9 ms·

What happens if you turn off the traffic lights?

112 points by okket 9y ago

ehnto 9y ago
It obviously wouldn't work for all kinds of intersections or traffic types, but it is great to hear that good natured human cooperation was the key to this success. Given a shared obstacle, people seem much more willing to coopetate and make concessions for others and help others achieve their goals. I notice it when the power goes out here and signals disappear. Even though it's 100% car traffic and two lanes in either direction, people were still able to negotiate with eachother to make it work, if only briefly. I imagine years of conditioning for bicycle heavy and bicycle friendly infrastructure was also a huge factor for the success in the article.
grenoire 9y ago
I take this road every day when I go to the University of Amsterdam's REC. It was very odd at first and they worded it as if it was a short-lived experiment, but then the lights never returned. To be fair, it's amazing. It's important to keep in mind that one of the attached avenues is a "cyclist priority" one, where the cars are essentially "guests" on the road. That avenue doesn't get as much traffic as the other entries, so it was already very suitable for such change.
rjsw 9y ago
I would like to see this normalized for the position on the political spectrum of the government in power at the time of any test. I felt that people's driving style changed immediatly when there was a change of government in the UK.
paulsutter 9y ago
The discovery in this article will seem quaint if you've ever crossed the street in Southeast Asia (there's never a break in traffic, so you cross anyway and the scooters flow around you, https://youtu.be/LlyOom0bwwY https://youtu.be/LlyOom0bwwY) > Behaviour was noticeably different. Most cyclists slowed down as they approached the intersection, and communicated to other cyclists and motorists using eyes, gestures, expressions, and voices. A lot more negotiation was taking place – but not without friction.
lg 9y ago
> In the behavioural analysis, cyclists at the stop line glared at the signal, almost willing it to turn green. This is amazing. I have never seen a cyclist waiting at a red light. I think you need this kind of culture among cyclists before you can do something like taking away lights. I have never been hit by a car, but I have twice been hit by cyclists either ignoring stop lights when I had right of way, or ignoring bike lane markers and veering into pedestrian walkways. This was in Boston and NYC.
- rocqua 9y ago
  Here in Groningen (the Netherlands) I'd say 90% of people wait at a traffic light. Thing is, here cycling isn't something done by risk-takers. We have 80 year-olds cycling to the grocery store. That leads to a whole different group mentality than looking at those willing to cycle in NYC. Heck, I'd be hesitant to cycle in NYC.
  - asddddd 9y ago
    Another difference (most likely) is that it's quite common for US traffic lights to switch only when they detect traffic on one of the roads, and this rarely works with bicycles. Nothing like sitting at a red for 2 minutes before realizing you have to either run it or go on the sidewalk. Maybe not so common on the East Coast, but 4-way stops are another can of worms here. Most drivers expect you'll ignore the stop sign and will yield for you. Some will refuse to go even after you're at a complete stop and got there after them, at which point it's a standoff. Doing a rolling stop (Idaho stop - illegal most places) ends up being the safest option most of the time.
    - analog31 9y ago
      In my state, there's a "dead red" exception, where a cyclist can pass through a red light under certain conditions.
    - rsfern 9y ago
      Usually you can trigger the electromagnetic sensor if you ride over the edge of it; there's usually a visible seam in the pavement. You want to ride along the edge of the loop.
js2 9y ago
I was in Miami after Hurricane Andrew. The traffic lights didn’t return for weeks. It was rather amazing. For less busy intersections, people just treated them as 4 way stops. For busier intersections, say a 3 lane road with a 2 lane road crossing it, there was sometimes a police officer to direct traffic. But sometimes not, and that’s when it got interesting. What would often happen is that the different traffic directions would try to take turns. One direction would get momentum going until someone brave enough in the other direction would poke their car out. Eventually the one direction would stop and the other direction would start going. But sometimes even that could not work. And this is when the volunteer traffic director would appear. Someone driving with a passenger would have their passenger get out and start directing traffic till their car got through and maybe for a couple more minutes. Then that person would go get back in their car and suddenly another volunteer would hop out of another car. Serial volunteer traffic directing is one of my enduring memories of Miami from that time.
- drfuchs 9y ago
  In Florida (and every other state that I'm aware of), a dead traffic light is, by law, to be treated as an all-way stop sign, so you're supposed to take turns. Traffic lights are so incredibly reliable that many people seem unaware of this fact, though, based on what I've observed. Perhaps the behavior you describe is due to people intentionally disobeying the rules?
  - pasquinelli 9y ago
    lights going out isn't that rare, at least where i'm living, and people know how to handle it. it's just if you have enough lanes of traffic, it's too much coordination to treat it properly like an all-way stop.
  - mikelward 9y ago
    All-way stop signs are so ridiculously inefficient. It's no wonder people ignore the rules.
