Transport for London (TfL) has set an ambitious goal of raising bike/ped/transit mode share from 63% today to 80%. The pedestrian infrastructure will play a major role in getting an extra million walking trips per day. To achieve this goal, London has developed some interesting ideas as outlined in a new Pedestrian Plan.
Signal timing is being optimized so that pedestrians should not have to wait more than 40 seconds at a crossing. At key intersections, detectors will be used to count the number of people waiting to cross, and adjust the signal timing accordingly.
The most radical proposal, though, is ‘green-man authority’, or what Americans might call the reverse beg-button:
‘Green man’ authority is a technique where the traffic signals show a green signal for pedestrians continuously, until vehicular traffic is detected, at which time the pedestrians are stopped on a red signal, and vehicles are given a green light to proceed. This technique has previously only been used at two locations in London, on bus-only streets in Hounslow and Morden. TfL has identified the next 10 new locations where this approach will be set up, where it would significantly benefit pedestrians, with very little detriment to traffic.
One of the frustrating things as a pedestrian is to be standing around at a corner waiting for a signal to change, even though there are no cars coming. The Green-Man authority eliminates this frustration, by defaulting to green for pedestrians. Since the UK does not have jaywalking laws, the benefit of this technology for Londoners is minor, but it would be a major benefit in the US as a workaround against all the jaywalking enforcement nonsense.
Healthy Streets Indicators
Waiting at the “red man” as a pedestrian is mostly down to the local enforcement rather than actual rules. As far as I understand the UK has a rule in the Highway Code that only suggests you stop and wait, there isn’t an offence associated with ignoring it (but it puts you with more liability in case of a collision).
Hopefully this improves the environment for walking. Compared to, say, Paris or New York, I find London rather frustrating to walk in. There’s a lot of long waits at traffic signals, channelized turns, and split signals that make it take forever to cross the street, and London as a city is not as active as the other two. Despite UK drivers overall being at a far higher level of skill compared to New York, and the city in general being far more orderly, it seems from the built environment pretty clear that the important people get driven around. Boston has many of the same issues and I’ve wondered whether it is due to some cultural commonalities.
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