Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent
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From The Times
March 4, 2008
Cars to be given green light at junctions under Boris’s London
Traffic lights will stay green longer for cars but be cut back for pedestrians under the transport manifesto of Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London.
Mr Johnson has announced a range of measures designed to appeal to drivers, including a pledge to cancel Ken Livingstone’s plan for a £25 daily congestion charge for the most fuel-inefficient cars from October.
Mr Johnson also proposed ending the current high fines for non-payment of the charge and replacing them with a more flexible system — a lower fee for entering the zone outside peak times. But his traffic lights proposal was immediately condemned by Living Streets, formerly the Pedestrians Association, which said the “green man” phase should be lengthened, not shortened, to give elderly people and parents with pushchairs more time to cross safely.
Mr Johnson claimed that Transport for London, Mr Livingstone’s travel authority, had increased the time that lights spend on red in order to slow down traffic. He also said the number of sets of lights had increased by 1,000 to 5,800 since 2001.
“We will rephase traffic lights so that they operate to keep traffic moving smoothly. We can do this without in any way imperilling pedestrians,” he said.
Richard Hebditch, campaigns manager for Living Streets, said: “If we are to encourage walking we need to make it safe, quick and easy to get about on foot — rephasing signals to mean people are waiting on the kerb for longer to be able to cross roads makes walking frustrating.
“Boris Johnson says that he wants to encourage children and adults to walk to work or to school, but making it more difficult to cross the road hardly seems the right way to go about this.”
Living Streets said London had become safer and friendlier to pedestrians in recent years but full green man crossings were still missing at 1,500 sets of lights.
Mr Johnson attempted to appeal to suburban voters by portraying Mr Livingstone as the “zone one mayor”, who had done little to improve transport in outer London boroughs.
He proposed a series of express buses on orbital routes in the suburbs to allow people to avoid travelling into Central London and back out again. Car drivers would be tempted by faster, direct services, with only two or three stops on routes such as Bexley to Richmond or Bromley to Sutton.
He pledged to fund 440 more police community support officers on buses and 50 more police officers to patrol the most dangerous stations in outer London.
The funding would come from cutting the budget for advertising and press officers.
Bendy buses would be phased out and replaced by 2012 with new open-platform buses with conductors, allowing passengers to hop on and off as they did with the old Routemasters.
The Conservative candidate said he would allow motorcycles to use all bus lanes and accused Mr Livingstone of withholding a TfL study which indicated that this would not pose any additional risk to pedestrians or cyclists.
Mr Johnson said: “It is time to stop using pain as the chief utensil by which people are prompted to use public transport. We need to do more than bullying people out of their cars by blocking their streets.”
He pledged in effect to abolish the western extension of the congestion charge zone by saying he would abide by the result of a new consultation with local residents. Previous surveys found residents were strongly opposed to it.
Young people under 18 would lose their free bus passes if they engaged in antisocial behaviour and would have to do community service to earn them back. Mr Johnson also plans to put up more than 10,000 extra cycle stands, using £2 million cut from TfL’s budget for consultants.
Brian Paddick, the Liberal Democrat candidate in the May 1 election, said: “Boris Johnson’s promise to improve trains and the policing of stations shows he has no idea what the mayor has control over. The British Transport Police and the railways are beyond the mayor’s remit.”
Mr Livingstone’s re-election team said putting conductors on new Routemaster-style buses on bendy bus routes would cost £48 million, resulting in higher bus fares.
@ People wanting left turn on red lights.
That has never been done in the UK, so it would actually make the roads considerably more dangerous and create more accidents. It works in other countries as that is the driving culture.
Matthew Hutton, Oxford, UK
Remove many of the traffic lights. They contribute to global warming if you believe this, causing vehicles stopping and starting rather than keeping traffic moving, pouring fumes into the atmosphere whilst stationery. Lights installed at a major roundabout in Perth increased congestion and traffic jams for the sake of a few pedestrians . we should be able to turn left on a red light when clear, Won't happen as we are British and devoid of common sense.
sb, perth,
I didn't see anything in the article about reducing the amount of time you have to cross the road only adjusting the amount of time lights remain green for vehicles.