    - u801e 9y ago
ajarmst 9y ago
This isn't a unique experiment. I remember reading about a German city (Drachten) doing it about a decade ago. http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/controlled-chaos-european-cities-do-away-with-traffic-signs-a-448747.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/controlled-chaos...
- frankquist 9y ago
  There is certainly a German place also doing this which the article mentions but Drachten is a Dutch city :)
  - ajarmst 9y ago
    Doh! Thanks. Should have Googled it.
deevolution 9y ago
We rely and place so much trust on the traffic system to do all of the decision making work. We just follow its orders. But what if the system experiences a failure unexpectedly? Accidents probably will occur, traffic grinds to a halt. I have been in a situation on a highway intersection where the light was stuck on red and it was a horrible experience. This is the problem with a centralized traffic system. I have noticed that even I have started to place too much trust in the walk signals while crossing streets. I have caught myself failing to look both ways. While its nice that the traffic system reduces some cognitive load, It's not 100% working in favor of our safety. I think the US ought to conduct more experiments like this to see if traffic accidents can be reduced. I'd like to see an experiment in NYC! So many bike accidetns here.
dahart 9y ago
I read an article a few years ago about a town in the UK that did the same thing and reported the same results, an increase in civility and a decrease in accidents. > Nearly 70% of all city centre trips are by bicycle, and more space is needed on the bike networks. Yes, please! I want that where I live. It has been improving, but we have a long way to go. I really hope more US cities end up with majority bike/ped traffic rather than majority car traffic.
- supergarfield 9y ago
  Geography may not be conductive to biking everywhere. While I mostly bike around the city I live in, it's a very hilly place and even a short trip requires an amount of effort that cannot be expected of most people. As for pedestrian traffic, my experience with medium US cities is that they are far too spread out for walking to be an option for most things. It's hard to see how this could change without Americans abandoning their beloved individual suburban homes with yards. I think in most places public transportation is the only effective replacement for cars.
  - dahart 9y ago
    All true! I agree, and hilly is a problem. I could see cities easily changing though, by slowing the outward growth and becoming more dense... and more bike-friendly in the center! ;) The city I live in has been growing outward, but that's coming to an end now that the expansion in the valley has hit the mountains on every side. The good news is my downtown is getting more bike friendly every year, I'm just looking forward to bikes being a majority. (Which might never actually happen since it snows where I live...) :)
  - mmariani 9y ago
    Get a ebike. I live on a street with a 8% climb and that on a ebike is just a stroll. My wife loves it. Most of my cyclist neighbors have one too. I occasionally “steal” her bike, but most of the time I love doing my climbing by myself. Though things may get hairy above 12% and definitely painful above 16%. However, with a ebike even those gradients would be fine.
arunc 9y ago
We seldom obey any traffic signals/rules in India to the point that turning them off doesn't make any difference
- abruzzi 9y ago
  Heh. I was thinking, based on my somewhat limited experience driving outside the US, that turning off traffic lights in Rome or Bangkok would have only have an effect on tourists, making them aware that there are no rules.
- avip 9y ago
  Exactly what I had in mind reading the title. The answer to several "what happens if we dump this system that should organize our society" question is - look at India and you'll find out. Apparently with enough gods anarchy works.
- morecoffee 9y ago
  Obeying traffic lights decreases tail latency and increases throughput. By not obeying them (as a society, rather than individual), India is only hurting itself.
fcbrooklyn 9y ago
I was in lower manhattan during the huge northeast blackout 14(?) years ago. I can confidently report that turning off all the traffic lights in the city did not lead to improved traffic flow.
nether 9y ago
Where I lived in a suburb of Los Angeles, we’d have inexplicable traffic light outages. Well, some times it was due to rain. Invariably traffic would be backed up for half a mile. It was terrible.
barrkel 9y ago
What happens is heavily dependent on relative traffic flows. If it's sparse, not much bad happens, there might be more bad accidents from people assuming right of way. If it's heavy in all directions, people going straight or turning to whatever side of the road they're on will be reasonably OK, while people turning across traffic will have a bad time. If it's heavy on one road and light on another, the light road will be starved of exit opportunities. Turning off lights certainly isn't a panacea. Anyone who's lived in a city for a few decades will remember junctions that got much better with the addition of lights, and junctions that got worse. Some will recall bad accidents (T-bones and the like) that prompted their installation. Etc.
abalone 9y ago
A consequence of this model that one perhaps might not anticipate... India is this taken to the extreme. To assist in the "negotiation in motion," all the vehicles use their horns constantly. Beep beep beep. It's not considered rude, more like sonar. But it is a lot of noise pollution.
bspn 9y ago
