This is how I feel

[andrewducker]

whenever someone complains about the Edinburgh traffic system:

Also, when they complain about taxes, politics, finances, or anything else they clearly don't understand.
(obviously, complaining about actually broken things, or things they do understand is fine)

Comments

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why more lights don't have sensors on to detect how many people are waiting on each road. In my home village there is a set of lights that works like that and the latency of travelling through the lights is very low while the throughput remains high.

[dreema.livejournal.com]

and it wouldn't surprise me if the lights system round edinburgh was designed by someone down in London, who had never even seen Edinburgh in real life.

We used to complain about the lights system the same in Lancaster. Thing was, our point was always proved when there was a power cut and the lights all failed (or someone crashed into one of the main control nodes). There were no traffic jams at all, it was like school holiday time.

no lights = good

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

but when that happens they put a policeman on to direct the traffic at which point EVERYTHING slows down. (I completely don't understand how whenever there's some big tarffic disruption like an accident or a march, they turn off the lights and let the policeman do it all- because that ALWAYS makes it worse.)

[andrewducker]

They do tend to on lone traffic lights. But when you're trying to control flow between multiple places, so that the next lot of lights arrives in time, and doesn't cut off traffic flowing at right angles it's not so easy.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

If that sort of light is set up wrong it isn't triggered by a bike, which is annoying.

[sqferryman.livejournal.com]

I'd like to meet the idiot who redisgned the junction of Strachand Road and Telford Road. Clearly the only simulation going on there was how to let fewer cars pass through.

[dreema.livejournal.com]

you could say the same about what used to be the roundabout in kincardine

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

No, I don't buy it. At my favourite junction-for-grumbling-about, the junction was designed -- yes, by an engineer -- to disrupt the main walking route from the station to the village by inserting numerous physical blockages. This was then compounded by forcing pedestrians to wait through three cycles of the lights to get across the junction on three separately controlled crossings; this replacing a walk of perhaps ten seconds. In one place the lights timings are designed so that if you are a fast healthy adult, and start to cross at the exact second the lights turn green, you might just, with a following wind, catch the next portion of crossing before it turns red and you have to wait through the entire cycle again.

It doesn't work for motorists either, requiring them to do an artificial U-turn to turn right, and having a confusing filter lane. Plus of course they have to dodge all the regular commuters, who, rather than add five minutes each way to their daily journey, ignore the pedestrian lights and walk straight across the junction using the cycle lane in reverse direction.

Now, there may have been one or more engineers. It's even possible they had a design spec to improve the flow of vehicle traffic at the expense of pedestrians. It's an explanation, not an excuse.

[blackmanxy.livejournal.com]

I sort of agree and I sort of don't. On the one hand, yeah, sometimes people really have no idea how complex the situation they're complaining about really is. Or just argue selfishly without thinking about it (like when people complain about taxes).

On the other hand, the people running all these systems don't always do it well. Or even manage to not do it horribly. I dislike the presumption that an engineer or legislator or whatever is right and has handled a situation properly just because they're supposed to know how the system works better than a layman does.

The two aren't necessarily closely related, I know. It's just easy to slip from one into the other. And, you know, I'm not saying you've done any such thing. Just my morning meanderings.

Gotta disagree slightly

[ratmist.livejournal.com]

At least when it comes to the traffic lights.

The timing sequences are often done these days on a GIS. I've got first-hand experience at seeing how easy it is to fuck that up, do it badly, and then be pig-headed about seeing how badly it was fucked up - not just my own work, but others' as well. While I agree it's all complicated, blowing off steam is a complicated emotion that is also worth a lot to a human being. Otherwise, maybe people would expend that pent-up rage in hitting pedestrians willynilly, rather than just bitching at the light.

[guyinahat.livejournal.com]

But traffic flow management isn't the the only thing on their agenda. Edinburgh is anti-car, and to a fair extent I think it helps to keep all those bloody drivers off the road. But they do go too far sometimes with schemes that are pointlessly anti-car.

And the multi-million pound switch of Hanover street junction from a roundabout to traffic lights and then back again demonstrates that they aren't that good with their calculations.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

WHS ie this is the sensible version of my comment below :-)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

whenever someone complains about the Edinburgh traffic system

IT STILL SUCKS!

:-P