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Mr. Redwood: I rise to support new clause 5, tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends, and to speak to my parallel new clause 8. I shall highlight the differences between them, but there are also many similarities. Both are designed to get traffic flowing more freely again.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) has ably pointed out, the position in London is particularly chronic. There has been a deliberate attempt by the highways authorities to block and slow the traffic. We have seen reduced green phases and increased red phases at many sets of traffic lights, and the introduction of a large number of additional traffic lights, some of which are unnecessary or undesirable. In the centre of London, we now also have traffic lights with the new feature of an all-red phase, which means that traffic coming to the junction from each direction has to sit there looking at all the other stationary traffic. Let us imagine the cost of that in terms of fumes, frustration, pollution and inconvenience. There are often no pedestrians wishing to cross those roads at the time of the all-red phase.
I am mainly a pedestrian in central London. I bring my car in on a Monday morning, and I leave it here until my duties are finished. I do not try to drive round the centre of London in my car. I normally walk, because I find that that is the quickest mode of travel, now that the traffic system has been wrecked and the underground functions so badly. So I look at this situation from a pedestrian's point of view, but I cannot say, as a pedestrian, that I want all-red phases. I often do not want to wait for the red phase at all, and I would not do so if it were safe for me to cross. It is perfectly reasonable
for pedestrians at busy junctions to have to row in with the traffic light system, just as vehicles do, so that the pedestrians cross the road during the red phase. If they wished to cross again in a further direction, which is unusual, they would also have to wait for a red phase there, so that it would be safe to cross.The new clauses are designed to deal with the inconvenience created by the prevalence of red phases over green phases, and particularly to tackle the new injustice of the all-red phase, which does not help or amuse me as a pedestrian and which is extremely frustrating to all those who need or have to drive around London. It is particularly frustrating to all those carrying out their trade, using a van, milk float or other commercial vehicle. They have to use their vehicles because the tools and stock of their trade are inside them. Those people now have to sit at traffic lights for a great deal of the day, which increases prices, reduces efficiency, annoys people who live near the road blocks, and increases the amount of pollution.
- "all traffic lights operate on a traffic sensitive basis during non-rush hour periods".
The second part of the new clause proposes that
- "traffic lights are set to achieve the most expeditious flow of traffic and pedestrians at all times they are operational".
The third part of new clause 5—which differs markedly from my proposal in new clause 8—proposes that, unless there are good reasons for not doing so,
- "traffic lights at junctions with low traffic volumes operate in amber warning mode in all directions during non-rush hour periods."
That brings me to my new clause 8, which contains the provisions
- "that all traffic lights should operate on a traffic sensitive basis"
- "set to achieve the most expeditious flow of traffic and pedestrians".
- "traffic lights give longer green phases to main roads than to side roads and give continuous green phases to main roads during quiet times of the day and night, save where the traffic sensors recognise traffic on approaching side roads."
In most cities and towns, there is a clear main road—the A-road, the trunk road or the main route that goes through the principal settlement or links the connected settlements that form a great city—and a series of side roads intersect with the main route. Where that is clear, surely the highways authority should programme the traffic lights to give priority off-peak, all the time, to the busier main road, with the proviso that there should be a traffic sensor so that people are not stranded on the intersecting side roads for ever. In many cases, they would get early change to green if the traffic flows permitted that on the main route. That would be much fairer: it would reduce frustration as well as the need to burn so much petrol, change down and come to a halt, often with the engine running, while people wait for what seems like a long time late at night for the lights to change.
There we have it. There are two parallel proposals on the table. One, influenced more by the United States, involves the amber flashing light; the other is influenced more by the British tradition of using the technology of traffic sensors. The Minister may argue that there would be a cost involved in installing traffic sensors in traffic lights. I quite agree, but it would be modest compared to the huge sums spent on obstacles and blocks to traffic in recent years. Most road users would think it was money well spent.
I recommend that it be assumed that, over a reasonable period, that cost would get us up to modern traffic management standards. The savings in terms of less congestion, less fuel burned, less frustration, less delay and less cost to business would be considerable.
The Minister may also say that he favours local autonomy in that respect as in others. I would find that easier to believe if we did not have before us this Bill in this shape. The Bill is about establishing national standards of traffic management and investigating how well local authorities do. It is about, in extreme cases, moving in and taking over traffic management duties if the local authority has failed.
I am offering the Minister a way to ensure that local authorities, in more cases than not, succeed in improving traffic flows and busting congestion so that he does not have to make a heavy-handed intervention, which he will be entitled to do if the Bill is passed. So, far from my proposals being an additional blow to local autonomy, they could be a buttress to sensible local autonomy, which would mean that fewer local authorities got into the danger zone on their traffic
management practices and had to face the extreme intervention of the whole system being taken out of their hands to be run by somebody else.The Government and local authorities seem to be interested in the use of technology to advise, warn, marshal and control traffic. I am recommending an old and well-established technology that would do the job at a relatively modest price and relatively simply. I have been trying to persuade my local authority, which is keen to get traffic moving and bust congestion, to change the phasing of lights. It has been obliging in many cases and is conducting an exercise at the moment, junction by junction.
The authority is discovering that it can improve the capacity of leading congested junctions in the district quite substantially, simply by changing the phasing and timing of lights. If traffic sensors are added, the effect is even better—particularly off-peak when there is no need to hold up the traffic on principal routes. I recommend that the Government adopt a scheme along the lines of new clause 8 and have pleasure in supporting my right hon. and hon. Friends in new clause 5.
