transport when given a logistical traffic problem a toddler could solve.
Roundabouts suck ass at peak traffic times because you can get stuck behind an endless convoy if you’re coming from the wrong direction.
Green waves mean the people on the main road don’t all have to slow down and waste a bunch of fuel (and cause more emissions), but the people on adjoining streets still have a chance to get onto the road they need to get on.
And of course if you don’t do proper green wave planning, people get the choice of speeding or waiting at every red. The worst possible option. But if you already have the lights, it’s much cheaper to adjust the cycles properly than it is to install tons of roundabouts.
There’s one street in a major metro near me that has been timed this way for decades and it’s incredibly noticeable because it is a dead straight thoroughfare through a few dozen small blocks of housing. You can see the next 3-5 lights lined up ahead of you at all times. You absolutely learn to pace yourself so you aren’t stopping/starting constantly, looking like an idiot when you get to the next light too fast and have to stop and then watch slow cruising cars whip past you when the light turns green. It’s like a game. I think about nothing else when I’m on that street. Not even remotely new, and it definitely works. But you have to pick which big street gets this treatment and then all streets intersecting with it have to work around that.
Yep. My hometown went to speed limit timed lights over 20 years ago. It was fantastic if you could catch the “Green Wave” and make ot all the way through a busy part of town without stopping.
there’s a similar street that they’re recently changed like that in my small city. it’s a 25 street. my bike only does 20 until fix the front derailleur. if i catch the front of the wave and don’t have anything heavy in my basket i can usually make 4 or 5 lights in a row before i hit a red and it’s glorious.
Wait, you mean the thing where people who do the speed limit have to stop at 3 straight reds while people doing 15 over are able to squeeze through all of them is the result of an intentional choice? It irritates the hell out of me how often that kind of thing happens in my town, but I always thought it was just some kind of oversight or inefficiency on the part of the engineers who set up the timing cycles, given how how clearly and directly it incentivizes speeding…
If driving the speed limit is the most efficient way to get where you’re trying to go, people will tend to drive the speed limit. Seems like that should be pretty obvious, imo.
Some people seem like driving is a game to them. They’ll speed ahead at a green only to slam on the brakes at the next red, as long as they can get around you first.
Anything except public transportation
Never been a fan of the “we shouldn’t make the smaller, easier improvements because we need to do the bigger, harder things instead” argument…
Yes, we need more and better public transit, but that is going to take a whole lot of time, money, and effort to work towards. Yes, it’s worthwhile, and we shouldn’t STOP working towards it because of this, but I don’t think that’s a reason to balk at a smaller, easier incremental change that encourages safer driving while also simply being more efficient.
For public transportation in the US you need medium density living. So you’re talking about getting everyone on board and uprooting everyone as you upgrade cities or build new cities for that.
“Anything except making incremental improvements that are practical instead of doing nothing because the preferred goal is impossible, at least practically impossible” - not as catchy, I admit :P
…or what if we actually punish people who pilot their two-ton death machines irresponsibly?
Remember, though: if the punishment is a fine, then to the rich, it’s not a punishment. It’s a price.
You don’t even have to be rich-rich. Car-related fines are a joke.
I was thinking more along the lines of losing one’s license.
Indeed, though I would suggest that, for more significant infractions, state seizure of the vehicle (as the tool used to commit the crime) should be an option, with proceeds from vehicle sales by the state going to safety infrastructure and perhaps a victim restitution fund.
People are very attached to their cars, so that’s a punishment, and they won’t be needing it anymore without a license!
state seizure of the vehicle
Absolutely not if you’re talking the US. We already have civil forfeiture which is abused far to easily and frequently.
Precisely. I’m saying that, if we already have it anyway, we ought to regulate it. If we can abolish it, great. If not, then it should be heavily regulated, with the funds earmarked for things that aren’t enforcement-related, so that there’s less perverse incentive for law enforcement to just grab things for shits, giggles and greed. The government can and will seize your home for nonpayment of taxes, so it’s not like this doesn’t already happen outside of civil asset forfeiture. It’s just a matter of how well-regulated the system is, and what steps are taken to reduce perverse incentives.
Forgive me if I doubt it could be appropriately regulated and properly applied in the US.
In the current situation? Absolutely. I’m fairly certain it would take a violent uprising, then a constitutional convention, to actually count the US as a country with laws. It’s full, mask-off kakistocratic corpofascism.
There are, however, individual states and jurisdictions which could implement it well with reform.
Punishment doesn’t prevent behavior that already happened and is usually missed. Road modifications help every time.
My town has a major road that was one of the most infuriating and dangerous in town. It was two lanes in each direction, constant jockeying for position or to make the light or to get around a turning car.
All it took was repainting. Now it’s one lane in each direction with turning lanes. There is no jockeying for position since it’s only one lane. But turning cars are no longer blocking so no infuriating stop and go. They even coordinated the lights.
Now that road is slower, calmer, no road rage or angry drivers and everyone gets through in less time
Did a speeding driver write this?
No it was a cat
Almost all commenters find some problem with this, but I have seen this work on my own dad who unfortunately prefers going 10kph over the speed limit most of the time. Either the traffic lights are timed in sequence or sensors are placed so that with low traffic, lights stay red until a car approaches and the light is timed with the location of the sensor for going the speed limit. The last one also allows pedestrian and bike lights to stay green when there isn’t any car traffic.
just make all lights green. problem solved
Another solution is to go back to actually enforcing it in a meaningful way.
Also you can’t get all lights everywhere synced up that way, and it would only work in places that have a significant number of lights. Places that have 3 on Main Street are still going to have problems.
How about just magnetic sensors near intersections that count how many cars are approaching and do some math to decide what would be the most efficient. If no cars coming in the cross streets then dont turn the light red in the opposite direction.
Nothing angers drivers more than sitting through a full cycle and nobody used the green.
This can be solved with sensors and math.
No fucking AI in my traffic lights!
Nah. The trick to stop speeding drivers is to stop listening to drivers whine about the solutions to speeding.
Put a speed camera on every block, and have automated tickets put points on your license like any other ticket. Start revoking habitual speeders’ licenses and word will get around.
Or just put a GPS linked governor on energy car on the road as a condition of keeping its registration active, and use that to make speeding actually impossible.
Whole worlds of options open up when you stop caring that it will make the ecocidal narcissists sad.
You’re seriously advocating for an authoritarian surveillance state?
sees lemmy.ml
Ah, that explains it.
No, I’m advocating for absolutely anything that will reign in the ecocidal narcissists in their pollution powered people crushers.
Of course, if you’re the kind of toxic individualist who sees that as authoritarianism, then naturally you’d see that as scary, it might make you actually follow traffic laws when should all know how important and special you are and how going the speed limit is just too much to ask of you.
Eh. Maybe reduce a few, but not stop.
Some people like being at the back of whatever pack of cars are in front of them, so they speed up to tailgate.
