Traffic light failure in Ealing, London, sparks trial of traffic-light-free junctions
For six months, lights at up to seven junctions in Ealing will be concealed by bags and drivers will be left to negotiate their way across by establishing eye contact with pedestrians and other motorists.
Ealing found evidence to support a theory that traffic flow improves without lights – the lights failed one day at a busy junction and traffic flowed better than before. Councillors have approved a report which recommended that they 'experimentally remove signals since experience of signal failure showed that junction worked well'.
Quoted in The Times, David Millican, a Conservative councillor and Ealing’s Cabinet member for transport, said: 'We want to end the situation where no one is moving and time and space are being wasted. We respect walking and cycling but we also have to respect that people want to get around in their cars.'
Mr Millican said that pedestrian crossings would be relocated away from some junctions. Some lights would be replaced by 'give way' signs and others by temporary mini-roundabouts painted on the road.
Ben Hamilton Baillie, a transport consultant who has studied schemes on the Continent where lights have been removed, said that traffic flow and safety tended to improve.
Related stories
- Railing-free diagonal crossings set to make their mark on yet another central London landmark
- DfT publishes guidance on designing traffic management schemes to minimise their impact on the streetscape
- Councils urged to strip streets of unecessary clutter, traffic signs and street furniture
- Pedestrianisation and traffic bans in NYC to become permanent, thanks to warm response from the public
- Shared surface streets becoming 'no go' areas for partially sighted: design consistency needed, says report
- Consultation on the use of small electric personal vehicles launched
- Local authority transport policy to pay more attention to pedestrians, cyclists, and good urban street environments
- Traffic flows improve and pedestrian waiting times fall when traffic lights are switched off, suggests pilot project
- TfL has not confirmed what proportion of 12 new 'cycle superhighways' will be segregated from motor traffic
- Survey shows that 62 percent of householders – even those with no car – rate garage/off street parking as 'important'
- Report urges London Mayor to make use of River Thames for cross-city transport
- 'Civilised streets' guide to shared space and shared surfaces published
- Streetscape improvements for Carlisle market town initiative
- Removing signs and barriers from streets could actually make them safer, says CABE
- Street lights may be fited with 'dimmer switches' to cut carbon and light pollution
- New carsharing, walking and cycling 'buddy matching' system to operate across London
- The ‘high street fights back': Wigan smart card loyalty scheme will stimulate bus travel
- Statistics reveal that UK public now cycles less, walks less, travels more by car and lives at higher densities
- Report suggests that corner shops get protected status in local, regional and national planning policy
- Study finds 'alarmingly high and dangerous level of dirty streets and pavements' across England
