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Ridiculous short interval at traffic lights

davindub

I just want guage how widespread this problem is, but over the last few months, traffic lights sequence in north dublin city (Beaumount, Santry) has changed. Some lights are only green for a brief second on major roads and it means only 2 cars get out at a time.

Anyone else experienced this in other areas?

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LeinsterDub

davindub wrote: »

Hope they realise that they are not good at realising the consequences of their actions soon....

By consequences you mean getting more people in and out of the city quicker? Yup they know what they are doing

[Deleted User]

Eric Cartman wrote: »

they've changed the lights along the quays to give the cyclists a 20 second head start and artificially slow down the car traffic. The great road diet achieving nothing and infuriating everyone.

I don't know, all the cyclists and pedestrians are enjoying the reprioritisation

Definitely a lot safer and definitely allowing for more people to walk & cycle safely

[Deleted User]

Eric Cartman wrote: »

they've changed the lights along the quays to give the cyclists a 20 second head start and artificially slow down the car traffic. The great road diet achieving nothing and infuriating everyone.

The cars are going to have to give cyclists the head start anyway. The light sequence just formalises that. When there are tens of cyclists surrounding the cars at the front of the line, the cars aren’t going anywhere until the cyclists have gotten out of the way. That dynamic was already starting before COVID. It’s not a traffic light problem. It is just a consequence of there being loads and loads more cyclists. That trend is not going to change any time soon, so expect to see the traffic management system evolve to reflect it

RobAMerc

noticed this on the prom in Dun Laoighre the other day. Lights barely let one car through, then stayed green longer for non existent traffic from Park road - then non existent pedestrians - before changing for a 6 seconds for cars on prom again ( the only one with actual traffic on it )
In the 40 mins I was there 90% of the traffic was along the prom wainting for fantasy pedestrians, just stupid.

ridiculous council looking to frustrate motorists again - aholes :rolleyes:

LeinsterDub

RobAMerc wrote: »

noticed this on the prom in Dun Laoighre the other day. Lights barely let one car through, then stayed green longer for non existent traffic from Park road - then non existent pedestrians - before changing for a 6 seconds for cars on prom again ( the only one with actual traffic on it )
In the 40 mins I was there 90% of the traffic was along the prom wainting for fantasy pedestrians, just stupid.

ridiculous council looking to frustrate motorists again - aholes :rolleyes:

As a motorist you get 90% of the transport funding. 90% of the road allocation. The majority of the time at the lights. Can basically drive door to door to most destinations. And you're here to plead the beal bocht?

Pythagorean

Waiting to turn right onto Sandyford Rd, near the Dundrum town centre, the green filter comes on, but I have to wait while 3 cars blatantly ignore a red light to turn right across my path. I finally get through on orange, while 20 odd cars wait behind me. Not good for the blood pressure.

LeinsterDub

Pythagorean wrote: »

Waiting to turn right onto Sandyford Rd, near the Dundrum town centre, the green filter comes on, but I have to wait while 3 cars blatantly ignore a red light to turn right across my path. I finally get through on orange, while 20 odd cars wait behind me. Not good for the blood pressure.

Cycling is great for your blood pressure.

davindub

LeinsterDub wrote: »

By consequences you mean getting more people in and out of the city quicker? Yup they know what they are doing

I doubt many people hike from Beaumount to the city and back, but if they are they probably appreciate stopping at lights to rest and are more concerned with wind resistance.

Cookie_Monster

magicbastarder wrote: »

at a lot of lights i know, they are? i.e. you get a specific direction green at lights (straight on cars allowed, left turning not, etc.) because left turning cars would cross a ped crossing showing a green. i may have misunderstood you though.

over here in NZ left/right turning while the pedestrian light is green is allowed, but obviously vehicles must yield to pedestrians. What happens here is the pedestrian lights turn green about 2 seconds before the vehicle lights do in the same direction. Amost every standard junction operates like this once the button has been pressed. Works seamlessly and keep capacity much higher than in Ireland where sequences are kept seperate.

LeinsterDub

davindub wrote: »

I doubt many people hike from Beaumount to the city and back, but if they are they probably appreciate stopping at lights to rest and are more concerned with wind resistance.

That's like a 20 - 30 minute cycle. Perfectly cycleable for the vast majority of the population.

alentejo

As a cyclist (and some time driver), I have noted very short green phases for general traffic.

Cycling with my 8 year old daughter recently, some of the green phases for traffic are extremely short (2/3 seconds), that we could not safely get across a road junction when stopped at a red light and proceeding on green. On one occasion, she was a little slow in starting and the light went red as she was about one-third the way across a very busy junction. Very short phases of green for traffic are dangerous in my opinion both for pedestrians and cyclists.

I get very frustrated with the efforts of so called traffic engineers. Sometimes they are so focused on being any car that they dont seem to get what cyclists actually need!

cgcsb

Eric Cartman wrote: »

they've changed the lights along the quays to give the cyclists a 20 second head start and artificially slow down the car traffic. The great road diet achieving nothing and infuriating everyone.

