It is the rare person who has ever agreed with me on this but it seems obvious to me.
While government inefficiency is easy to find most things where government is involved, my dad pointed out an obvious fix to traffic problems that hardly anybody considers. There are two issues, traffic safety and traffic flow. I believe the way the gov manages traffic is the worst of both worlds. The simple solution is one-way streets for major roads.
Number 1, the most dangerous act in driving is a left-hand turn. I would be shocked if anybody disagrees with that. One-way streets eliminate left-hand turns in front of oncoming traffic. That problem is solved, totally eliminated. Number 2, the ONLY reason lights can't be timed, allowing traffic to flow constantly, is because of left-turn signals. Eliminate the left-turn signals and all lights can be timed. Number 3, a road that normally has two lanes each way with a center LEFT-TURN lane only has 2 lanes of traffic flowing in each direction. This is ridiculous during rush hour, especially when the majority are going one direction. A one-way street would be FIVE lanes in one direction, with the middle THREE lanes not subjected to people turning off the road but able to flow with the timed lights. Side streets could be left two-way. Rarely you would have to go around a block to get somewhere, but to me this seems like a small price to pay to not die from somebody turning in front of you. If you have ever ridden a motorcycle you would know this is the biggest danger you face.
I think about this quite often as I drive delivering pizzas, waiting at a light, light goes green, go two blocks and the light is red again. A colossal waste of gas and time, as well as having the most dangerous move in driving ever-present.
When I visited Philadelphia 5 years ago to play in the World Open chess tournament I saw this system in action. In downtown Philly virtually all roads are one-way. The traffic flow is unbelievable. A surprising bonus that I was unaware of was more ease of pedestrian traffic. Traffic is only coming from one direction, so crossing the street by foot is much easier. More often than not, people jay walk against the light because there really is less traffic, think of 5 or 6 lanes instead of 2. It is accepted in Philly to jay walk by everybody including cops on foot, nobody cares, and it really is safe for the most part to jay walk this way, even on streets with 5 lanes. Jay walking is a way of life in Philly.
The only argument I have heard against this is, "People could drive the wrong way on a one-way street." Well ok, why don't they do it in Philly? Also, if there were one-way streets with traffic flowing nicely, imagine how insane it would be to say, "Let's have 2 lanes each way and put a lane in the middle where traffic and flow BOTH ways, plus have left-hand turns, the most dangerous move in driving. Then we could wait at lights and do some texting."
If you think these arguments are logical, you need to visit Philadelphia. Somehow this government entity got it right. But for the most part, cities across the nation prefer the most dangerous move in driving while the masses sit at red lights and waste billions of dollars in gas while idling cars, while who knows how many thousands die from left hand turns. There really are few things more ridiculous than the driving system that most city governments adopt. About the only thing I can think of that is more ridiculous is making it a felony to own a plant that grows from a seed. Two-way streets are only logical for low traffic volume at slow speeds, period. They make sense in small towns and residential areas but make no sense when there is traffic volume.
Freeways are the perfect example of the safety of one-way traffic. You can go 70 mph and be safer than going half that speed in town.
I wish a few of y'all could have spent a day or two driving around with me in a tow truck. The vast majority of accidents we had to clean up were in intersections, of course, the result of left-hand turns. If we didn't have left-hand turns I would imagine our calls for accidents would have been more than cut in half, but of course I have no statistical proof at the moment. I only remember intersection after intersection of accidents. Just ask any tow truck driver or cop you meet. There is no need for actual stats on it.
And not only that, think about coming out of a parking lot and crossing one flow of traffic that is going north, to squeeze into a middle lane and then merge with traffic south, yet another left-hand turn. I have to do this all the time, and sometimes the southbound traffic has a car merging into the turn lane southbound while I am crossing the traffic to get into the middle lane. It is really a complicated move that has a lot of things that can go wrong.
So the system we have wastes 5.5 billion hours of our time and $121 billion in time and fuel, to say nothing of higher insurance costs from more accidents as well as who knows how many more deaths. Something as colossally inefficient as this is only possible from government entities who have no incentive whatsoever to make them better. In fact, the system in place benefits police, courts, insurance agencies, Exxon, and morticians. At our cost.
You can't argue that traffic flows better now with the current system. You can't argue that there is less time or gas wasted with the current system. The only thing you can argue with the current inefficient system is safety when there are left-hand turns and there would be chaos with one-way streets. Then why isn't there chaos in Philly?
And if you agree with me I will be totally shocked because hardly anybody does.
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