Traffic Light Changes to ease London Traffic

Mayor Boris of London has set about making new initiatives to reduce the congestion on London’s streets.

These new plans don’t include new charges or keeping vehicles out of the city, they involve a 2 second change to the traffic lights.

One of Mr Johnson’s first priorities on taking over from Ken Livingstone was to tell transport commissioner, Peter Hendy, to find alternative solutions to getting the capital’s traffic moving.

The response of the transport officials is a subtle but supposedly effective change to the phases of the city’s traffic lights.

Around 150 sets of lights are being adjusted to give a simple additional 2 seconds to the length of the lights’ changing cycle.

This will supposedly speed the flow of traffic around the city, and motoring organisations seem to agree by welcoming the plans.

This is of course not the answer to London’s traffic woes, and other steps are either proposed or currently being implemented.

One of these will be letting cyclists get into the bus lanes and make a right turn on red.

These new cyclist plans are coming ahead of London launching a cycle hire experiment, involving no less than 6000 bicycles in the city in the next two years.

Having lived in several countries where turning right/left when the lights are red is allowed, including the US, I simply cannot understand why this is a practice not permitted in the UK, as it eases traffic flow tremendously.

I am assuming that there is some safety issue that makes British transport chiefs believe that this is not practical.

In my experience this is an incredibly simple and effective way to ease traffic congestion and driver frustration.