There are more cyclists and pedestrians using the quays than motorists so surely it's improving the situation for the majority and infuriating a tiny minority of irrational individuals.

cgcsb

RobAMerc wrote: »

noticed this on the prom in Dun Laoighre the other day. Lights barely let one car through, then stayed green longer for non existent traffic from Park road - then non existent pedestrians - before changing for a 6 seconds for cars on prom again ( the only one with actual traffic on it )
In the 40 mins I was there 90% of the traffic was along the prom wainting for fantasy pedestrians, just stupid.

ridiculous council looking to frustrate motorists again - aholes :rolleyes:

walk or cycle so.

L1011

Eric Cartman wrote: »

they've changed the lights along the quays to give the cyclists a 20 second head start and artificially slow down the car traffic. The great road diet achieving nothing and infuriating everyone.

Most are 3 to 5 second - there's one longer one at Church Street as the cycle lane changes sides

Isambard

isn't it the case that if the light goes green and the first car is slow to move, the system assumes there are no cars waiting and goes red again?

trellheim

I've read back the thread. All the named junctions are plagued by RLJs ; the traffic engineers MUST give more time to pedestrians due to knobs ignoring lights.

In one or two of the junctions extra time has been given to cyclists to allow safe progression, but its not all of the junctions. I am very firmly of the view that this is DCC protecting pedestrians from absolute knob-head drivers who thinks its OK to go on a yellow.

magicbastarder

on that note - i was on collins avenue, crossing over the swords road yesterday (eastbound) during rush hour. main junction in whitehall
the way the sequence works there is that traffic coming from donneycarney gets full green first - for them to go straight on towards DCU, or take a right to swing north up towards the M1.

we got the green, after the above traffic did - and couldn't move, due to a stream of the above traffic driving clear through their red to make the turn northbound. by the time the last car and van passed, the lights were already going amber for us.

07Lapierre

trellheim wrote: »

I've read back the thread. All the named junctions are plagued by RLJs ; the traffic engineers MUST give more time to pedestrians due to knobs ignoring lights.

In one or two of the junctions extra time has been given to cyclists to allow safe progression, but its not all of the junctions. I am very firmly of the view that this is DCC protecting pedestrians from absolute knob-head drivers who thinks its OK to go on a yellow.

Reducing the speed limit to 30kph and having speed cameras at every junction ( along with actual enforcement from the Gardai) is needed. Anything else is just “window dressing” and a total waste of time.

the boss of me

magicbastarder wrote: »

i know what you're saying, but this to me only serves to highlight how mind bendingly inefficient cars are at moving people around.
the distance you mention is 290m, so maybe 60 or 70 people if all the traffic was private cars (allowing 6m per queuing car, 1.25 occupants per car) - in ten minutes. one person every ten seconds.

I think you're missing the point. It's the ridiculously short time the traffic light is staying green that is causing the problem and making the car so inefficient. But it's not just cars being held up. There is no bus priority on that particular stretch of road so the short sequence is having an adverse effect on buses.

magicbastarder

oh, i never said i thought the light sequence was adequate; i regularly drive through a couple of sets of lights where the light is already going amber by the time the third car is in the junction, and i don't see the specific benefit. that short sequence isn't at all times of the day, it only seems to be applied at specific times (and i don't actually know yet what the pattern is)
but it's not the lights which make cars inefficient, they're already inefficient and the lights amplify that.

testarossa40

Implementation of the UK version light sequence (Green-Amber-Red-Amber-Green) might help get more cars away when the lights turn green?

Tarabuses

testarossa40 wrote: »

Implementation of the UK version light sequence (Green-Amber-Red-Amber-Green) might help get more cars away when the lights turn green?

Not when the drivers are busy using their phones at the red light.

tibia

As someone who drives to work with no realistic public transport alternative, I was concerned reading this thread.

I too had noticed the short green lights in various places over the last few months and thought it might have been the low traffic volumes causing problems with the adaptive sequencing. Now I realise it is a deliberate adjustment as described earlier in the thread.

It makes sense to adjust the traffic systems to facilitate increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic. However, throttling vehicle traffic to an excessive degree will have a negative environmental impact - especially in the immediate locality.

I can think of one such thoroughfare in a leafy suburb which is choked with traffic in both directions during morning and evening rush hour - essentially a 700m long line of cars in each direction either stationary or moving at walking pace - courtesy of traffic lights at each end. When a car is stopped with the engine idling it achieves 0 MPG. The exhaust fumes from all the petrol and diesel cars idling on this road in the morning and evening are very unpleasant. I would think the residents of the expensive houses do not enjoy this particular feature of their locality.

From an environmental and even health-and-safety perspective, it would seem to make sense to optimise the traffic flow so that cars can move efficiently to their destination instead of creating miles of polluting tailbacks especially in residential areas. For example, in the evening rush hour the traffic system should aim to get all the polluting cars out of the city as quickly as possible instead of keeping them queuing everywhere with their engines idling and fumes pouring out. Of course, doing this will just encourage more people into cars which is probably self-defeating and not what we want to be doing anyhow.