Where I grew up the city actively avoided traffic lights (too expensive!) and opted for roundabouts wherever possible. While you would always encounter the odd tentative person who screwed things up, generally they did a wonderful job of regulating traffic flow. I contrast that with the US city I now live in where it feels like you can't drive 200 feet without grinding to halt to wait at yet another red light.
- sixothree 9y ago
  Where I live we have this massive traffic circle thing. It has four levels - N/S, E/W, Traffic Circle, diagonal train tracks. East/West direct road has traffic lights on either side of the thing. I find absolutely infuriating to be sitting on this marvel of efficiency waiting for an unsynced traffic signal to turn green.
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  Roundabouts are great and I am 100% in favor of their use, but they are not a drop-in replacement for all traffic lights. Roundabouts are best IMO (not a traffic engineer) for medium speed intersections with one or two lanes each way, and low to medium traffic. High speeds, three or more lanes each way, and high traffic volumes and you may do better with a traffic light. And really, again not a traffic engineer, but I wonder if we could solve a lot of these problems by simply eliminating left turns from feeder streets onto arteries (or allowing them, but refusing to put in stop lights). They mess up optimal light spacing and screw with timings. I'm not really aware of a good reason to have them aside from neighborhood residents want them.
  - alkonaut 9y ago
    3 lanes each way in a level interaection seems like a bad design to begin with. I have never seen a 3 lane (3 lanes in each direction) road cross another at the same level. One road should go over and the other under, with large onramps for turns. Because a 3+3 road is a highway and has no place in a dense area at all.
  - u801e 9y ago
    > I wonder if we could solve a lot of these problems by simply eliminating left turns from feeder streets onto arteries (or allowing them, but refusing to put in stop lights). I think it would be better to disallow those types of left turns entirely and direct traffic to make a U-turn at next available intersection. During busy traffic times, it's often easier to to that compared to trying to make left. Even during times it's not so busy, making a right turn with a subsequent U-turn doesn't take that much longer.
dwighttk 9y ago
"...at one particular intersection" ...should be added to the headline.
Pica_soO 9y ago
It could be so easy- if everyone treated intersections as roundabouts..
namidark 9y ago
After several hurricanes - you should treat them as 4 way stops, however a large chunk of people just run through them (most recent example is from Irma)
ovatsug25 9y ago
I think a big part of this is momentum. When the majority of people were excited about cars and saw them as newer and better than bicycles, you would get treated like shit. See most US cities. When the majority of people begins to understand that cars weren't the panacea they were expecting, then you might get more respectful behavior like that in the Netherlands. Here in the Dominican Republic being a pedestrian is "for the poor." Cars rush towards you—and you either get out of the way or join the roadkill. So what happens if you turn off the traffic lights? Depends whether people cared about them and safety to begin with.
tedmc 9y ago
Just went through traffic light outage due to Irma. Traffic was not improved.
Froyoh 9y ago
Imagine this in New York City...
CodeWriter23 9y ago
Sure itself regulates, because people have a survival instinct. I can tell you from experience however, after the massive wind storm of 2011 in LA, when every signal was dark, it turned my 11 mile commute from downtown into a 90-minute affair, with an exhausting cognitive load because of the constant concentration required. The commute ranges from 20-40 minutes (typically 30-35 at rush hour) when the signals are on.
buyx 9y ago
As others have pointed out, solutions that work in Amsterdam, may not generalise to other parts of the world. Over the last 15 years, a combination of power cuts, shoddy maintenance and cable theft have made traffic lights a lot less reliable in South Africa. In some cities, like Johannesburg, drivers tend to follow the rules regarding broken lights, and treat them as four-way stops. In others, such as Durban, I’ve seen drivers barrelling through at high speed, hoping for the best. Given the apparent wide geographic variation in dealing with this sort of thing, perhaps a more appropriate title for the article should be “What happens if you turn off the traffic lights in Amsterdam?”
Mulatto401 9y ago
I want to say as a person who had no lights working due to Irma in Miami, North Miami etc traffic WAS improved. Instead of waiting 2 minutes or so as usual, I was on my way in about 45 seconds. Yes I had to be more aware but it was worth it.
mikhailfranco 9y ago
This is the way of the future for flat cities in temperate climates where most people can cycle. But Holland is an extreme case where disciplined drivers are educated to respect cyclists. Don't expect this to work anywhere else, anytime soon. Holland is the future, but it your backward community cannot adopt this tactic without a long hard battle against the entrenched arrogance of the car driving unintelligentsia.
Tomminn 9y ago
This would've been a great initiative if it started 15 years ago. At the moment, I think changing traffic systems in ways that are less accessible for self-driving cars is short-sighted.
- flyingfences 9y ago
  A self-driving car that can't handle a missing stoplight isn't production-ready.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

