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This is a solved problem and it's astonishing the world hasn't just adopted the Dutch traffic engineering standards outright. It's FASTER for cars and safer for
by bedobi 2y ago
This is a solved problem and it's astonishing the world hasn't just adopted the Dutch traffic engineering standards outright. It's FASTER for cars and safer for people.
- ajmurmann 2y agoThe lack of adoption of best practices from other countries is generally baffling to me. When I first visited China grim Europe and saw traffic lights with countdowns (like in the US) I thought we did immediately adopt this in Europe. Cultural inertia and lack of looking outwards is really frustrating.
- CalRobert 2y agoA countdown on a traffic signal seems like a fun way to encourage drag racing. Though it's nice on pedestrian signals.
- HPsquared 2y agoAnother example of "this is why we can't have nice things".
- gpm 2y agoCrazy idea that would be next to politically impossible in North America: Have every traffic light with a countdown also be a speed camera. It'd eliminate the incentive to drag race, would give drivers more information earlier allowing better driving, and would generally make speeds limits actually a limit on roads with traffic lights.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoFirst you have to deal with the issue of cities selling camera data to third parties and using it for license plate tracking and face ID
- gpm 2y agoThat's a solved problem in responsible cities, say New York. The cameras only take a picture if they see someone speeding [1], and once they see someone speeding a citation is issued and that's a matter of public record [2] so there is no data to sell. But like I said, politically impossible, there's a very strong constituency and lobby of people who like cars and like speeding and will come up with excuses for why it couldn't work. For instance New York State restricts New York City to only putting speed cameras in school zones because of that group of people. [1] https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/speed-camera-faq.pdf https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/speed-camera-faq.... [2] https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/Open-Parking-and-Camera-Violations/nc67-uf89/data_preview https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/Open-Parking-a...
- RandomBacon 2y agoIs it a countdown until it turns green, or a countdown until it turns red? I think it's unlikely the latter would encourage drag racing.
- ajmurmann 2y agoI'd like to see both so that I can avoid coming to a full stop when it's red and on the other side of it avoid having to slam on the breaks.
- amalcon 2y agoThe driver can usually see the countdown on the pedestrian signal anyway. It's not obvious that this would be worse.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Kuinox 2y agoHow are countdown signal better ?
- ajmurmann 2y agoI know if I still have time to try to cross or not. Especially on wider roads it's nice not to have to worry about being in the middle when it goes red.
- Tarq0n 2y agoResearch on countdown traffic lights is inconclusive with regards to their safety [0]. They can not realistically be described as best practice. [0] https://www.maxapress.com/data/article/dts/preview/pdf/DTS-2023-0016.pdf https://www.maxapress.com/data/article/dts/preview/pdf/DTS-2...
- iggldiggl 2y agoCountdown signals don't work with adaptive signalling where phases are dynamically lengthened or shortened (or sometimes entirely skipped) in response to traffic flows. They especially don't work with public transport priority.
- sjg1729 2y agoWhich standards are you referring to?
- Ensorceled 2y agoThey are literally referring to the "Dutch traffic engineering standards" when they say "Dutch traffic engineering standards"
- numerobis 2y agoWhat standards specifically? What is the solution to the problem that Dutch standards provide? Duh
- bb86754 2y agoIt’s an entire book length of material, but in short, for built up areas drivers are forced through street to design to be higher alert to their surroundings. EX: chicanes in the road, speed tables, brick roads, narrow streets, small/tight turn radius, no turn on red, etc. These all work together to make a system that is amongst the safest in the world for pedestrians, and by happenstance has the happiest drivers. Also, bike traffic and vehicle through traffic are separated on different networks, so a conflicts are minimized.
- Ensorceled 2y agoWhich requires a long and detailed answer that can be found by simply googling "Dutch traffic engineering standards" which leads you to an entire wealth of information.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- masklinn 2y agohttps://swov.nl/en/fact-sheet/principles-safe-road-network https://swov.nl/en/fact-sheet/principles-safe-road-network (national institute for road safety research) https://crowplatform.com/product/design-manual-for-bicycle-traffic/ https://crowplatform.com/product/design-manual-for-bicycle-t... (non-profit advisor to the ministry of transport)
- Salgat 2y agoTo clarify, aren't these standards mostly relevant where heavy bicycle traffic exists? Do they still apply in areas with little to no bicycle traffic? I'm assuming you're mostly referring to this famous manual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CROW_Design_Manual_for_Bicycle_Traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CROW_Design_Manual_for_Bicycle...
- andrepd 2y agoThere is no bicycle traffic because there are no bicycle roads. It's incorrect to claim that we shouldn't build bicycle roads because there's no bicycle traffic :)
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoA similar concept would be to only build airports where there's lots of planes landing.
- estebank 2y agoOr arguing that a bridge shouldn't be built because people don't regularly swim across.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoThe hard problem isn’t figuring out what to do. Its to get people on board with shifting from a like for like infrastructure development model where the roads and built environment look more or less the same for decades, to a potential status quo changing model of infrastructure development. If you can solve that fundamental issue, traffic is just a footnote of the long list of problems you also solve on our planet.