# How many traffic lights are in your city?



## xrtn2 (Jan 12, 2011)

in my town( 260 k ) there are 92 intersection with traffic lights.


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## tradephoric (Jan 27, 2012)

Oakland County is a county in the state of Michigan with a population of 1.2 million people and has an area of 908 square miles.








Colored dots = Adaptive Signals; Red Dots = Non-Adaptive Signals

Oakland County has over 1500 traffic signals and is home to one of the largest adaptively controlled signal systems in America. 

*655 *= Adaptive Traffic Signals
*430* = Non-Adaptive Road Commission signals
*265* = Non-Adaptive MDOT signals
*175* = Non-Adaptive City signals

*1525* = Total Signals

In comparison, there are 20 roundabouts in the county.


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## MattiG (Feb 11, 2011)

Helsinki Metropolitan area: population 1.1 million, area 780 sq.km, about 750 traffic lights.


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## ВОДА (Dec 25, 2006)

*Sofia, Bulgaria (EU)*

*Population within city limits as of 2011:* 1,232,088 inh.
*Area:* 492 sq. km.
*Intersections with traffic lights:* 348


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## woutero (Jan 14, 2008)

Amsterdam (city):
785.000 inh.
166 sq.km (including some rural land)

370 traffic light controlled intersections.


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## g.spinoza (Jul 21, 2010)

Brescia

200k inhabitants
91 km sq.
171 traffic lights

http://www.bresciamobilita.it/2010/09/semafori/


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## Nexis (Aug 7, 2007)

There are 3 traffic lights in my town of 9k


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Zwolle

120 000 inhabitants
63 traffic signal controlled intersections, plus several bicycle / pedestrian crossings

Interestingly, there is a large neighborhood (Stadshagen, 20 000 inhabitants) with no traffic signals at all. The city center does not have any traffic signals either, but is mostly car-free and does not attract much traffic other than shoppers going to the parking garages on the edges.


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## BND (May 31, 2007)

Budapest: 1,7 million inhabitants, 1001 traffic lights


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## Bobek_Azbest (May 12, 2008)

*Prague* (as of 31.12.2010):
1.257.158 inhabitants
496 sq. kms
3.897 kms of roads
*578* intersections with traffic lights, 108 of which are pedestrian crossings only. Majority supports dynamic control, 241 allow for preference of public transport.


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## Dahlis (Aug 29, 2008)

ChrisZwolle said:


> Zwolle
> 
> 120 000 inhabitants
> 63 traffic signal controlled intersections, plus several bicycle / pedestrian crossings
> ...


Funny, there is a neighbordhood in Stockholm called Stadshagen aswell.


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## Ron2K (Dec 28, 2007)

Around ~1,200 intersections with traffic lights in the Cape Town metropolitan area (2,454 km², population 3,497,097 as of 2007).

These figures do include some of the more outlying areas.


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## Falusi (Mar 14, 2009)

Taksony: 6300 inhabitants, 1 traffic light(pedestrian crossing)


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## RKC (Jun 16, 2007)

ChrisZwolle said:


> Interestingly, there is a large neighborhood (Stadshagen, 20 000 inhabitants) with no traffic signals at all. The city center does not have any traffic signals either, but is mostly car-free and does not attract much traffic other than shoppers going to the parking garages on the edges.


i think i've heard about this, wasn't this an experiment to see what would happen without traffic lights and signs, and it turned out to work brilliantly (people driving much more cautiously politely etc.)?

or is this something that' fairly normal in the netherlands?


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

You mean the "shared space" ideology. The traffic engineering world is divided about this, some welcome it as traffic calming, others don't like it. It also doesn't work in heavily trafficked areas.

The Stadshagen urban development does not have shared space, instead the neighborhood is split in two parts with all intersections either uncontrolled or with roundabouts. You can't get from one side to the other side to the neighborhood other than by bicycle, bus or via a long detour across the bypass road. Opinions about this remain heavily divided too.