112 points by okket 9y ago

It obviously wouldn't work for all kinds of intersections or traffic types, but it is great to hear that good natured human cooperation was the key to this success. Given a shared obstacle, people seem much more willing to coopetate and make concessions for others and help others achieve their goals. I notice it when the power goes out here and signals disappear. Even though it's 100% car traffic and two lanes in either direction, people were still able to negotiate with eachother to make it work, if only briefly. I imagine years of conditioning for bicycle heavy and bicycle friendly infrastructure was also a huge factor for the success in the article.

grenoire 9y ago

I take this road every day when I go to the University of Amsterdam's REC. It was very odd at first and they worded it as if it was a short-lived experiment, but then the lights never returned. To be fair, it's amazing. It's important to keep in mind that one of the attached avenues is a "cyclist priority" one, where the cars are essentially "guests" on the road. That avenue doesn't get as much traffic as the other entries, so it was already very suitable for such change.

rjsw 9y ago

I would like to see this normalized for the position on the political spectrum of the government in power at the time of any test. I felt that people's driving style changed immediatly when there was a change of government in the UK.

paulsutter 9y ago

The discovery in this article will seem quaint if you've ever crossed the street in Southeast Asia (there's never a break in traffic, so you cross anyway and the scooters flow around you, https://youtu.be/LlyOom0bwwY https://youtu.be/LlyOom0bwwY) > Behaviour was noticeably different. Most cyclists slowed down as they approached the intersection, and communicated to other cyclists and motorists using eyes, gestures, expressions, and voices. A lot more negotiation was taking place – but not without friction.

lg 9y ago

> In the behavioural analysis, cyclists at the stop line glared at the signal, almost willing it to turn green. This is amazing. I have never seen a cyclist waiting at a red light. I think you need this kind of culture among cyclists before you can do something like taking away lights. I have never been hit by a car, but I have twice been hit by cyclists either ignoring stop lights when I had right of way, or ignoring bike lane markers and veering into pedestrian walkways. This was in Boston and NYC.

