The lights on Dukes Avenue, together with those on Heathfield Terrace, and even more so those at the junction between King St and Goldhawk Rd, are beyond useless. I stop at them because I have to, but in my experience of cycling and driving on many continents and many countries I can't remember other countries where a junction has to have separate flows for vehicles turning off the junction, especially small ones like the ones in this example. It's not too much to ask drivers turning off CHR and into Dukes Avenue, for instance, to give way to the cyclists or pedestrians crossing Dukes Ave. It's the way it's done, for instance, on the Continent and I haven't seen legions of people being flattened like pizzas because of that. Might help speeding up the traffic flow since we'd simplify quite a bit the flow of stoplights. I'd also wager that it might help reducing accidents. For instance, in my commute to/from work I encounter about 27 stoplights (there or thereabouts). There are days, like Monday last week, where I had fifteen reds in a row. Like, one after the other. Stopping at the lights is no big deal when you drive, but when you run or cycle it really breaks up the flow of things and, especially for cycling, puts you back in the thick of traffic (which is where accidents or close call happens). As I stopped at every single light I saw plenty of people not doing that: cyclists, sure, and plenty of pedestrians. 99% of jaywalks or red lights being jumped went fine and here's the issue. Eventually you'll find the intersection where the traffic light is REALLY needed, and you'll be run over. It's a well-researched problem, where we start filtering out overabundant stimuli.If we had a bit more of an intelligent approach to how traffic lights are setup, allowing pedestrians to cross Dukes Avenue while the lights are green for CHR, then we limit the overabundance of stops and reduce the risk. And police the infractions where are really required.
Francis Sheehan ● 1632d