Mr. McNulty: I cannot recall whether I raised the Mall-Whitehall issue in Committee but a greater propensity for green lights at that particular junction would only move the delay elsewhere. It is part of a network rather than an individual set of lights. In a network, one cannot look at each traffic light junction in isolation. That would be simplistic and unworkable. TFL informs me that pedestrian flows after the pedestrianisation of the northern part of Trafalgar square are rooted in road safety.
All the points made on both new clauses were germane and fair. I may agree with some but not with others. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was ahead of me when he said that such matters are for local determination, not for the Bill in the first instance. New clause 5 seeks to extend the network management duties of local traffic authorities to the monitoring of all traffic lights in their areas—but ensuring that traffic light sets are working correctly to achieve the expeditious movement of all traffic would be one strand of a local traffic authority's management traffic duties, as set out in clause 16.
The term "traffic" explicitly includes pedestrian. We had that debate at length in Committee. Considering expeditious traffic flows in the context of traffic lights purely in isolation is not sufficient; that is a fundamental flaw in both new clauses. Traffic flows must be viewed in the wider context of the network management duties that permeate the entire Bill
At first, I inadvertently misled the Committee. I was still in pre-Greater London Authority mode when I stated that the transport operational command unit managed traffic lights in London—which it did before the GLA. Subsequently, that duty fell to TFL. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Christchurch for allowing me to correct that error.
New clause 5 would place a requirement on traffic authorities to ensure that all traffic lights be at optimum settings at all times during which they are operational. No one would disagree with that general objective, but we dispute the means. The majority of traffic lights in the
UK are responsive to traffic flow changes and allocate green times proportionately to vehicle flow and the needs of pedestrians. Lights can also have different settings to cater for rush hour and non-rush hour periods, to achieve the expeditious and safe passage of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. We will include advice in the guidance on network management techniques that will be issued under clause 18, so there is no need to incorporate that requirement in the Bill.There is mixed experience from America. I can say from my 18 months in America, principally as a student, that for every four-way flashing amber junction there are about 10 four-way stop junctions with no lights. That practice is rooted in America's highway culture, especially in urban areas. They eschew the need for roundabouts, and although there are examples of four-way-flashing amber junctions—to which I will return in moment—it must be pointed out that that is not the only model used, as four-way stops are a far more regular occurrence in those areas.
Furthermore, the new clause would make it a requirement that during non-rush-hour times traffic lights should operate on flashing amber warning mode at traffic junctions with low traffic volumes. As I think we said in relation to the wider context of traffic lights—not specifically on flashing amber warning mode—that proposal would seriously compromise vehicular and pedestrian safety, and it must be discussed in the context of pedestrians and their safety as well as that of vehicular flow. Flashing amber already has a specific meaning at pelican crossings—that a driver may proceed if no pedestrians are crossing—and such an amendment would cause danger and confusion if it had another meaning at a junction. Flashing amber would not in any case be suitable at many junctions where buildings or road layout prevent drivers from seeing whether other vehicles are approaching the junction.
As for pedestrians, although I cheerfully admit that the right hon. Member for Wokingham is fit, active and sprightly, not every pedestrian in a London context, or any other context, is, and we must legislate for safety for all, from the fittest to the most vulnerable, in terms of road safety. Pedestrians, especially the most vulnerable, will have no crossing facilities and will find crossing the road neither convenient nor safe at non-rush-hour times. As I am sure I said in Committee, blind and partially sighted pedestrians would no longer be able to rely on audible and tactile signals to cross safely, as flashing amber would necessitate removal of those facilities. It would be contrary to long-established UK practice, and unsafe, to signal pedestrians to cross when there are conflicting traffic movements. A better solution is to ensure that signals operate, wherever possible, in a responsive way so that drivers are only stopped when there is a conflict with other vehicle or pedestrian movements. At quiet times, signals need only operate to stop traffic if a pedestrian has operated the push button. I repeat, however, that all this needs to be seen—as we said constantly in Committee—in the wider context of the balance between pedestrians, safety considerations, vehicular flows and road traffic. Isolating this aspect will ultimately undermine the essence of the network management duty.
New clause 8 has been described as similar to new clause 5, but it omits—to be fair to it—the dangerous proposal that traffic lights should operate in flashing amber mode in all directions at traffic lights with low volumes of traffic during non-rush hour periods. The new clause proposes that traffic lights give longer green phases to main roads than to side roads and continuous green phases to main roads during quiet times of day and night, except where the traffic sensors recognise traffic on approaching side roads. That is essentially a description of how responsive traffic lights should operate in most situations, and it is generally what we want to happen in practice.
I repeat that I am not condemning right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches for the substance of what they suggest. Many of these things should be a matter of course in terms of achieving the network management duty, and should be reflected in the guidance indicated in the relevant clause—18, I think. As I said, however, it is an area best suited to guidance, not legislation, as local authorities are best placed to determine the operation of traffic lights in the light of local conditions, as I believe the right hon. Member for Wokingham was suggesting that his authority is now doing.
The proposal would, for example, prevent authorities from installing traffic light systems that revert to all-red in the absence of any demands, for example, late at night. In many instances, despite the complete aversion to all-red phases of the right hon. Member for Wokingham, they assist traffic flow—when they are traffic sensitive, they change as soon as a vehicle approaches, and they can do so within seconds. The balance must be struck in relation to starting at an all-red phase. In the context of road safety, therefore, if a pedestrian comes along, they can cross safety and take preference. It is therefore not always the case that all-red phases are counter to the needs, desires, freedoms—or whatever else one wants to suggest—of the motorist.
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