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

Bjelovar with its 30k has exactly 9 of them  and 3 pedestrian crossings controlled with traffic lights


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## Spookvlieger (Jul 10, 2009)

Can't find any numbers on cities in Belgium.
I found these though:

Flanders: 6.251.983 inhabitants,13.521 km², 1686 traffic light controlled intersections.
Wallonia: 3.456.775 inhabitants,16.844 km², 620 traffic light controlled intersections.
Brussels: 1.145.292 inhabitants, 161 km², 413 traffic light controlled intersections 

We are doing ok if I look to the other numbers...


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

There're around 200 intersections with traffic lights in Ljubljana (270k inh.).

http://www.lpt.si/uploads/cms/image/graf.JPG


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## Orionol (Feb 13, 2009)

I don't really know how many traffic lights there are in Helsingborg, Sweden.
But I do know, that it is popular in Helsingborg to change the traffic lights in junction to roundabout. All the major traffic light junction has been transformed to roundabout. 

For what purpose, I don't know. :nuts:


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

A village near me population is only 4K and doesn't have any even though a main roads passes through it. Its all roundabouts...


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

Roundabouts are safer and can offer a better traffic flow if volumes are not too high. Roundabouts on long-distance roads outside urban areas are annoying though, because no matter if there is cross traffic, you always have to slow down to a crawl. The Netherlands has way too many roundabouts on non-urban provincial roads. It can take a truck up to 800 meters to recover to 80 km/h from a roundabout, so if there are a lot of them, you are screwed.


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## DanielFigFoz (Mar 10, 2007)

In Figueira da Foz (~40 000) there are 2 functioning traffic-lighted junctions, with another two where they're always turned off now. There are a few more pedestrian crossings with traffic lights in along the seafront though.

In the council of Figueira (~60 000) (165.5km2) has maybe 6-7 functioning traffic lighted junctions including the 2 in the town. 

There are many more traffic lights in the council outside the town though, to slow traffic down, but they don't really count.

===

In London there are 'more than 6 000' traffic lights, but I think thats individual sets because another source states that there are 300 traffic lighted junctions in London


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## sbarn (Mar 19, 2004)

According to the NYCDOT website, *New York City* has "12,460 intersections with traffic signals citywide, including 2,820 in Manhattan, 1,605 in the Bronx, 4,371 in Brooklyn, 3,119 in Queens and 545 in Staten Island."


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## keokiracer (Aug 26, 2011)

*Bergen Op Zoom, Netherlands (pop. 52.980):* 
Traffic lights: 22
Roundabouts: 7










*Halsteren, Netherlands (pop. ~ 12.500):*
Traffic lights: 1 inside the town and 2 just outside of Halsteren. and by 'just' I mean 50 meters and 200 meters.
Roundabouts: 4









*The entire island of Texel: (pop. ~ 13.000)*
Traffic lights: 2: They work together and are near the ferry to help people merge from 4 lanes to 1 with a nearby junction
Roundabouts: 4


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## Mr_Dru (Dec 15, 2008)

The Netherlands

Winterswijk a village at the German border (30.000 inhabitants) doesn't have traffic lights.

Sum towns near Winterswijk doesn't have any traffic lights aswel.


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## NorthWesternGuy (Aug 25, 2005)

No idea, time to take a look at Google Earth


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## sirfreelancealot (Jul 26, 2010)

DanielFigFoz said:


> In London there are 'more than 6 000' traffic lights, but I think thats individual sets because another source states that there are 300 traffic lighted junctions in London


I'd put the figure at 6,000. The UK, which I think invented the modern roundabout has now come to the belief that traffic lights are a solution for most junctions. But really it isn't. They are used as a sticking plaster solution at busy motorway junctions with other high capacity routes that really need the kind of treatment used on the M50 in Ireland (i.e. free-flow grade separation). 

The M60 Simister Island (I prefer to call it Sinister Island) is a good example of that kind of approach - its a stacked roundabout which defies motorway rules by interruptiong the flow continuity on the M60. It was only improved in anticipation of the M60 completion by squeezing narrow lanes into the existing roundabout, adding a few filter lanes and hoping for the best. 

