|
The council has programmed the traffic lights around and inside the inner city of Utrecht in such a way that it "discourages people to come into the city with their car". They're not only programmed that you're always waiting for a red light, they're also programmed so that they're on red for a long period of time and on green for a very short period of time.
The council wants to encourage people to either go to the inner city on their bicycle or by public transport. And although the buses always seem to have green lights, the traffic lights for cyclist are linked to the traffic lights for cars so you're always waiting, too.
Ten years or so ago the traffic pollution was really high on a particular stretch and they thought it was because of all the buses so they changed their route. The pollution is still very high and they don't understand why that is. I do. There are two sets of traffic lights not even 50 metres apart and they are notorious for always being red and only letting a few cars through when green, there are nearly always a long line of cars waiting to go by that stretch and all those cars waiting for long time emit a lot of nasty stuff.
|