More traffic lights surely a bad idea

Further to your item “Road Closures ‘will lead to rat runs springing up’” (Chronicle, February 27) I agree with taxi driver Paul Roles that its surely a bad idea to install more traffic lights in Queen Square for both economic and environmental reasons.

1 Economic: From what I can gather the DFT have refused to reveal the costs of installing and operating traffic lights (why?) but according to an American site production and installation costs are in the region of £200,000 with ongoing £6,000 annual maintenance costs, all paid for by the taxpayer.

2 Environmental: Surely the best way to reduce pollution and increase fuel efficiency is to try to improve improve traffic flow where possible?

More traffic lights simply increase pollution as vehicles have to brake, then sit idling before accelerating again, and the loss of kinetic (stored) energy increases fuel consumption and increases NOX and CO2 emissions.

The reduced efficiency also applies to electric, hybrid and fuel cell propulsion.

For these reasons it’s difficult to see the benefit… or am I missing something? Mike Killpartrick Bath