Who waits the longest at Adelaide traffic lights?
A council investigation into pedestrian crossing cycles has found which lights will have you waiting longer, spots where buttons are useless and how your commute could be sped up.
Regardless of whether you drive, catch public transport or cycle to work, most of us cross the road at a city traffic light whether it’s to get to and from home, the office or to duck out for a coffee.
The council is undertaking a traffic signal review to better understand how these crossings work and where pedestrians are waiting the longest to cross the road.
West Terrace connections to Hindley Street, Currie Street and Grote Street are the worst offenders during peak hour and midday, with an average delay of 150 seconds.
This map shows the connecting traffic signals and ranks the average delay per pedestrian and whether it’s acceptable or unacceptable. This picture: City of Adelaide
Stantec’s Senior principal transport leader Rebecca Strachan, who the council commissioned to undertake the traffic review, told the council’s Infrastructure and Public Works Committee last night that Adelaide’s delays exceed the nationally accepted tolerance level.
Adelaide’s cycle lengths are generally 120 seconds or longer in both the morning and evening peak times and at midday, with some small sections of 80 seconds.
“The aspirational target for road authorities is to obtain a team level of Service D for a delay of between 30 to 40 seconds on average for pedestrians,” Rebecca said.
“So that’s when you think of all pedestrians arriving, some are going to press the button or arrive and just get a green light straight away, but then others will have to wait the whole time.”
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She recommends reducing delays by about 20 seconds to achieve the target range.
Rebecca said the city has a “complicated network” with lights working in consideration of each other.
“What that means is, if one intersection is accommodating very high demand of traffic, it pushes the cycle length up and then everybody else’s cycle length increases,” she said.
To curb this, it’s suggested to break links between cycles in certain areas, such as the Grenfell and Frome Street intersection which has a delay longer than 60 seconds for Frome Street pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles.
Another area highlighted is the east-west crossings of O’Connell Street in North Adelaide, where the council are working with the Department of Infrastructure and Transport to explore:
- reducing the cycle length so pedestrians have more opportunities to cross
- increase the walk time setting (the green man) to eight seconds for east-west movements across O’Connell Street and 12 seconds for north-south movements parallel to O’Connell Street.
Are pedestrian crossing buttons useless?
This picture: Helen Karakulak/InDaily
49 traffic lights in the city, mostly north of Grote and Wakefield streets have auto-demand functions between 7am and 7pm, which is coded to run every signal cycle constantly.
When told there are buttons in the city that don’t do anything, Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith exclaimed, “Well I knew that was going on!”
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During Covid, the auto-demand was increased so pedestrians didn’t have to press buttons and spread germs. At that time, there were stickers indicating you didn’t have to press the button.
Lomax-Smith suggested signage or stickers be brought back to say “this button doesn’t do anything” on the 49 that don’t, so that people notice the buttons that do work, because there is a “lack of trust in the system”.
Why does the green person disappear so fast?
Waiting for the green light to cross Frome Street can feel like years. This picture: Isabella Kelly/InDaily
Rebecca told councillors that the green person’s purpose is often misunderstood.
“When we look at the signals here, the walk or the green person signal that is brought up is actually only designed to give pedestrians the indication that they can begin their crossing,” Rebecca said.
“It is not the timing needed to complete the crossing, and it’s a common misunderstanding where you might receive calls saying there’s not enough time, so the green time is not designed for that, the flashing red time is actually calculated based on the crossing distance and what is identified as an average walking speed.
“So this walking speed is 1.2 metres per second, it is variable depending on the needs of the particular intersection.”
The Department of Transport and traffic authorities around the country reduce that speed in areas where there is a high presence of the elderly or children, so it accommodates slow movement.
This chart indicates what each light signal actually means.
What about cars?
According to Rebecca, if cycle lengths are reduced, delays can be reduced by 14 seconds, and a majority of vehicle queue lengths and delays to cars are also reduced for vehicle traffic.
City Infrastructure Director Tom McCready told the council this investigation is about improving crossings on city roads for all road users.
“In effect, what we’re really looking to do is to optimize traffic signal operations for all road users, so it’s not pro-vehicle, it’s not pro-pedestrian,” he said.
Stantec’s report findings and recommendations still need to be finalised and then brought back to a second committee workshop before the council formally votes to adopt any changes.