The Evils of Traffic Lights

I believe traffic lights are one of the biggest obstacles to creating bicycle and pedestrian friendly areas. The fundamental function of a traffic light is to allow car drivers to pass through an intersection with some confidence that they won't get hit by crossing traffic. While of course this is a nice feature, there are some serious drawbacks:

• Traffic lights are designed to tell drivers when to go, when not to, and when their time is running out.
• When drivers are told when they can and can't cross an intersection, they naturally drop their awareness level.
• Because drivers are told how to behave and drop their awareness level, many things become a surprise that shouldn't be a surprise, like a pedestrian "jaywalking", a driver running a red or a car acting out of the ordinary.
• Because common, simple things such as pedestrians and drivers waiting for an opening to turn left have become a surprise, drivers sometimes struggle to accept the situation and respond by beeping or with general road rage.
• Lights allow vehicles to pass through intersection at a high velocity (30+ mph).
• This speed is typically well above a maximum safe pedestrian speed of 20 mph
• This speed is almost always too fast for intermediate and often advanced bikers to feel comfortable in the intersection, which is a car speed of about 20 mph max, possibly a bit lower.
• It has been shown that the slower someone passes in front of a store, the more likely they to stop at the store.
• In some cases intersections (particularly the "squares" of Cambridge and Somerville) are destinations for shopping or transit in some way or another. Facilitating "getting through/past" these areas seems counter intuitive, especially at high speeds.
  
• While cars pass through the intersection at high speed, opposing cars sit idle and waste gas and time at 0 mph.
• Although cars pass through signaled intersections at high speed and travel at high speeds between intersections, their average speed is much lower due to waiting times at red lights.
• Many times, even with sensors or cameras, cars must come to an unneccessary stop to wait for a green even when there is no crossing traffic.
• As anyone who was biked in the city knows, stopping and starting requires an enormous amount of energy. This is true for cars as well, but with cars it also involves much more noise and pollution (especially for trucks).
  
• Signaled intersections depend on drivers clearing the intersection in a certain amount of time.
  
• When the light turns green, drivers typically step on the gas.
• When drivers are stepping on the gas, it is more difficult and takes longer for them to stop or slow for obstacles like pedestrians or bikers.
• Drivers feel like they must get out of the intersection as soon as possible.
• On yellow lights, drivers are basically told they must speed up to clear in time.
• Traffic lights add an element of time to the driving experience that is otherwise lacking from the road. This probably subconsciously encourages people to drive fast in general.
  
• The feeling of having to get out of the intersection asap puts drivers at odds with pedestrians in crosswalks who may have to or want to take their time.
• Think about a driver turning right during a green who stops to wait for a pedestrian crossing the road he is turning onto. There may be more pedestrians and the driver might want to wait for them to cross, but the driver knows or thinks he must continue asap so that the queue behind him can also make it through the intersection. Thus the driver will creep up on pedestrians slowly and sometimes cut them off.
  
• Red lights cause vehicles to queue up into bunches. When there is a red, the road beyond the red is quiet and when the light turns green the pack is off to the races. This creates waves of vehicles on the roadway, quiet then busy then quiet then busy.
• Vehicles moving as part of a bunch creates a small region of heavy traffic which sometimes requires or creates the need for a larger than necessary road (Alewife Brook Parkway - Rt. 16).
  
• Cars moving as a cluster, which is basically traffic, along with the wider roads that are neccessary, create an uncomfortable situation for both bikers and pedestrians.
  
• Since bikes are supposed to stop for red lights, they are forced to stop and wait with the pack of cars that they would like to try to avoid.
• When bikers are stopped at red lights and they see open road on the other side of the intersection and they see their pedestrian comrades crossing at will, they quickly realize it seems crazy to stop for red lights on a bicycle. Add to this the vastly increased field of vision and maneuverability of a bike, and the chances of a biker stopping until green drop dramatically.

I'll probably edit this post more in the next few days, but as you can see I'm not a big fan of traffic lights. Since removing traffic lights seems like a crazy idea, I'll be sure to post some thoughts on how to do that in the near future.