rocqua 9y ago
Here in Groningen (the Netherlands) I'd say 90% of people wait at a traffic light. Thing is, here cycling isn't something done by risk-takers. We have 80 year-olds cycling to the grocery store. That leads to a whole different group mentality than looking at those willing to cycle in NYC. Heck, I'd be hesitant to cycle in NYC.
- asddddd 9y ago
  Another difference (most likely) is that it's quite common for US traffic lights to switch only when they detect traffic on one of the roads, and this rarely works with bicycles. Nothing like sitting at a red for 2 minutes before realizing you have to either run it or go on the sidewalk. Maybe not so common on the East Coast, but 4-way stops are another can of worms here. Most drivers expect you'll ignore the stop sign and will yield for you. Some will refuse to go even after you're at a complete stop and got there after them, at which point it's a standoff. Doing a rolling stop (Idaho stop - illegal most places) ends up being the safest option most of the time.
  - analog31 9y ago
    In my state, there's a "dead red" exception, where a cyclist can pass through a red light under certain conditions.
  - rsfern 9y ago
    Usually you can trigger the electromagnetic sensor if you ride over the edge of it; there's usually a visible seam in the pavement. You want to ride along the edge of the loop.

js2 9y ago

I was in Miami after Hurricane Andrew. The traffic lights didn’t return for weeks. It was rather amazing. For less busy intersections, people just treated them as 4 way stops. For busier intersections, say a 3 lane road with a 2 lane road crossing it, there was sometimes a police officer to direct traffic. But sometimes not, and that’s when it got interesting. What would often happen is that the different traffic directions would try to take turns. One direction would get momentum going until someone brave enough in the other direction would poke their car out. Eventually the one direction would stop and the other direction would start going. But sometimes even that could not work. And this is when the volunteer traffic director would appear. Someone driving with a passenger would have their passenger get out and start directing traffic till their car got through and maybe for a couple more minutes. Then that person would go get back in their car and suddenly another volunteer would hop out of another car. Serial volunteer traffic directing is one of my enduring memories of Miami from that time.

drfuchs 9y ago
In Florida (and every other state that I'm aware of), a dead traffic light is, by law, to be treated as an all-way stop sign, so you're supposed to take turns. Traffic lights are so incredibly reliable that many people seem unaware of this fact, though, based on what I've observed. Perhaps the behavior you describe is due to people intentionally disobeying the rules?
- pasquinelli 9y ago
  lights going out isn't that rare, at least where i'm living, and people know how to handle it. it's just if you have enough lanes of traffic, it's too much coordination to treat it properly like an all-way stop.
- mikelward 9y ago
  All-way stop signs are so ridiculously inefficient. It's no wonder people ignore the rules.
  - u801e 9y ago

ajarmst 9y ago

This isn't a unique experiment. I remember reading about a German city (Drachten) doing it about a decade ago. http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/controlled-chaos-european-cities-do-away-with-traffic-signs-a-448747.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/controlled-chaos...

frankquist 9y ago
There is certainly a German place also doing this which the article mentions but Drachten is a Dutch city :)
- ajarmst 9y ago
  Doh! Thanks. Should have Googled it.

deevolution 9y ago

We rely and place so much trust on the traffic system to do all of the decision making work. We just follow its orders. But what if the system experiences a failure unexpectedly? Accidents probably will occur, traffic grinds to a halt. I have been in a situation on a highway intersection where the light was stuck on red and it was a horrible experience. This is the problem with a centralized traffic system. I have noticed that even I have started to place too much trust in the walk signals while crossing streets. I have caught myself failing to look both ways. While its nice that the traffic system reduces some cognitive load, It's not 100% working in favor of our safety. I think the US ought to conduct more experiments like this to see if traffic accidents can be reduced. I'd like to see an experiment in NYC! So many bike accidetns here.

