They've got a long history of bizarre ideas in Bristol council. Such as wanting to pave over the harbour as a ring road (dropped in the 70s), then ruining the Industrial Museum in favour of interpretive nonsense (the old museum was a proper one, loads of ancient machinery and volunteer staff who wore boilersuits and carried spanners), more recently they seem to have a thing about "guided busways" (even to the extent of wanting to rip up perfectly good railway lines for them - why not just buy some trains?)
That said, I think the traffic lights thing has been tried in Holland and worked well there. I wouldn't want to be around for the first couple of weeks as there probably will be a few prangs caused by people who aren't used to having to look at junctions, but it might work.
