Speaking of environmental concerns- waiting at stoplights. I have an idea.

[Guaranteed]

I've been thinking about how we could make for more efficient and quicker traffic for awhile- it's something I like to do in traffic- and finally had an idea, probably one that others have already come up with and rejected for much the same reasons as everything else gets rejected- it would take too much work. It's probably only practical to set up within an entirely new city, unless current cities can come up with space for an entirely new lane around each of their blocks.

But, yeah, in theory at least I think it's a pretty good idea for eliminating stoplights entirely in cities and allowing the free-flow of traffic through avoidance of crossings. It's much like the system of on and off-ramps we see in big freeway interchanges. The advantages are massive savings of energy, and likely savings of time, as well, not to mention greatly reduced incidence of traffic accidents. Speed limits could also be lowered, and would probably need to be. The disadvantages? No left-turns. But that's no worse than a lot of inner-city traffic these days- one-way streets and no-left-turn signs. And the cost for bridges would be high.

I wish I could draw a picture of the basic road and block set up, but I can't, so I'll just have to try to explain it.

Each city block would have its own lane going around it. A lane that simply circles the block, with traffic flowing clockwise (like a neverending right lane). If the block has any parking lots, a car simply turns into the lot from the block lane, and similarly, when leaving the lot, turns into the block lane.

The block lane is also used when a car needs to make a right turn. On top of the block lane, there is the straight lane (something like the "left" or "fast" lane) that allows for travel straight from one block to the next. These straight lanes would cross each other via small bridges and/or tunnels. When a car needed to make a right turn- and this is the beauty part- it would merge from one straight lane into the block lane for that block, make the turn, then merge again into the new straight lane from the block lane.

Similarly, to make a left turn onto a straight lane from a straight lane, the car would merge into the block lane of and make three right turns around the block situated immediately after the desired straight lane and then merge into the new straight lane to then pass over or under the previous straight lane being traveled.

Now, what about pedestrian travel between blocks, if there are no stoplights? How can a pedestrian cross these roads? That can be handled with this system as well, without the dangers we have today of pedestrians being hit by cars. There would still be sidewalks surrounding each block, inside each block lane, but there would be two ramps or stairs at each block corner, leading from the sidewalk through a tunnel under the block lane and onto a sidewalk leading up to and running alongside each straight lane bridge or tunnel, which would then tunnel under the block lane on the other side. Pedestrians could cross intersections along with cars going straight, in either direction (north/south or east/west), but could make turns from block to block via the block's sidewalks in much the same way as cars use the blocklanes- with the added advantage that they can travel in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. It would be pretty quick, in fact.



I'm really betting I'm not the first person that has come up with something like this. But, if that's so, why are we building new suburban cities with stoplights? This system would be much more efficient with time and energy, and much safer.

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Totally OT

But I wanted to thank you for comments in my thread the other day. I appreciated them.

[Guaranteed]

3. Sure thing.

Funny that people "don't like being told what to do" when it's just about being a freaking decent person. I get really sick of that.

[pinto]

2. I'd like to see more stop signs and less traffic lights. They seem to keep

a flow going better. Takes a little more common sense on drivers parts', but a simple stop and go seems to involve less idling time.

[Occam Bandage]

4. I don't know about that. It seems to me that traffic gets much worse when

stoplights go out (you know, when they go red-blinky and are treated like stop signs).

[SmokingJacket]

5. A lot of that is just driver confusion.

There's a busy stop-sign intersection near me that used mostly by commuters, so the drivers are very familiar with it. It has more traffic than many lighted intersections, and lots of turning traffic, but it's a very swift moving intersection because there's no wasted time. As soon as your turn comes, you go, bam bam bam.

I bet a lot of lighted intersections could be replaced by signs, or by blinking lights.