Environmentalism and Traffic Lights
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Environmentalism and Traffic Lights

Byrichard

When you’re driving from Nyon to the airport without traffic the journey takes about twenty minutes. If you decide to drive into the city of Geneva that journey time is doubled thanks in main part to traffic lights. It once took me over one hour when scuba diving in Hermance to drive from Place des Nations to the other side of the Mont Blanc Bridge. That’s over one hour for less than two kilometres. That idea cooled down my motivation to dive in Hermance. At the time I was driving a petrol rather than a diesel car.

Yesterday I was driving from the foot of the Jura to Cornavin and the drive from the foot of the Jura to Geneva was fast. It’s when you drive from the motorway to the centre that you lose time. 23 minutes to drive 3.8km. I don’t have a start/stop car so when I’m spending 23 minutes at traffic lights the engine is running and polluting the air for nothing. There is no gain from blocking traffic lights.

It was even worse when I was on Rue Montbrillant. The GPS indicated 15 minutes to travel about 750 metres. Can you imagine the carbon footprint of traffic lights? That’s 15 minutes of nitrous oxide that had no need to be sent into the air. Imagine the health impact of keeping vehicles trapped at traffic lights. Within 30 seconds I went right and parked at Place des Nations and walked the last 750 metres. I wasn’t going to waste 15 minutes because “environmentalists” decided that the best way to discourage people from driving was for them to sit in traffic and pollute the air.

When I was working on Rue Montbrillant I was taking the train to and from Geneva every day and I used an abonnement de route to reduce cost. It works well until you’re reliant on bus schedules. Some routes have one bus an hour. This means that a 30-40 minute drive becomes a one and a half hour public transport route. If you finish your day at 1800 you’d arrive home by around 1930-2000. This means that although you’re taking the environmentally friendly option you’re spending two and a half hours a day to commute. During warmer months and drier days, the scooter was a good alternative. Within minutes you’re on the train to Geneva.

That’s the paradox of environmentalism. You want people to be environmentally conscious and you want them to minimise car use but rather than provide them with time efficient solutions to encourage them to take public transport you trap them at traffic lights.

Waze, Tomtom and other GPS manufacturers should take the heat maps we generate with our mobile devices every time we drive and design public transport infrastructures to replace the need for cars. This data is already available. Below are two heat maps of cycling around London and Switzerland. If you used the same type of data from cars you could design a system that replaces the need for cars.

When you live in a city you see two kilometres as a big distance to drive but when you’re in the countryside 2km is nothing. London on a bike feels tiny after walking and taking public transport. In Geneva it’s not that you have much traffic. It’s that the traffic lights give the illusion of traffic. Most of the side streets are empty of traffic most of the time.

This week I wanted to cycle in to Geneva for my lunch time meetings but chose not to because the bike ride is energetic enough without the weight of a 15inch laptop on your back. I did buy a bluetooth keyboard for the mobile phone as a mac book air replacement. That should make cycling more pleasant. I also have spare tires in case I get a puncture.

Geneva’s traffic light policy did work on me. Several years ago I became so tired of waiting at traffic lights when driving into and out of Geneva that I stopped going. Instead of meeting people in Geneva I drove to various lakes to scuba dive and to the mountains to climb, hike, cycle and do other more environmentally friendly activities. This is especially true when we drive other participants. When I climb Fort L’écluse I meet people at CERN and when I meet people to go to Swiss VF I meet them at the Nyon train station, Fourmi metro stations or even the Lavaux motorway stop.

Looking out of a window at traffic

Byrichard

I’m on the second floor of a home which looks out onto a busy road which means there’s a lot of traffic passing by but wait there’s more. Road works are taking place. Traffic must stop. Stopped traffic means hours of entertainment from the comfort of your room.


So far I saw one van back into the car that was sticking to the back. The guy got out and started to yell whilst another was less annoyed. In a second case I saw one-car crash into the back of the second and this was amusing. The guy who crashed was relaxed, almost joking whilst the over was really angry, as most people would be. Two cars were behind this crash and they grew impatient, started beeping, and more. The guy who was crashed into started yelling abuse at them as they drove away.


In other cases you see the large trucks trying to negotiate the bend and that’s impressive. You see some people struggling to park a fiat 500. They find it easy to move their truck although it takes wide turns and some back and forth.


Today I watched out of the window as one of these large trucks was waiting for the road to be clear so that it could negotiate this bend yet no one was courteous enough to wait. They could have and the road would be easier to negotiate for all to use.


There is one thing that annoys me more than anything else with traffic outside a window. People beeping. If you’ve ever lived roadside you know the sound. One person forgets to pay attention to the light and someone behind decides to beep. As a result everyone in the area hears this. It’s annoying because simply flashing your headlights at the person in front is enough to get them to continue on their absent-minded way. This is not a value judgment. They weren’t paying attention to the light therefore my remark is justified ;).


Now the last element, loud music s sometimes nice and other times not quite. I’ve never heard someone drive through a city with the BBC world service blaring out of their speakers. I’d find that interesting and intriguing at the same time. Most of the time its hip hop, R&B, and such. That’s just part of life.


Skidding tires are another amusing feature. You know how it goes. You’re in your car and you’ve been driving it so much your clutch control is fast, almost perfect. Sometimes though your foot presses on the accelerator just a little too hard and your tires lose traction causing a nice little screech and the sound of slipping tires as you attempt to move off. I watched as someone in a delivery truck did that. What surprised me is that he just let the tires screech until they got traction rather than let go of the throttle and move off normally.


All this to say that aside from wanting to throw water balloons through the car window at the idiot beeping traffic doesn’t bother me.