I agree with Bob - where I drive (Zurich) it works well. Very well timed in my view, to ensure traffic doesn't enter medieval Zurich before it has exited somewhere else.

However as each set is individually controlled, maybe there are some that need adjusting, so stop whinging, and just report it. I once got a red light photo at an intersection I use daily, where there was suddenly, inexplicably, no time to cross. I called, they noted, and it was fixed and no fine came (they would have had huge increase in revenue that day).

If you have an issue with the timing let them know, otherwise apathy is the winner.

Lisa

Lots of traffic lights here were excellently phased in the late 60ies and through much of the 70ies. But when the Greens invaded politics it was decided to "unphase" the traffic lights, as having phased traffic lights only supported the car-drivers, and that "poorly phased lights" would work as a deterrent against the use of private transport ! Do not forget that many members of "non-green" parties in excecutive functions (in Zurich Mr Aeschbacher of the EVP and Mrs Martelli of the FDP for example) in practice really were/are "Greens". You may have seen the uncountable road-changes were those lanes between the tram-stations and the trottoirs got removed and private transport forced to wait behind trams at train-stations (author Mrs Martelli). There was what those in politics called a "compromise" which means that if an underground parking lot of 100 places is opened, 100 parking spaces above will be removed, which to me means a 100% surrender to the Greens.

...thereby creating stop-and-go traffic which causes much more noise and pollution than a steady flow of traffic.

Not exactly related, but there are traffic lights in La Chaux de Fonds and Neuchatel that remain red, until you get close enough that they detect you and then turn green. My partner was waiting for about 2 minutes around midnight, with no other cars on the road until he realised.... hehe.

Nothing in Switzerland happens by accident.

Now you are going to have to wait twice as long....

Had you just returned from one of those neat cafes in the Netherlands?

There are a few green waves around, but in most places, it's still missing. There are also still places where you can stand around waiting for nobody. I see no reason for that whatsoever in the year 2011...

As someone said, how environmentally friendly is stop and go traffic? Since more and more people are driving, it doesn't seem like an efficient way of stopping people from driving. And closing available parking spaces, just so that instead of driving straight to parking, you need to circle around in stop and go pace, doesn't seem to help cutting pollution either.

The red-green politicians need to face reality instead of thinking pollution will be lower when they create as many obstacles as possible.

If there would be large parking lots at major train stations, I would consider driving there and take the train in to the city, but when it's faster to drive in to the city even with all obstacles, than to take the Postauto (which run every 30 minutes, if I'm lucky) and then the train, I still choose the car. Besides, it's too hard to get a pram in to the bus and train, but that's another area of improvement needed.

Sorry, but you misunderstand. The few "green waves" still around are the survivors. Those you describe as "missing" in reality have been REMOVED !

And your further writing about "face reality" simply ignores the fact that to make life miserable to car-drivers is part of the ideology of those "Greens".

Yeah, why keep a good thing for both the environment and the car drivers? Real win-win situation here

I know, we should all be happy bikers, pedaling up and down the hills.
But hey, it's a democracy. Any idiot is allowed to participate

Yes it is democracy - and the red/green coalition has been democratically voted in to the Zurich town council for many years. Apparently it's what the majority of Zürchers want: war on the car at any price, even to the environment...

So true. Ten years ago, I used to get really angry and frustrated every time I was driving here. Now, I load my car with good music and have shifted to an automatic (my left leg and right arm couldn't take it any longer...) and face the fact that this is the price for living here. As long as the pros outweigh the cons, it's worth it.

Right you are, except that it is far worse, with politicians like former City President Wagner tolerating "Greenish" advances and Mrs Martelli (also FDP) happily and decisively putting Greenish measures and ideas into practice.

A strange thing is that when I meet two chaps in Wollishofen at times, it becomes clear that they due to living in leftist-green dominated City of Zurich support the political right, while I, having been domiciled for now a decade in rightist dominated places in Suburbia increasingly support the Social-Democrats. Now, in Glattbrugg, the SP is increasingly under the influence of the socially relatively conservative Abdel-Aziz family, which means that they have had quite some success in recent elections and have ended the SVP dominance, but are rather Helmut-Schmidt Social-Democrats than heavy leftists.

I believe firmly that the stop and go traffic is ONLY to allow the city (Zurich) to clear the backlog.

Have you ever been in Zurich in gridlock? Nightmare. Total gridlock, Ben Elton style, is unbelievable in Zurich. There is nowhere to go and even the trams cant move. It has happened a couple of times and it is worse than any sort of claustrophobia when you cannot move your car at all, even to the next garage.

