I suppose this is one of those “trickle-up” technologies, where it first is found in places that need it, like Africa and India, and then everywhere else in the world once the idea is proven practicable. This tech has made its way to Istanbul so far.

I know that whenever there’s a big storm in Seattle, the city grinds to a halt, not because people don’t know how to drive in the rain, but because they can’t seem to deal with outed traffic lights. Simply treating every intersection as a stop sign is wearying; why don’t we have solar-powered backups for nighttime and emergency use? Retrofitting would be easy and cheap, and it’s guaranteed to make disasters and blackouts a little bit easier on everybody when the time comes.

[via Treehugger]