[Duff]

Interesting POV -- you can get away without traffic lights in the country or in places where other forms of transit (ie. public transit & walking) are more prevalent than cars. You can do so in the city as well, by installing expensive street features that have huge downsides in snowy climates. But, many of the arguments used by the advocate in the story are bunk.

An example re: Pedestrian accidents: "People think traffic lights are a guarantee of safety but the latest audit from Westminster City Council, for example, has shown that 44% of personal injury accidents occurred at traffic lights."

Sure. Pedestrians generally cross the street at the crosswalks, which are placed next to traffic control devices. And many of those accidents are at intersections that lack directional control -- the driver doesn't pay attention, turns right and hits someone crossing the street.

The guy is right about a few things -- the regime of controlling traffic and handling peak demand is very inefficient. That's a feature of urban sprawl.

The problem with cars is that you get the "network effect" with respect to road capacity. Unlike computer networks, expanding capacity is alot harder than pulling a cable. Plus, if you have a two lane freeway or bridge, and you expand it to three lanes, traffic patterns will adjust and congest that road again. The New York City metropolitan area is a great example of this -- the driving suburbs of NYC extend nearly 75 miles north of the city at this point. People on Long Island literally commute over 2 hours to get to Manhattan via car and train.