Time Out listed traffic lights as one of London's top ten inventions. They made their debut in 1868 at the junction of Bridge Street, Parliament Street and Great George Street in the shadow of the ten year old Big Ben clock tower.
Cycling around town, I spend a lot of my time waiting at traffic lights so inevitably there are some I really hate, some I really really hate and two I love.
My least favourite traffic lights are those God awful parties student unions tried to host where you had to wear green if you were single, yellow if you were undecided or red if you were taken. I can only assume they consisted of a few matheletic boys wearing ill fitting green polyester shirts, and even less girls refusing to take their coats off. But who likes to dwell on the negative? Certainly not me. Here are my two favourite traffic lights in London:
1. Notting Hill Gate
I love these traffic lights they evoke all kinds of smemories (totally a word). It always has that clean laundry smell that comes from a particularly fragrant dry cleaners. I love it when the lights go red and I can sit there just breathing it in. If you don't get to stop you get a gust as you ride by.
2. Bayswater Road
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| Get a load of that blue February sky. |
I mainly like these because the big clock tells me how late I'm going to be for work (note to potential employers: I'm never late, this day I didn't start till 10). It's opposite Hyde Park and at the weekends artists display their work. When I was little and family used to come over to visit us in London we would all take a leisurely walk from Speakers' Corner to Queensway and look at the pictures.
Traffic lights are a great place to catch your breath, say 'hi' to other cyclists and you get to hear the clicky symphony of cleat wearers clipping in and out.
If you don't stop at traffic lights everyone will hate you and you could get fined £30.
Did I just do a whole post on my favourite traffic lights? Wow. How do I have friends? Oh man, I even wrote 'I love these traffic lights....'