I don't know about London but some of the timings here are far too short for the volume of traffic trying to make their way through the junction and some of the sequences leave queues of traffic standing for no good reason.
Road markings and layouts are confusing and encourage people to drive on the right and if you drive at the speed limit you constantly find yourself being stopped by the lights.
Mix in all the other 'traffic calming measures' and it can take 45 minutes to go 3 miles in Hull at rush hour.
Tony, Hull,
Instead of having longer green lights, why not just sync the lights on busy roads so they turn green for traffic approaching at a steady rate? Keep traffic moving at the speed limit and have push-button pelican crossings only work outside rush hour to keep the flow going. Not terribly difficult, either in concept or execution.
Julian, Twickenham, UK
Why not allow traffic to "turn left on a red light", you know the flashing orange arrow, a common enough feature on US and mainland European roads.
Wolfie, London,
Both are wrong as they seem to go to extremes. While 25 pounds entry is stiff by any standards, reducing time for pedestrian crossings is clearly a retrograde step. Public transport is not the answer to all commuting needs and vehicles are needed. the answer is segregation by have all pedestrian zones and car cum pedestrian zones with intervening car parks. I found Glasgow has such wonderful walkways...
Uday, Pune, India
Boris obviously doesnt get to Hammersmith gyratory much - pedestrians here cant read the lights anyway, judging by the number of near misses I get each week, so it wont make any difference.
They still havent realised that a RED man means STOP - the traffic is about to START moving.
Cunning and very complicated these crossings:)
Gary, Farnham, UK
Bravo! Ageing population, less time to cross the road - fewer old people. A gem of an idea.
Martina, Duesseldorf, Germany
Re-phasing traffic lights after years of trying to make London more pedestrian-friendly and safer seems like a severe misjudgment on behalf of Boris Johnson. Next he'll replace pavements with Routemaster bus lanes.
I agree with Boris on motorbikes though, it seems reasonable to let them use bus lanes providing they don't endanger pedestrians by sneaking past buses like too many cyclist already do.
Express buses seems like a non-sense idea. Ken has already made high efforts to create a London Orbital Rail service (now re-branded as London Overground). This will especially help South Londoners once it's completed by using the East London Line and Clapham to Crystal Palace railway lines. Sadly, voters don't understand that new rail infrastructure take a few years to appear yet all these projects have been started by Livingstone. Express buses are just buzzwords. They don't run on dedicated tracks and their operation can be removed at any point, unlike rail services.
Mark S, London, UK
Traffic lights for pedestrians should be lengthened, if anything. I am no slouch, but found I had to move quicker than I do back here at home. Also, what about those who are unable to hurry across, though no fault of their own?
Does Boris ever walk at these crossings? I would challenge him to at least observe what is going on.
margie, victoria, australia
As for taking passes from young troublemakers, this is already being implemented and not a new policy unless he specifies how this is to be achieved more effectively.
Even on cycle stands his policies are rather old news. Under current London Plan policies, property developers already have to provide a decent amount of cycle parking provision in order to obtain planning permission. This way the private sector pays for most of the infrastructure.
I believe that Boris has some good 'ideas' but that Ken has mastered the wider, more significant, forward-looking policies and a good track record when it comes to sustainable transport. Therefore, my vote goes for Ken on transport.
Mark S, London, UK
Finally, common sense.
As someone who lives in zone 2, I use the bus and tube every day, and having the bus stop every 20 seconds because of a traffic light, yobs annoying the driver, or a bus stop every 50m is hardly effective public transport. Londoners have felt Mr Livingstone grinding away at the commuter for years.
Matthew, London, UK
All sounds good to me...some common sense regarding the traffic lights...lets hope its not all talk and no action
Michael, Beckenham, UK
I feel as if I am awakening from some terrible dream at last...
Alex Johnson, London, UK
Within 10 years the whole issue of congestion will be merely a moot point. Peak oil has passed and the only viable alternative at present is a horse and cart.
Mark, Derby, UK
Finally, some "sanity" in the insane world called London.
Matt, London, Because there is no other