Comment by wizofaus
3 years ago
What's wrong with "turn right on red"? It'd be a big problem in that exact form in Australia, but as a cyclist especially I'd rather we had the equivalent "turn left on red" law, and to be honest, cyclists can generally get away with it anyway. But I can't see why it would really be a huge issue if it was allowed for cars, unless they were persistently ignoring pedestrians/cyclists and turning into their path as they crossed in front of you.
The big one for me is traffic lights - cyclists/pedestrians should be able to trigger traffic/pedestrian lights to turn green instantly in most cases (with some reasonable lower limit on the amount of time they've been red for, although ideally all traffic lights in urban areas would be hooked up to sensors able to determine if there was any traffic approaching), and ideally approaching cyclists should be able to trigger them without even stopping to press a button - I gather they have something like this in Copenhagen. There's realistically no way to set up traffic light sequences so that they suit all modes of travel, but they're often especially bad for cyclists, and the act of having to stop and start all the time is far more onerous (and even dangerous, esp. if you're clipped in) for cyclists than it is for cars.
Turn right on red kills cyclists and pedestrians. It was always unsafe but the introduced it in the 1970 during the oil crisis with the idea that there would be less idling on red.
In most cases you shouldn't even need traffic lights at all but there is certainty a lot you can do with traffic lights if you optimize them, there are lots of videos on this from the Netherlnads. There they have separate sensors for different transport modes and also multiple levels so the intersection can respond smartly based on lots of info about what is coming from what direction. It can also let people cross half the road to the protect middle in a smart way. Forcing to press a button is horrible design!
But this is just one of many tools. Having flat bicycle and pedestrian ways where cars have to go over bumbs. There are many methods that are used.
The most import one is just slowing cars down cars.
Netherlands deliberately bans cars from some streets to kill certainty routes completely and forcing people to take different longer routes. That means also less cars on that route even in the parts that the car could have taken.