Stopping the traffic
Anyone who knows Dublin knows that we have a really big traffic problem. Attempting to move around Dublin by car can be frustrating at absolutely any time – I was recently caught in a traffic jam at 2 am. Journeys that should take 15 minutes can take nearly two hours. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that Dublin’s streets were designed for very different modes of transport and they simply cannot accommodate the traffic volumes we now have. The relatively inadequate state of public transport doesn’t help.
But one key contributor – and moreover one that would be comparatively easy to address – is the traffic light system. Dublin came relatively late to traffic lights: in the 1960s there were virtually none, and major junctions were either managed by a Garda (policeman) on point duty, or else not at all. As late as the early 1980s one of the busiest – at O’Connell Bridge – was still controlled in this way.
When traffic lights were introduced, they were totally uncoordinated. You could crawl along a street or road and find that at every intersection the light would be on red, no matter how you drove. Now that Dublin’s traffic lights are computerised and controlled centrally, this has not changed significantly; it is very hard to see any synchronisation of lights.
In addition, the settings at some junctions are plain crazy. Let me provide one example. Where the North Circular Road crosses Sherrard Street and Belvedere Road, the light turns green for Lower Sherrard Street once in each cycle, but stays on green for longer than for the other roads; in fact, Lower Sherrard Street is the least important of all those roads crossing here, as it is essentially a cul-de-sac and usually has no traffic waiting to exit at all. In the meantime, while the lights are on green for them in the hope that someone may come, the much busier North Circular Road and Belvedere Road are kept waiting with significant traffic build-up. I mention this example because it is all too typical.
Furthermore, Dublin is the only city I know that has pedestrian lights that turn red, amber and green. This means that the cycle of a pedestrian light is long, and as they are also almost never synchronised with nearby traffic lights, the disruption they cause is huge. And then there is the oddity of the filter lights – there are far too few of them, and where they exist they are often hugely confusing as they are often placed directly below the (normal) green lights, so that when only the filter light is on green and the red light is on, the traffic light appears to be giving the motorist a choice between red and green.
Dublin traffic problems will not be solved overnight. But there are some things that could be improved relatively easily, and traffic lights are amongst these.
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University Blog 
November 11, 2008 at 10:52 am
If less people would use cars two things will get solved: less pollution and better traffic.
The traffic lights for pedestrians are absolutely crazy in Dublin. But not for the reason you mention. If you would walk more often you would notice that Dublin is the only city where is simply impossible to obey the traffic lights for pedestrians because they just aren’t green for enough time.
You should go to Copenhagen to see how much better things are when one whole lane is devoted to cyclists.
November 11, 2008 at 7:36 pm
If you would walk more often you would notice that Dublin is the only city where is simply impossible to obey the traffic lights for pedestrians because they just aren’t green for enough time.
Be thankful that you’re not in North America. In the US and Canada, cars have green lights at the same time as pedestrians. If you’re crossing a road with a ‘walk’ sign in your favour – which more often than not turns to flashing red before you’ve had time to get across – you’ll be competing with cars turning, perfectly lawfully, into the intersection you’re crossing. Insane, incredibly dangerous system.
November 11, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I absolutely agree with Radu Grigore. As a long-time and frequent pedestrian in Dublin, the sequencing of pedestrian lights drives me crazy: there is a VERY long wait for a green man at city centre lights. How long does it take to cross both lanes of Dame St, outside Trinity, for example? Or even worse, to cross ‘diagonally’ both north-south across the river and left-right across O’Connell St? You grow old waiting and waiting for the pedestrian lights to turn in your favour, whilst the traffic lights stay green for a long time.
And don’t even get me started on the number of Dublin drivers who think that a red light at a pedestrian-crossing means that the car behind them has to stop, whilst they ‘nip through’, often practically over the top of any pedestrian foolish enough to trust to the fact that they have a green man in their favour…
…I could go on, because I live in Dublin and we’re all driven to distraction by this (pun intended). But I won’t, for everyone’s sake!