Given the size of Zurich (small) and the amount of traffic (high, as many drive north/south through zurich city, it is still faster than goig around) available access (minimal as the lake and hills are in the way) they can only let the peak hour traffic in slowly ... it has to have a chance to dissolve into the parking garages ... before they let more in.

Stop and go traffic is not better for the environment. But it is better for traffic flow. And therefore, for those of us that prefer to drive (despite the environmental impact of that decision).

Lisa

I don't have much problems with the traffic lights.

And yes, they are designed to make motorist's lifes difficult.

The red-green (which in reality corresponds to red-red) politicians couldn't care less about pollution: they are only interested in combatting individual traffic, even if this actually increases pollution.

I live in Geneva and the traffic lights are my number 1 complain about living in Switzerland. I never thought I could hate a machine as much as I hate a specific traffic light near my apartment. It is 2 minutes red, 5-10 seconds green.

I think it has many things involved: poorly designed circulation (too many turns allowed), too much preference for public transportation, too many cars for a city this small, and poorly programmed traffic lights.

One thing that I find exasperating is waiting at a red light. Then I see that the pedestrian crossing passes to red, and the small bike traffic lights turns green... but the car traffic light stays red for another 5 seconds! How many cars can pass is those precious 5 secons? why does it remaiin red? It really makes me angry sometimes...

Also, do they know in Switzerland what a traffic police officer is? In Spain when there is a traffic jam, the police sends 1 or 2 policemen to regulate traffic, using their good judgement to let more cars pass from the lanes with more traffic. I have never seen one in CH.

Good judgement from traffic cops?

Simply be grateful for any seconds of green


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Swiss car drivers complain that not enough turns are allowed ! The Greens and the Green-Liberals and the VCS complain that there is not yet enough preference for public transport ! The traffic lights are programmed in order to discourage people using cars Geneva is the second-largest city in this country, and so NOT that small

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It stays red in order to give you time to consider buying a bike


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A traffic police officer ? A modern one is someone checking driving speeds, making random controls of car-drivers in regard to documents and alcohol, or driving around in a patrol car, looking out for possible culprits. The sort of "traffic police officer" however is a chap who got retired between 1970 and 1980 an extinct species ................... except some you at times can see at Central in Zürich and until some years ago at Bellevue

Yeah, all those other cars should get off the road and let you drive, right? All that dang traffic getting in the way of your car? Who do they think they are? I'll tell you what they should do, they should all get rid of their cars and use public transport instead. Then, they should reduce the priority of public transport so that all those buses have to wait for your car instead of the other way round. That'd really sort the problem out once and for all.

One thing that will always be a given when it comes to car driving - it always brings out the hate. Hate the traffic, hate the parking, hate having to wait a few minutes for a green light (oh no, how impossibly rude!), hate hate hate the traffic light which doesn't even understand how important seconds are to such an important person as you. And of course, everybody is suddenly a complete expert on managing traffic flow through a complex network with all sorts of feedback effects and dynamic complications, and with just a couple of seconds' thought they can proclaim to know infinitely better than all those people who have actually studied the problem and worked on solving it, and then it's quite easy to smugly announce that everybody who works on it are all morons (morons, I tell you!) and it's really all very simple and could be done very very easily a whole lot better if I spent 30 seconds looking at the problem.

Oh yeah, and there's a politically-motivated WAR against the poor defenceless motorist and it's all very very unfair. The politicians all hate us and so do the traffic cops, and it's all just a sinister plan to persecute us and bring us all down.

Sniff sniff.

Better judgement than those **** machines at least, for sure!


Yeap, everyone complains about everything, that is for sure. I even saw people complaining that public transportation in Geneva was a disaster (?).

What I mean about the size of the city, is that while in dowtown Geneva are living 185.000 people (according to Wikipedia), there are at least 500.000 people in the canton, most of them working in downtown Geneva, and many more if you include nearby french towns. The city is not prepared for so many people.

One of the biggest problems with Geneva is the "natural" barriers. The city is divided by the lake/river and only 4 bridges connect both sides, so those bridges are huge bottlenecks, whose ramifications extend to the rest of the city.

Another "barrier" are the train rails, dividing the west coast of the lake of Geneva in 2 parts, with only 3 possible passages between the two of them. Huge bottlenecks again.


The keyline is what you said: The traffic lights are programmed in order to discourage people using cars. I always thought the same

I can't wait for them to finish the tram line that will take me directly to work, then I will be able to leave my car in the garage all day and watch the traffic jams while the tram passes by at full speed