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Predicated on humans lazy gene that keeps every urban centre in UK gridlocked every day at happy hours>
Actually adressing gridlock is relatively easy: price it out. It is currently quite easy to monitor intersections using smart image capture/sensoring and ticket anyone-- willing or not-- caught in the gridlock-- see, for example, the California Anti-Gridlock Act of 1987. Yellow grids or warning signs are clearly insufficient. Conventional ticketing takes too long-- an average of 10 min. and an increase in congestion--- and does not have a big enough a net. Increasing the chances of being penalized as well as the price of gridlock for those involved (cost of the citation which in California is currently around $300 but also indirectly via insurrance premiums) vs the increased speed of traffic from their reduction might not wholly end gridlock but significantly reduce it.. and perhaps also train motorists some manners. The problem right now is that in many countries getting into a gridlock is not punishable-- in Germany, for example, even blocking an ambulance or emergency vehicle results in, at most, in a fine less than that of riding a bicycle without working lights (by daylight)-- or hardly enforced (and when citations are issues they are relatively low).
EdwardZ-
Actually adressing gridlock is relatively easy:
'Gridlock' is a traffic phenomenon possible only in gridded cities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridlock
It cannot occur in less regularly-planned cities. (Incidentally, all gridded cities also have bits that aren't.) It does occur in gridded cities, but typically only very briefly in fairly small areas and is much less of a problem than what the term is incorrectly used to refer to, i.e. perfectly ordinary congestion. The term has become so widespread mainly because people seem to love the sound of it. :)
Fortunately, we don't need 'gridlock' to talk about a real problem, and common-or-garden congestion will do fine.
price it out.
Road user charging that is adequate has not been devised yet. It's always poleaxed by political pressures. The agenda has essentially been stale for ten years or so. Part of the reason for the inertia has been the uncertainty over which technical solution to go for. The days of static number plate recognition (as in the London Congestion Charge) are numbered, as so many other possibilities exist now.
Another problem with road user charging is, simply, that it doesn't solve the underlying problem--people go where there are economic opportunities of which they want to avail themselves. With a geographically well-distributed economy, this wouldn't be a problem, but in cities like London, economic opportunities are very unevenly distributed.
Even if road use was made more expensive in economic hotspots, this would most likely not contribute to a 'cooling down' there; rather, the 'inverse prestige' of such additional cost would probably be reflected in higher prices and, paradoxically, even more economic clout. (I believe this is the main long-term effect of the Central London Congestion Charge.)
The only solution is proper work on land use planning, namely deliberate, government-led more even distribution of (economic) activity. Given the influence wielded by landowners in Central London, this is, of course, exceedingly unlikely to happen.
Oliver Schick
Wank. Join the queue.
Or ride a bike.
Predicated on humans lazy gene that keeps every urban centre in UK gridlocked every day at happy hours