The spirit is willing, but the light is weak.

Japan is often cited as one of the countries with the most traffic lights per capita, and most people who live in major cities here would probably agree that there is a crazy number of them. While I can appreciate the importance of controlling the flow of traffic, seeing a row of six or seven red lights in a single 500-meter (0.3-mile) stretch is a little much.

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While having to stop all the time is certainly annoying, there’s a much bigger problem with having so many signals. It turns out that much like the human population in Japan, the traffic light population is aging at an alarming rate.

According to the National Police Agency (NPA), the lifespan of a traffic light is 19 years, and in a survey conducted last year, a whopping 51,302 traffic lights were found to be 19 or over. This amounts to roughly 25 percent of the some 200,000 lights across Japan and the highest such a rate has ever been.

The effect this has on the lights themselves can vary, such as dimming lights, but the biggest safety issue is the entire structure falling down. The NPA says that since 2020, there have been 11 incidents of traffic lights collapsing from deterioration. Granted, one of those cases that we know of was caused by excessive dog pee on the pole, but age is certainly a factor too.

▼ News report on the failing lights

Replacing all of these lights would require a significant increase in budget, especially since not enough was spent on maintaining them in the first place. Instead, it appears the NPA is focusing efforts on removing unnecessary traffic lights to reduce the burden. Their goal is to take down 4,200 lights across Japan by 2029, and last year, have managed to get rid of 679.

Online comments were happy to hear there will be fewer traffic lights, and yet also angry that governments haven’t been doing enough to manage them properly until now.

“Waiting at a red light in the middle of the mountains where no one is around is a serious waste of time.”
“While they’re doing all this, the newer LED lights are all going to go bad. It never ends.”
“Japan has too many unnecessary traffic lights, so please remove them.”
“Yeah, some of them are really old.”
“I’d like to thank the lights for their years of service.”
“If you remove the lights, fewer people will run red lights and crime will be reduced, lol.”
“I see traffic lights in so many places where a stop sign would be fine.”
“They should make roundabouts like in Europe.”
“Nice to see our tax money isn’t going where it should.”
“I’ll take one of those lights. It’d look cool in my living room.”
“Back in the day, local politicians would take pride in installing a new traffic light. Now, there are too many.”
“One time, I took a picture of a traffic light that looked like it was about to collapse and sent it to the police. They gave me a thank-you letter in return.”

If the police appreciate help like that, I happen to know a light that deserves to go. There’s one at a tiny side street that no one ever seems to cross and just as it turns green, a light 200 meters ahead at a bigger intersection turns red and it’s one of those ones where each direction of traffic gets its own green light separately, making the wait even longer until I’m just about ready to smash the ever-loving…

Um, sorry. I guess what I mean to say is that removal is probably a prudent move, both in terms of controlling costs and freeing up the roads a little more.

Source: FNN Prime Online, YouTube/FNNプライムオンライン
Featured image: Pakutaso
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