Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Yo, Warren: "The benefits of removing stop lights."


The problem?

Streets need to have two-way traffic lanes for the regimen of 4-way stops to work.

The solution?

Two Way Streets Now.

The benefits of removing stop lights, by Robert Steuteville (Better! Cities & Towns)

A growing number of experts advocate stop light removal to save money, improve safety, make cities more walkable, and boost traffic flow.

... Planner Jeff Speck, author of Walkable City and former Director of Design of the National Endowment for the Arts, is a big proponent of removing traffic signals. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has eliminated many in the last year based on Speck's downtown revitalization plan. Four-way stops improve traffic flow because automobiles don't have to come to an extended stop and wait while signals change, Speck points out. For pedestrians, four-way stops are much better—because every automobile has to come to a complete stop and traffic is calmed.

According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

Speck said doing away with most of the downtown traffic signals in favor of four-way stops would make for a "dramatic change" to the downtown. Such an arrangement favors pedestrians — "The pedestrian is king" in the setup, he said — and he said motorists will prefer it because they don’t have to idle at traffic signals waiting for lights to change.

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