Submitted by canipetyourdog420 t3_zngvs8 in baltimore
Cunninghams_right t1_j0he89g wrote
Reply to comment by saltyjohnson in Why isn't there red light cameras on every single intersection? by canipetyourdog420
you're assuming the goal of traffic timing is to maximize the speed of the people on the street. that isn't necessarily the case. you're also assuming that you don't have to design for the 1% case where there is some traffic diversion or something. without sensors, timing has to be done in a way that isn't optimal for normal conditions so that it's not a total shit-show in the rare case. sensors are great but very expensive to build and maintain.
the reality is that car-centric city design is just stupid and a waste of time. more cars and faster cars never made any location better. culs de sac exist specifically because people like cars for themselves but hate everyone elses' cars. if we're contemplating spending a fortune adding and maintaining sensors, we should first just build bike lanes everywhere and officially allow the Idaho stop. everyone will get to where they are going faster, greener, and with less expense. cars should take a back seat.
saltyjohnson t1_j0hkaia wrote
> you're assuming the goal of traffic timing is to maximize the speed of the people on the street.
I'm doing no such thing lol. We're in a thread talking about people who run red lights. One reason people run red lights is because they're waiting while there is no cross traffic. Breaking the rules a little bit leads to breaking the rules a lot which leads to the chaos we have in our roads today. The only thing that will stop that without better infrastructure design is impounding offending vehicles, because rich people don't give a shit about tickets and poor people can't afford to pay tickets.
I am 100% in favor of eliminating stupid car-centric design. I'd even support complete closure of most one-lane alleys to automobiles to provide protected pathways for bicycles and pedestrians. Making traffic signals work better for cars is not exclusive of fixing car-centric design. Better timing will benefit pedestrians and cyclists too. All the protected bike lanes in the world won't make for a safe cycling experience if cyclists have to cross intersections with bad timing and no sensors in a city where drivers are conditioned to run red lights.
Cunninghams_right t1_j0hn9tm wrote
>I'm doing no such thing lol. We're in a thread talking about people who run red lights. One reason people run red lights is because they're waiting while there is no cross traffic. Breaking the rules a little bit leads to breaking the rules a lot which leads to the chaos we have in our roads today. The only thing that will stop that without better infrastructure design is impounding offending vehicles, because rich people don't give a shit about tickets and poor people can't afford to pay tickets.
I appreciate that you're not a car-brain. however, even busy places like Manhattan have people violating red lights constantly. it's not a question of whether or not there is cross traffic, it's that there are no consequences for breaking the rules, as you point out. though, I think you under-estimate how many people would fix their behavior if they were ticketed. certainly not everyone, but many.
saltyjohnson t1_j0hy6qf wrote
> it's not a question of whether or not there is cross traffic, it's that there are no consequences for breaking the rules
Poor infrastructure design leads to rulebreaking. Being forced to stop and wait at a red light while there is no cross-traffic is a failure of infrastructure design. Every ticket written for running a red light is a failure of infrastructure design. A driver wouldn't be able to run a red light if a light only turned red to permit cross-traffic.
Yes, we desperately need better enforcement of basic traffic laws in this city, but that is not what will not fix a culture of dangerous driving. Another downside is that it will increase hostile police interactions, which definitely won't help anything.
Cunninghams_right t1_j0i06vf wrote
>Poor infrastructure design leads to rulebreaking. Being forced to stop and wait at a red light while there is no cross-traffic is a failure of infrastructure design. Every ticket written for running a red light is a failure of infrastructure design. A driver wouldn't
>
>be able to run a red light if a light only turned red to permit cross-traffic.
I disagree. first, as I noted above, Manhattan has constant cross traffic but people violate the red lights constantly. second, I'm pretty confident that people will try to squeeze through a light that just turned red regardless of whether there was cross traffic (as OP points out, having to not proceed on their green light because there are people in the intersection running the red). the infrastructure could maybe help some, but the cases where people pull up to the light, there is no cross traffic at all, then drive through the red are not the problem cases (most of the time). the problem cases are people flying through red lights after the other direction turned green and wants to go, or as happens at an intersection near me, people go when it turns green and get t-boned or clipped by people thinking they can make it because it just turned red and most of the time the traffic that has the green will wait for them. that kind of accident isn't solved by the timing of the lights, it's solved by behavioral correction.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments