On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 Mike Scott wrote:

Neil S wrote:
Mike Scott wrote:
wrote:
...

That's an interesting conundrum, given so many roads. If the lights
change too often, a high proportion of the green phase is soaked up by
people daydreaming before they realise the lights have turned green. If
you make the green phase longer, it takes proportionately longer for
one's turn to come round again. So the more efficient process is
subjectively worse, and may even lead to people jumping the lights in
frustration.

Would the solution be a roundabout?

I don't know the junction, so this may be a rubbish suggestion. Seems
to work adequately for the only seven road junction I know.

Looking at the map
(http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap...80360&A=Y&Z=1),
it's pretty nightmarish. I don't go there often by car (certainly never
driven there myself!), so hard to remember what the exact layout is on
the ground. Pall Mall, Haymarket, Charing X Road, Strand, Northumberland
Ave, Whitehall and The Mall (all the well-known names!) all converge on
this tiny piece of land; and they're all (usually) busy. If you don't
know beforehand which lane to use next, you're in trouble.

And major changes are probably politically impossible for such a
well-known place.

Impossible? Ken has just spent millions changing it from the roundabout
it was by paving over the road in front of the National Gallery.
--
Thoss