Somerset West Traffic Light Out for Three Days — Traffic Somehow Measurably Improves
A traffic light at a Somerset West intersection that went dark on Monday following a power supply fault and remained dark through Wednesday produced, over those three days, a traffic flow pattern that three residents who travel the route daily described as “smoother than usual,” one who described it as “the best it’s been since at least 2021” and a traffic engineer who lives in the area and asked not to be professionally identified but could not hide a certain professional interest, described as “a real-world demonstration of Braess’s Paradox, which is not something I expected to observe on my way to the gym.”
The light in question, which controls a four-way intersection with a moderate volume of through traffic and a left-turn lane that has been the subject of low-grade local controversy for some time, typically produces a queue during morning and afternoon peaks that extends half a block in two directions. With the light out, drivers negotiated the intersection on the four-way stop principle, a system that requires mutual acknowledgment and turn-taking and which, under the right social conditions and with a reasonably patient driving population, produces outcomes competitive with or superior to signal control.
“I got through in two turns,” said one commuter who normally allows five minutes for the intersection during the school run and who, on Tuesday morning, cleared it in under ninety seconds. “Everyone was just taking turns. Very civilised. I almost wanted to stop and say something but that seemed like it would ruin it.”
The mood at the intersection was described by multiple observers as “cooperative” and in one case “almost pleasant,” which is not a word normally associated with peak-hour intersections in Somerset West or anywhere else. Drivers made eye contact. They waved each other through. One delivery driver who passes through the intersection four times a day described the three-day period as “the most relaxed I’ve been at that corner in two years and I am including Christmas.”
The light was repaired on Thursday morning. Queues resumed on Thursday afternoon. No one has proposed leaving it off. The traffic engineer has not published anything. He has, however, been thinking about it.