November 12, 2008 at 10:53 am
Interesting comments about pedestrian lights. A problem in Dublin is that these lights are not synchronised with other (non-pedestrian) lights, so that they create traffic havoc. This in turn encourages reckless drivers to cross when the lights have already turned red.
I don’t agree with Radu that they are not green long enough. If you combine the green with the amber (which is the amount of time they would be green if they were in any other country, as I’ve never seen amber pedestrian lights in any country other than Ireland – or more precisely Dublin, because they don’t seem to exist outside Dublin), then the time they are on red for cars is actually rather long.
As for Wendy’s comment, what she describes is normal in most European countries also – and when drivers know this, and that pedestrians have the right of way, it works fine.
Of course the best thing of all would be to have a proper and functioning system of public transport, but until we get that, having a traffic light system that actually builds up gridlock unnecessarily is in nobody’s interests.
November 12, 2008 at 5:59 pm
No, I’m sorry: Radu is right about the length of (some) pedestrian lights in Dublin, even allowing for the amber man. There are junctions in this city where I can’t get from kerb to kerb until well into the amber man, even if I’ve stepped off at the second that the green man appears. I should add that I’m a _very_ fast walker, and generally impatient to get where I’m going, so I don’t stroll idly across roads. I’ve often wondered how elderly pedestrians are supposed to cross in the time allowed by the lights, if I can’t.
November 12, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Well, that isn’t a problem – and this may also be why the amber setting is so stupid. You are not supposed to be able to get across while it’s green. Green means that you can start to cross. You can continue to cross (provided you’ve already started) while it’s amber. Cars are still on red at that time.
November 12, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Yes, I appreciate all that: my point is that the settings on many pedestrian lights are such that the traffic light is going green by the time you reach the far kerb. And given the nature of many Dublin drivers, the car at the front of the queue is often more or less revving its engine by that point.
The relationship between cars and pedestrians clearly needs to vary in different kinds of areas. But in the city centre, pedestrian lights should turn green more frequently, and for longer, than they do now. Dublin city centre is remarkably unfriendly for pedestrians, and something really does need to be done about it.
November 12, 2008 at 9:12 pm
”you’ll be competing with cars turning, perfectly lawfully, into the intersection you’re crossing. ‘
Actually, in California, pedestrians have the right of way. The traffic has to stop. I’ve lived in California for 10 years and never seen a problem with this, even with tourists. Why? They enforce the law. Generally, Californians are very respectful of traffic regulations. But if they had CHP and US cops around in Ireland, the Irish might too. Of course, it may be different in Alaska, but who cares about such places?
I dread using pedestrian crossings in Ireland when the light is red against traffic. Idiot cyclists don’t realise the law applies to them too. But let’s face it, the traffic light coordination isn’t the problem here – it’s too many cars.
Still, the declining economy should take care of some of the problems.
November 13, 2008 at 6:50 pm
One of the consequences of 20th century scientific success is that we seem to believe that if we get our act together, and commit enough resources, we can easily solve any technological problem. After all, if we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to make a photocopier that works all the time!
Things are never quite that simple and traffic light synchronisation is a case in point. Traffic and its control is a highly complex, non-linear problem and anyone who thinks they can easily synchronise lights is deluding him or herself. Try googling ‘traffic light simulation’ and you’ll find a number of excellent simulations that show how head-wrecking traffic control is.
July 9, 2009 at 10:54 am
[…] Aquí explican que la introducción de los semáforos en Dublín fue muy tardía: en los 60 prácticamente no había aún ninguno, y el cruce con más tráfico de toda la ciudad, el de O’Connell Bridge, no lo tuvo hasta los años 80. De modo que en cierta manera arrastran bastante inexperiencia en el tema. Podemos leer: When traffic lights were introduced, they were totally uncoordinated. You could crawl along a street or road and find that at every intersection the light would be on red, no matter how you drove. Now that Dublin’s traffic lights are computerised and controlled centrally, this has not changed significantly; it is very hard to see any synchronisation of lights. […]