[fragmede]

Red tape isn't the phrase I'd use in this context since your point is that the switch will work 100% of the time even after being thru a literal hurricane, so the difference isn't merely the tape, but that there's been proper testing and engineering all the way down, which drives the cost way up.

[bumby]

Unfortunately, this is exactly how it's characterized in the aerospace industry. Often the requirements that are design to reduce/verify quality and safety requirements are talked about as "bureaucracy" and "just paperwork."

[Dalewyn]

I admit my vocabulary is failing me at the moment in finding similarly concise words to describe it, but I'm happy if the meaning gets through one way or another.

[fragmede]

one way to phrase it might be to change

> because of all the red tape that must be

to

because of all the rigoy testing and precise engineering that has to be

[dsfyu404ed]

Every strip of BS red adhesive has some flimsy pretext to justify it.

Nobody is saying you can't pour theoretically meaningful pork into a traffic light in the form of QA and whatnot and get an indestructible traffic light that operates for a century without being touched in return. People are questioning whether that's actually necessary for a system that's already the Nth layer of redundancy.

[bumby]

I don't know how airport infrastructure requirements work, but for the actual airframes themselves, the requisite level of reliability/redundancy are strictly defined. I would imagine airport design is similar. If so, it's clear if it's necessary or not.

[Dalewyn]

I realize reading this now that "red tape" was not the appropriate way to convey what I'm trying to convey. I'm going to try and figure out how to rephrase that better in the future.

All those inspections, certifications, and other requirements exist for very good reasons. Reasons that more likely than not cost us blood and tears to realize their need.

[dsfyu404ed]

>All those inspections, certifications, and other requirements exist for very good reasons

Nobody's debating that those processes work. People are questioning whether or to what degree this system should be subject to them. Just because something touches aviation somehow is not a blank ticket to pour red tape at it to satisfy some ideological lust for the "perfectly safe" system. For example, the facility lighting around an airport is just normal lighting used on any other large commercial facility, off the shelf sodium bulbs, LEDs, halogens in off the shelf fixtures, the kind of stuff you buy from all myriad of online supply houses and local suppliers. The runway lights are subject to much more specific requirements (but still very relaxed compared to the lighting on actual aircraft). Where do the traffic lights fall on that spectrum? IDK, but seeing as the system is never gonna leave the ground I'm pretty inclined to ignore whatever the people who think it needs to be designed like an aircraft have to say.

> Reasons that more likely than not cost us blood and tears to realize their need.

If/when they mandate a traffic light system at JFK will that rule be "written in blood" as you people often like to say?