If you suspected that traffic lights were as much of a nasty authoritarian excrescence as the governments that spend your hard-earned money to install them, your views have been vindicated by an experiment in Europe (of course). According to this article in the Toronto Star:
The implementation in a number of European communities of what some have dubbed "naked streets'' has been hugely successful.
Urban planners in Holland, Germany and Denmark have experimented with this free-for-all approach to traffic management and have found it is safer than the traditional model, lowers trip times for drivers and is a boost for the businesses lining the roadway.
The idea is that by removing traffic lights, signage and sidewalks, drivers and pedestrians are forced to interact, make eye contact and adapt to the traffic instead of relying blindly on whether that little dot on the horizon is red or green.
Planners have found that without the conventional rules and regulations of the road in place, drivers tend to slow down, open their eyes to their environment and develop a "feel" for their surroundings.
In effect, every person using the street, be it an SUV owner or a kid with a wagon, becomes equal.
I don't doubt this. The day of the blackout I had to drive home from midtown Manhattan and it was smooth sailing. You would have thought the traffic unbearable but everyone cooperated nicely and I went the long way up, all the way up to the Bronx using avenues, no highways.
Posted by: Rob S. | May 16, 2005 at 10:24 AM
check here for europe http://www.tripeu.com
thanks.
Posted by: Dalog | May 17, 2005 at 01:50 PM