In more suburban situations, traffic lights are being planted at junctions - the idea being that they give traffic a fighting chance to emerge from side roads. Great in theory but in practice engineers have only allowed woefully short green phases on the main road whilst giving what feels like an eternal green phase on the side road. The result - a relatively quiet smoth running main route turned into a congested one. Quite often a lot of these junctions would work much better with a roundabout, or are maybe best just left alone as a normal T-junction. Cynically I think this is somethimes done to make a route less attractive for traffic to use.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

A problem with traffic lights at side roads is that they often give equal priority to both flows. However, the traffic load is usually more like 95% through and 5% side street, creating a lot of traffic stopping. 

An annoying issue in the Netherlands is a lack of green waves due to bus and bicycle priority, and short green phases, which means you often only can drive through the intersection if you stopped there, which effectively means you often have to stop at nearly all intersections. They do this to keep the overall cycle short for all directions, but is annoying if there is a lot of through traffic. 

Another issue in the Netherlands (compared to Belgium or Germany) is that grade-separating in cities is quite rare, such as dive-unders or flyovers. As a matter of fact it's even against the official guidelines to connect a non-motorway with a motorway by a free-flowing junction.


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## MattiG (Feb 11, 2011)

ChrisZwolle said:


> A problem with traffic lights at side roads is that they often give equal priority to both flows.


This is heavily subject to the implementation.

In my neigbourhood, most of the traffic lights are traffic flow controlled. If there is no traffic on the side road, constant green is given to main road. If there is less demand on the side road, the lights might follow the 5-20-5-20 cars rhytm. Anyway, the cycle duration is usually limited to 90 seconds in order to prevent from excessive waiting times from occurring.

During the night, the traffic lights are either off, or showing red to every direction. If a vehicle approaches from any direction, the lights turn green without delays before reaching them.

Other optimization tricks exist. For example, if there are no pedestrians waiting, the pedestrian phase can be skipped, which increases the throughput. At the T-shaped intersections, the left-turning traffic may have two lanes, thus making it possible to shorten the respective phase.

Of course, in the heavily congested areas, the traffic lights cannot increase the throughput. In those areas, the main reason to set up the traffic lights is to give some chance for the traffic on the side roads to enter the intersections.


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## i15 (Apr 26, 2008)

Kosice, Slovakia, 239 000 inhabitants: approximately 43 intersections with traffic lights (those for pedestrians only are not included).


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## NorthWesternGuy (Aug 25, 2005)

Mexicali, BC, Mexico:

Population: 689,000
Intersections with traffic lights: 173 approximately.


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## vladanng (Aug 2, 2009)

around 540 intersections in Belgrade with traffic lights. population of urban area 1,2 and metro area 1,65 milion


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## aaabbbccc (Mar 8, 2009)

Casablanca Morocco I have no clue I would love to know , there are so many intersections so I guessing 1000 traffic lights in the metro region ???


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## Fabri88 (Feb 9, 2011)

*Busto Arsizio* - 82.000 inhabitants - 51 intersection with traffic lights

Here you are their locations:


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

that's really unusual for Italian city to have that many (and that dense) intersections with traffic lights


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

x-type said:


> that's really unusual for Italian city to have that many (and that dense) intersections with traffic lights


But that city is close to malpensa airport and has many depots/warehouses and other industrial/office locations


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## x-type (Aug 19, 2005)

Suburbanist said:


> But that city is close to malpensa airport and has many depots/warehouses and other industrial/office locations


ok that, but i have noticed that Italian cities generally don't have many traffic lights, especially middle sized or smaller


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## Fabri88 (Feb 9, 2011)

Suburbanist said:


> But that city is close to malpensa airport and has many depots/warehouses and other industrial/office locations


Exactly!

BTW, years ago there were 4 more traffic lights that have been substituted by roundabouts.


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## Zaz965 (Jan 24, 2015)

by the way, I am surprised with the traffic lights size  


















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https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/6hvf2w


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