I am well aware of the problems with car dependent design, that isn’t what this is about.
I was driving in my car mandatory suburb and was delayed by a good 10 minutes due to a pair of very poorly timed lights. The main thoroughfare had a left turn lane split off that was backed up onto the main road. The turn light would literally turn green for about 5 seconds. A bit further down the road, a light controls traffic to a neighborhood of SFH with very few cars coming or going. The light on the main road would turn red for literally no cars longer than the other light stayed green with so many cars it caused a backup.
Simply adjusting these traffic lights would save loads of time, fuel, and EMISSIONS. It got me wondering what other things like adjusting those lights could be done that even the thirstiest petroholic can’t object to?
My example is a drop in the bucket to the GHG problem, but enough drops will fill the bucket. I will be contacting my city about it. I don’t doubt they will at least attempt to fix it because traffic is a common complaint, so a simple fix is an easy win for them.
roundabout. I like roundabout. My city council love traffic light so they put traffic light on every junction which create the problem you mentioned. It can be solved by roundabout. It has its downside but who care, i like roundabout.
Came here to comment this and was not disappointed. They’re safer as it’s impossible to have a head-on collision and keeps traffic flowing better.
The main reason they’re not as common in North America is because they got it wrong when they started using them in the USA by making those coming into it have right of way and they never caught on.
This is a really good podcast episode on the topic: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/roundabouts-the-problem-is-you-29861275/