Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Traffic-Heavy Village Removes All Traffic Lights And Signs. So How Did That Work Out?

On SRTC's Facebook page a couple days ago, I posted about a joke that Spokane Valley played on us for April Fool's Day. We were accepting applications for projects our member agencies wanted to construct using funds from what's called the "Congestion Management/Air Quality" program. The deadline was Monday and dozens of applications were coming in. Among them was one from Spokane Valley that requested funds, under their "Straw Hut Initiative," to remove traffic signals from all arterial intersections and add bike lanes, in an effort to get people to use more nonmotorized transportation such as bikes and horses. Wait a minute. Horses?? I read all the way through the application before noticing the "April Fools!" message handwritten at the bottom. Well played Spokane Valley, well played.

But it's no joke in the UK. One English village there has no traffic lights, no signs, no curbs and no painted lines on the roadway. And 26,000 vehicles passing every day through the area, which has heavy pedestrian traffic.


So how bad is the carnage on a daily basis? Not bad at all. And how do drivers know how to navigate the "roundels?" Watch the video.


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About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.