[romed]

And it's just demeaning. Any sensible urban transportation system needs to be a pyramid based on most trips being taken on foot. Anything that prioritizes cars over pedestrians in a city is a mistake. Yes, it's a mistake that 99.5% of American cities make, but it's still a mistake.

A far better system for connected vehicles would be pedestrian signals that are always green for pedestrians by default, which will change to permit vehicles to pass when vehicles are present. This is very expensive though. Far better and cheaper to just ban cars.

[icebraining]

No, that would be a terrible system for us pedestrians, who already bear the brunt of air pollution in the cities. Just imagine how terrible it would be with all those cars constantly stopping, idling and starting.

[acranox]

That's what they're doing in the cities now anyhow. It's just a blocks long line of cars everywhere, idling, inching forward, waiting for the car in front of them to move. It's not the traffic lights that are creating all the stopping/idling, it's the traffic jams, due to too many cars.