People are never asking me how I come up with the ideas for my columns so I’ll tell you: I come up with the ideas for my columns when I’m sitting at traffic lights in Glasgow. Because there’s lots of time for thinking at the traffic lights in Glasgow because there are a lot of them and they are very slow indeed. So if you don’t like my columns, blame the traffic lights.

You’ve probably experienced the phenomenon yourself: sitting at lights, no one around, roads clear, waiting, waiting. A new set was recently installed at the junction near my bedroom window and all through the night they turn red and go beep-beep for pedestrians who never come because it’s four o’clock in the morning you stupid machine. The beep-beep annoys me, but the kerching-kerching of the money being spent on it annoys me more.

We got a glimpse of exactly how much that might be when East Dunbartonshire Council debated again this week the question of whether traffic lights should be installed at a junction on Catherine Street in Kirkintilloch. Some councillors have pointed out that things are fine as they are, but the council appears to be intent on installing the lights anyway and it looks like the cost of doing so will be around £1.3million. As I say: kerching-kerching.

The obvious question to ask is whether traffic lights are effective: if they’re improving traffic flow and keeping things as safe as possible for pedestrians, maybe shelling out a million-plus for a set is money well spent. Councils across the country certainly seem to think so: between 2000 and 2008, the number of lights in Britain increased by 30 per cent (most of them in Glasgow I’ll bet, and most of them on the streets I want to get down expeditiously).

Exactly why Glasgow is so keen on traffic lights I’m not sure – as I say, it’s part of a nationwide trend – but they’ve certainly proliferated in the city, often to ill effect. Driving along the south of the river, for example, through Govan and Cessnock and on to Braehead is a constant stop-start-stop-start, like that red-light, green-light challenge with the giant doll in Squid Game. I watched that show and felt so sorry for those poor people being put through a cruel and horrible test of human endurance, but at least they’d never tried to get down Paisley Road West at 5.30 on a Friday afternoon.

Obviously, there is a case to be made for traffic lights in certain places and the evidence suggests they can work effectively. But the problem is their use has increased, particularly in cities like Glasgow, to the point where they’re now sometimes becoming part of the problem rather than the solution. When the road is self-evidently clear and it’s safe to go, for example. And when there are no pedestrians waiting to cross. And in the middle of the night. Beep-beep.

It’s also worth noting what happens when traffic lights are taken away. A big report that the RAC Foundation did on the subject in 2011 found in some cases traffic flowed better and it’s certainly worth thinking about how you behave when you approach a junction and the lights are out: you drive more, not less, cautiously and there’s also no mad rush to beat the red. You may recall that in May a power surge knocked out some 70 traffic lights across Glasgow and the council issued a dire warning about driving carefully, but as it turned out, things were just fine with 70 fewer lights, so there you are.

Read more

Mark Smith: Scotland’s help for the women of Afghanistan is not enough

Mark Smith: Your council tax is about to go up. There is an alternative

I’m not suggesting a mass switch-off of traffic lights here, although part of me wonders how bad it would really be. What I’m suggesting is we take another look at the lights that already exist and whether other solutions might be better. There’s a bit of a trend for example towards taking out roundabouts and replacing them with traffic lights, or even worse putting traffic lights in the middle of roundabouts. But roundabouts are better than lights mainly because they keep traffic flowing when it’s clear to go, so the first thing we could do is have more roundabouts.

We could also learn from other countries that do it better. Italy and France for example often use flashing amber lights when there’s not much traffic which allows drivers to proceed with caution. The USA also allows you to turn right on some red lights if there’s no oncoming traffic, something we could easily try here (turning left instead of course). And there may be a case at certain junctions for turning the lights off completely after a certain time, 10pm say, or after rush hour.

Better traffic lights would also be a good option. Most of the lights in Glasgow appear to be set to a fixed rotation no matter the time, no matter the traffic, which in some cases increases congestion rather than reduces it. A better idea would be to use sensors on the lights so they’re on a default to green and only work when traffic builds up; there’s a bit of this but not enough. There’s also a system called SCOOT which responds to changing traffic conditions in real time so traffic isn’t sitting at red when it doesn’t need to be – again, this is something we should be using much more.

(Image: Image)

Some of this stuff is being done already in Glasgow and elsewhere, but not only does it feel like traffic lights are proliferating at the cost of better alternatives, it feels like the traffic lights that do exist are not subject to any kind of regular review. A set of lights may have been put in at a certain junction 10 years ago, but perhaps the traffic has changed or got worse or got better. Councils shouldn’t just be looking at where they can be putting more lights in (at great cost), they should be reviewing the lights they have and considering whether some could be removed or replaced (taking into account the potential costs for taxpayers of course).

Am I confident such a rethink will happen? I have my doubts, especially as for years now, public policy on transport has been about more control of cars, not less. But good policy should be based on what works best, and it’s clear that in many cases, traffic lights are not working as well as they should – something I hope the people who run our cities will think about. Perhaps they could do what I do and use all the time they spend sitting at red lights to good effect. Perhaps as they wait and wait for green, they could ask themselves a question: is this the best way of doing things?