I think the only way to reduce car usage is to make public transport a more realistic alternative for more people. Using short green intervals to frustrate the motorist just leads to hardship for people like me who have no practical alternative (unless my morning journey goes up from 50 minutes to 2.5 hours which is what the bus took, last time I tried it).

My fear is that come next Autumn when schools return, the new short green intervals will create tailbacks of unseen proportions all over Dublin.

Truthvader

tibia wrote: »

As someone who drives to work with no realistic public transport alternative, I was concerned reading this thread.

I too had noticed the short green lights in various places over the last few months and thought it might have been the low traffic volumes causing problems with the adaptive sequencing. Now I realise it is a deliberate adjustment as described earlier in the thread.

It makes sense to adjust the traffic systems to facilitate increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic. However, throttling vehicle traffic to an excessive degree will have a negative environmental impact - especially in the immediate locality.

I can think of one such thoroughfare in a leafy suburb which is choked with traffic in both directions during morning and evening rush hour - essentially a 700m long line of cars in each direction either stationary or moving at walking pace - courtesy of traffic lights at each end. When a car is stopped with the engine idling it achieves 0 MPG. The exhaust fumes from all the petrol and diesel cars idling on this road in the morning and evening are very unpleasant. I would think the residents of the expensive houses do not enjoy this particular feature of their locality.

From an environmental and even health-and-safety perspective, it would seem to make sense to optimise the traffic flow so that cars can move efficiently to their destination instead of creating miles of polluting tailbacks especially in residential areas. For example, in the evening rush hour the traffic system should aim to get all the polluting cars out of the city as quickly as possible instead of keeping them queuing everywhere with their engines idling and fumes pouring out. Of course, doing this will just encourage more people into cars which is probably self-defeating and not what we want to be doing anyhow.

I think the only way to reduce car usage is to make public transport a more realistic alternative for more people. Using short green intervals to frustrate the motorist just leads to hardship for people like me who have no practical alternative (unless my morning journey goes up from 50 minutes to 2.5 hours which is what the bus took, last time I tried it).

My fear is that come next Autumn when schools return, the new short green intervals will create tailbacks of unseen proportions all over Dublin.

Dont think you get it. DCC have dedicated themselves to making Dublin traffic as slow and difficult as possible over the last 30 years. This is just the latest wheeze after years of blocked roads, parking removed, footpaths deliberately extended to obstruct left hand lanes/ turns. Many of the posters here think this is a great thing and will promte and cheer it every step of the way.

Galadriel

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

It's like when there was no traffic, they switched all the lights to night-time mode, but forgot to switch them back now that traffic is increasing back to near normal levels.

There's a couple of sets on my route home that barely let two cars through, even if they're on the ball.

That's exactly what I thought, it's crazy that they haven't change them back, it's so frustrating.

markpb

tibia wrote: »

From an environmental and even health-and-safety perspective, it would seem to make sense to optimise the traffic flow so that cars can move efficiently to their destination instead of creating miles of polluting tailbacks

What you’re suggesting is/was law in California and was used to block cycling and bus improvements over the years. It turns out that it’s wrong and doesn’t work. Optimising locally for vehicles ends up making active and mass transport a lot less attractive so people end up driving. The net effect is that overall pollution is worse, the throughout of the entire system is reduced and the health benefits of cycling, walking and even walking to/from bus stops is lost.

bigar

I can only applaud anything that inconveniences cars inside build up areas. Cars standing still are much safer for pedestrians and cyclists (although no cars would be even better).
Cannot stand sitting in your car just waiting? Take a bicycle, walk or get a motorbike/moped and waiting times will be greatly reduced.

LeinsterDub

Truthvader wrote: »

Dont think you get it. DCC have dedicated themselves to making Dublin traffic as slow and difficult as possible over the last 30 years. This is just the latest wheeze after years of blocked roads, parking removed, footpaths deliberately extended to obstruct left hand lanes/ turns. Many of the posters here think this is a great thing and will promte and cheer it every step of the way.

Do you understand the concept of limited capacity? Dublin has no more room for cars. Alternatives need to be promoted

Truthvader

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Do you understand the concept of limited capacity? Dublin has no more room for cars. Alternatives need to be promoted

The capacity has been deliberately and artificially reduced. Check out all the cheerleaders here and the level of jealousy and spite informing their posts. The agenda is not to promote alternatives but to drag everyone down to the level of bicycles/CIE they are stuck with

LeinsterDub

Truthvader wrote: »

The capacity has been deliberately and artificially reduced. Check out all the cheerleaders here and the level of jealousy and spite informing their posts. The agenda is not to promote alternatives but to drag everyone down to the level of bicycles/CIE they are stuck with

No it hasn't. The number of cars has sky rocketed. Up nearly 100% in 30 years.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/452305/ireland-number-of-registered-passenger-cars/#:~:text=Registered%20passenger%20cars%20in%20Ireland%201990-2017&text=In%202017%2C%20the%20number%20of,approximately%20two%20million%20registered%20vehicles.

You've dismissed cycling and public transport. Not many alternatives left for you is there?