dahart 9y ago

I read an article a few years ago about a town in the UK that did the same thing and reported the same results, an increase in civility and a decrease in accidents. > Nearly 70% of all city centre trips are by bicycle, and more space is needed on the bike networks. Yes, please! I want that where I live. It has been improving, but we have a long way to go. I really hope more US cities end up with majority bike/ped traffic rather than majority car traffic.

supergarfield 9y ago
Geography may not be conductive to biking everywhere. While I mostly bike around the city I live in, it's a very hilly place and even a short trip requires an amount of effort that cannot be expected of most people. As for pedestrian traffic, my experience with medium US cities is that they are far too spread out for walking to be an option for most things. It's hard to see how this could change without Americans abandoning their beloved individual suburban homes with yards. I think in most places public transportation is the only effective replacement for cars.
- dahart 9y ago
  All true! I agree, and hilly is a problem. I could see cities easily changing though, by slowing the outward growth and becoming more dense... and more bike-friendly in the center! ;) The city I live in has been growing outward, but that's coming to an end now that the expansion in the valley has hit the mountains on every side. The good news is my downtown is getting more bike friendly every year, I'm just looking forward to bikes being a majority. (Which might never actually happen since it snows where I live...) :)
- mmariani 9y ago
  Get a ebike. I live on a street with a 8% climb and that on a ebike is just a stroll. My wife loves it. Most of my cyclist neighbors have one too. I occasionally “steal” her bike, but most of the time I love doing my climbing by myself. Though things may get hairy above 12% and definitely painful above 16%. However, with a ebike even those gradients would be fine.

arunc 9y ago

We seldom obey any traffic signals/rules in India to the point that turning them off doesn't make any difference

abruzzi 9y ago
Heh. I was thinking, based on my somewhat limited experience driving outside the US, that turning off traffic lights in Rome or Bangkok would have only have an effect on tourists, making them aware that there are no rules.
avip 9y ago
Exactly what I had in mind reading the title. The answer to several "what happens if we dump this system that should organize our society" question is - look at India and you'll find out. Apparently with enough gods anarchy works.
morecoffee 9y ago
Obeying traffic lights decreases tail latency and increases throughput. By not obeying them (as a society, rather than individual), India is only hurting itself.

fcbrooklyn 9y ago

I was in lower manhattan during the huge northeast blackout 14(?) years ago. I can confidently report that turning off all the traffic lights in the city did not lead to improved traffic flow.

nether 9y ago

Where I lived in a suburb of Los Angeles, we’d have inexplicable traffic light outages. Well, some times it was due to rain. Invariably traffic would be backed up for half a mile. It was terrible.

barrkel 9y ago

What happens is heavily dependent on relative traffic flows. If it's sparse, not much bad happens, there might be more bad accidents from people assuming right of way. If it's heavy in all directions, people going straight or turning to whatever side of the road they're on will be reasonably OK, while people turning across traffic will have a bad time. If it's heavy on one road and light on another, the light road will be starved of exit opportunities. Turning off lights certainly isn't a panacea. Anyone who's lived in a city for a few decades will remember junctions that got much better with the addition of lights, and junctions that got worse. Some will recall bad accidents (T-bones and the like) that prompted their installation. Etc.

abalone 9y ago

A consequence of this model that one perhaps might not anticipate... India is this taken to the extreme. To assist in the "negotiation in motion," all the vehicles use their horns constantly. Beep beep beep. It's not considered rude, more like sonar. But it is a lot of noise pollution.

bspn 9y ago

Where I grew up the city actively avoided traffic lights (too expensive!) and opted for roundabouts wherever possible. While you would always encounter the odd tentative person who screwed things up, generally they did a wonderful job of regulating traffic flow. I contrast that with the US city I now live in where it feels like you can't drive 200 feet without grinding to halt to wait at yet another red light.

