Have TfL been meddling with traffic light phasing in central London
recently, to the advantage of vehicles/bikes and the disadvantage of
pedestrians?

My perception, as an admittedly rather impatient pedestrian, is that
the wait at Ludgate Circus/Farringdon Street for the five seconds of
pedestrian time has expanded well beyond the minute it always was.

Meanwhile, this evening I noted that at New Change/Cannon Street you
wait a minute to get half way across, then another thirty seconds to
complete your crossing, where I'm sure previously you could get across
without traffic flow in one go.

And don't get me started on Victoria, where heading from the station
up to Victoria Street, pedestrians encounter one red after another,
funnelled into narrow channels between the building work.

I'm going to guess that whilst planners establish a cost of congestion
for vehicle users stuck in traffic, no such cost is established for
pedestrians stuck at lights waiting for traffic. Of course, there are
far more pedestrians on the streets of London than car/bus users, so
some sort of priority would appear to be in order, like more Zebra
crossing where vehicles have to wait until the pedestrian flow has
stopped.

Chris

On 10/03/2014 21:19, Chris Read wrote:
Have TfL been meddling with traffic light phasing in central London
recently, to the advantage of vehicles/bikes and the disadvantage of
pedestrians?

AIUI, yes - the Boris-era "smoothing traffic flow" agenda has been
around for a few years now though - and I've been intending on having a
something of a grumble about it on here for ages (well more like a
proper rant actually!).

One obvious problem is that it's difficult for the Man on Shank's Pony
(as opposed to the Clapham Omnibus) to really be sure that things have
changed for the worse, as most of us won't have scientifically recorded
the wait times x number of months or years ago, so you can just end up
wondering if this feeling that your waiting for longer is real.


My perception, as an admittedly rather impatient pedestrian, is that
the wait at Ludgate Circus/Farringdon Street for the five seconds of
pedestrian time has expanded well beyond the minute it always was.

Meanwhile, this evening I noted that at New Change/Cannon Street you
wait a minute to get half way across, then another thirty seconds to
complete your crossing, where I'm sure previously you could get across
without traffic flow in one go.

And don't get me started on Victoria, where heading from the station
up to Victoria Street, pedestrians encounter one red after another,
funnelled into narrow channels between the building work.

I'm going to guess that whilst planners establish a cost of congestion
for vehicle users stuck in traffic, no such cost is established for
pedestrians stuck at lights waiting for traffic. Of course, there are
far more pedestrians on the streets of London than car/bus users, so
some sort of priority would appear to be in order, like more Zebra
crossing where vehicles have to wait until the pedestrian flow has
stopped.


I'm also an impatient pedestrian, and I'd suggest things have changed
further afield than just in central London - waiting for a green man on
TLRN* / red routes takes rather longer now too, to the extent that it
rather feels like one the Michael is being taken as you wait an eternity
whilst the traffic never stops. Something which will, of course, only
encourage pedestrians to take risks. And of course it hardly makes you
feel like an important road user.

I appreciate that managing the roads is a balancing acting on a grand
scale, but I think this has tipped too far in one direction.


-----
* TLRN = TfL Road Network - the key roads in Greater London managed by TfL.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/roadusers/redroutes/941.aspx

"Chris Read" wrote in message
...


Have TfL been meddling with traffic light phasing in central London
recently, to the advantage of vehicles/bikes and the disadvantage of
pedestrians?

My perception, as an admittedly rather impatient pedestrian, is that
the wait at Ludgate Circus/Farringdon Street for the five seconds of
pedestrian time has expanded well beyond the minute it always was.

Meanwhile, this evening I noted that at New Change/Cannon Street you
wait a minute to get half way across, then another thirty seconds to
complete your crossing, where I'm sure previously you could get across
without traffic flow in one go.

And don't get me started on Victoria, where heading from the station
up to Victoria Street, pedestrians encounter one red after another,
funnelled into narrow channels between the building work.

I'm going to guess that whilst planners establish a cost of congestion
for vehicle users stuck in traffic, no such cost is established for
pedestrians stuck at lights waiting for traffic. Of course, there are
far more pedestrians on the streets of London than car/bus users, so
some sort of priority would appear to be in order, like more Zebra
crossing where vehicles have to wait until the pedestrian flow has
stopped.

Chris

Happy days (for pedetrians in London) may soon be here again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26480686

Surely it'll be a case of the lights thinking, "There's only two people waiting. Let's wait until there's about 6."