Capital sees light over traffic signals

04 April 2007

Transport for London and the boroughs have agreed there is a need to rationalise the capital’s number of traffic signals, but have been frustrated by a lack of national guidance.
A borough-TfL working group, set up to ‘try to get some common sense’ into traffic signal provision, had been frustrated by the fact that the criteria for installing traffic signals dated from 1973, Joe Weiss, London Technical Advisors’ Group chair said. ‘There are too many signals in London, but we can’t remove them willy-nilly. We need sensible, up-to-date criteria on when they’re needed,’ Weiss told Surveyor.
There are now 5,800 traffic signals in place across the capital, and large-scale new developments are adding to this number all the time. But London’s population is planned to grow by 900,000 by 2025, creating an estimated 30% increase in demand for road-based transport. While signals paid for under Section 106 agreements were frequently needed, Weiss said ‘every new building should not require signals’.
Developers often pushed for signals to provide easy ingress, adding to the ever-increasing signal stock. And while signals were sometimes being introduced where they were not warranted, conversely, they were also not being installed when they were justified, he claimed, such as to provide pedestrian access to schools. ‘A lot of things have changed since 1973. Traffic volumes are more than twice as high, for a start,’ he added. ‘We want the Department for Transport to revisit this issue as a matter of urgency.’ The DfT was not available for comment.

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