sixothree 9y ago
Where I live we have this massive traffic circle thing. It has four levels - N/S, E/W, Traffic Circle, diagonal train tracks. East/West direct road has traffic lights on either side of the thing. I find absolutely infuriating to be sitting on this marvel of efficiency waiting for an unsynced traffic signal to turn green.
sliverstorm 9y ago
Roundabouts are great and I am 100% in favor of their use, but they are not a drop-in replacement for all traffic lights. Roundabouts are best IMO (not a traffic engineer) for medium speed intersections with one or two lanes each way, and low to medium traffic. High speeds, three or more lanes each way, and high traffic volumes and you may do better with a traffic light. And really, again not a traffic engineer, but I wonder if we could solve a lot of these problems by simply eliminating left turns from feeder streets onto arteries (or allowing them, but refusing to put in stop lights). They mess up optimal light spacing and screw with timings. I'm not really aware of a good reason to have them aside from neighborhood residents want them.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  3 lanes each way in a level interaection seems like a bad design to begin with. I have never seen a 3 lane (3 lanes in each direction) road cross another at the same level. One road should go over and the other under, with large onramps for turns. Because a 3+3 road is a highway and has no place in a dense area at all.
- u801e 9y ago
  > I wonder if we could solve a lot of these problems by simply eliminating left turns from feeder streets onto arteries (or allowing them, but refusing to put in stop lights). I think it would be better to disallow those types of left turns entirely and direct traffic to make a U-turn at next available intersection. During busy traffic times, it's often easier to to that compared to trying to make left. Even during times it's not so busy, making a right turn with a subsequent U-turn doesn't take that much longer.

dwighttk 9y ago

"...at one particular intersection" ...should be added to the headline.

Pica_soO 9y ago

It could be so easy- if everyone treated intersections as roundabouts..

namidark 9y ago

After several hurricanes - you should treat them as 4 way stops, however a large chunk of people just run through them (most recent example is from Irma)

ovatsug25 9y ago

I think a big part of this is momentum. When the majority of people were excited about cars and saw them as newer and better than bicycles, you would get treated like shit. See most US cities. When the majority of people begins to understand that cars weren't the panacea they were expecting, then you might get more respectful behavior like that in the Netherlands. Here in the Dominican Republic being a pedestrian is "for the poor." Cars rush towards you—and you either get out of the way or join the roadkill. So what happens if you turn off the traffic lights? Depends whether people cared about them and safety to begin with.

tedmc 9y ago

Just went through traffic light outage due to Irma. Traffic was not improved.

Froyoh 9y ago

Imagine this in New York City...

CodeWriter23 9y ago

Sure itself regulates, because people have a survival instinct. I can tell you from experience however, after the massive wind storm of 2011 in LA, when every signal was dark, it turned my 11 mile commute from downtown into a 90-minute affair, with an exhausting cognitive load because of the constant concentration required. The commute ranges from 20-40 minutes (typically 30-35 at rush hour) when the signals are on.

buyx 9y ago

As others have pointed out, solutions that work in Amsterdam, may not generalise to other parts of the world. Over the last 15 years, a combination of power cuts, shoddy maintenance and cable theft have made traffic lights a lot less reliable in South Africa. In some cities, like Johannesburg, drivers tend to follow the rules regarding broken lights, and treat them as four-way stops. In others, such as Durban, I’ve seen drivers barrelling through at high speed, hoping for the best. Given the apparent wide geographic variation in dealing with this sort of thing, perhaps a more appropriate title for the article should be “What happens if you turn off the traffic lights in Amsterdam?”

Mulatto401 9y ago

I want to say as a person who had no lights working due to Irma in Miami, North Miami etc traffic WAS improved. Instead of waiting 2 minutes or so as usual, I was on my way in about 45 seconds. Yes I had to be more aware but it was worth it.

mikhailfranco 9y ago

This is the way of the future for flat cities in temperate climates where most people can cycle. But Holland is an extreme case where disciplined drivers are educated to respect cyclists. Don't expect this to work anywhere else, anytime soon. Holland is the future, but it your backward community cannot adopt this tactic without a long hard battle against the entrenched arrogance of the car driving unintelligentsia.

Tomminn 9y ago

This would've been a great initiative if it started 15 years ago. At the moment, I think changing traffic systems in ways that are less accessible for self-driving cars is short-sighted.

flyingfences 9y ago
A self-driving car that can't handle a missing stoplight isn't production-ready.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]