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Roundabout Revolution Sweeping US
chrb writes "BBC News reports that U.S. cities are installing more roundabouts than ever before. The first British-style roundabout appeared in the U.S. in 1990, and now some cities — such as Carmel in Indiana, are rapidly replacing intersections with roundabouts. Supporters claim that roundabouts result in increased traffic flow, reductions in both the severity and incidence of accidents, and fuel savings. Critics say that roundabouts are more difficult to navigate for unfamiliar American drivers, lead to higher taxes and accidents, and require everyday acts of spontaneous co-operation and yielding to others — acts that are 'un-American.'" As a driver who's hit all of the continental U.S. states except North Dakota, I dread roundabouts and rotaries for all the near accidents (and at least one actual accident) I've seen them inspire, and have been unhappy to see them spread. Spontaneous driver cooperation doesn't necessarily need the round shape, either.
Roundabouts (or rotaries, or traffic circles, as they're known in parts of the U.S.) induce confusion and fear in many drivers, although they can be useful at times. This article from an insurance periodical suggests that it's aggressive drivers who are making rotaries more dangerous.
:)
I like rotaries for two reasons: when there's no traffic, it's nicer than having to stop at an arbitrary red light and wait for a mandatory 2 minutes while the lights cycle. Secondly, if I am not sure whether to turn or not, I can just take another spin around the circle until I see the street sign I'm looking for (assuming there is one, not a given on some of the sign-challenged Northeast roads).
But I loathe rotaries when there's a lot of traffic. You can sit there for a lot longer than you would at a red light. Plus, some places make a rotary out of a 5-way intersection which can be incredibly confusing. It's a tradeoff, I guess, but overall I'd rather drive in a straight line
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Quite possibly the worst traffic control structure ever invented.
We have them in Canada and they cause more bullshit than they solve.
Wow... Just Wow... That's an argument against roundabouts?!? I personally find that one of the most sad statements I've read in a long time.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Washington DC has had roundabouts since 1791, when the city was built modeled on European cities.
Just got one put in at a university where there's more than one pedestrian death per year.
They replaced a traffic light with a VERY LONG wait, with a roundabout the same size with nearly no wait.
Not too far from me there's a much larger rotary that splits off into four, which is confusing and dangerous.
Lesson? Big rotary = bad, British-style roundabout = good. A roundabout is not much bigger than an intersection.
Oh yeah, and I live in Massachusetts, where we're known as Massholes for our driving.
They've been around in the US far longer than 21 years. The one in my small town preceded me (born in '79). The flow is the same as what is shown on the wiki (other than the right/left side of the road difference).
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
We've had a few put in, all of them in residential areas, replacing four way stops mostly. They would be a disaster in high speed, high traffic corridors, but in areas where the likelihood of two cars encountering one another is low, let alone more than two cars, they speed things up nicely.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
They are only a problem for people who are unused to them. As with all change, it will take time for people to get used to them.
If it is aggressive drivers (as previously commented) who are causing accidents, this will push their insurance up and perhaps they will become more cautious. Isn't that the nature of free market economics that the Americans seem so fond of?
I'm British, so maybe I'm biased, but I'm pretty sure that roundabouts do not increase taxes. Seems like an odd claim to make.
FWIW, roundabouts aren't really that difficult to use. You just drive round them.
The USA is just a bunch of NIMBYS. This thread is living proof.
No sig today...
As long as rotaries are well marked, sign-wise, they're relatively safe. Just like most city-driving, collisions are at much lower speeds than on straightaways/highways. But if it's a large rotary, it needs a clear sign stating that it's a one-way circle. Otherwise, it's quite possible late at night with low traffic, someone will make the wrong turn, and a head-to-head collision can be quite dangerous. This comes from personal experience in one of the thousands of smaller towns that rely on traffic court for revenue.
I live in an area where many intersections are being circled.
The immediate result is that those unfamiliar with them panic and stop inappropriately. Once the regular users of these intersections grow accustomed to the new flow pattern, throughput is greatly improved.
IMHO, the short-term pain is more than offset by the long-term gain.
How do pedestrians get across roads with rotaries? With traffic lights there is a clear system for pedestrian traffic. As I approach a rotary as a driver I am looking for space between traffic to merge into the circle. I am not looking for pedestrians.
you probably shouldn't be on the road as you are already a danger to others. Nothing worse then someone behind a wheel that is unrure of themselves and their surroundings.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Exactly. Unfortunately, most Americans don't know or ignore this. The other problem with not knowing the rules are the drivers who stop before entering when they don't need to. New rotaries should be posted with basic signs until they're more common. They recently installed several in my area and they greatly relieved congestion and peak gridlock. The Atlanta area is a prime candidate for rotaries but installation would probably become a Tea Party issue.
Just how are these things supposed to raise taxes? The article claimed they're cheaper than traffic lights, so how the hell do they cause higher taxes?
I personally love roundabouts. As long as people signal and drive carefully (read: Properly) they are quite safe. Also they can help avoid clusterf*cks like http://wikimapia.org/1698209/Simms-Corner which is one of the most dangerous intersections I've ever had the pleasure of driving through.
.sig
It's interesting that cooperation and yielding to others is considered "un-American" by at least some Americans. That simple statements speaks volumes about the dire straights that the United States is in.
Maybe these traffic circles are a good idea after all. Maybe it will teach more Americans that cooperation is not a synonym for communism. Maybe it will teach them that they can profit from cooperation. Or maybe the ones who refuse to co-operate will slowly be killed off in a never-ending stream of roundabout traffic accidents. Either way, that might be best for the country in the long run...
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I've heard the argument that while roundabouts may increase the number of accidents, those accidents are less severe than the same intersection with lights.
Roundabouts exist here in Canada and they've been on the increase. Traffic is generally much faster during non-peak periods, but it can get stalled during peak periods if the majority of traffic is coming from one direction. Once a flow is established, it is hard for other entrances to break into the stream, as people on the circle have the right of way to entrants. In tourist areas circles give the buses a place to turn around without the usual trouble. These things really work well when not placed in a major commuter route. I'd much rather travel around in a city with circles than stop lights. And the center creates a focal place for flowers and general beautification not found in city center intersections. My suburb (Orleans) looks much nicer with the traffic lights removed and circles in their place.
"Roundabouts" are nothing new in the U.S.. They were called "traffic circles" when I was a kind in New Jersey. Eventually the state went to considerable expense to tear them out and put intersections with traffic lights back in. They led to a lot of accidents.
I hate to see other people have to relearn a lesson that an entire state already figured out.
Just think of them as token rings.
I'd like to start by saying that I'm British, from an area with lots of roundabouts.
Roundabouts do work, but only in certain circumstances. They work well for junctions where there isn't a 'dominant flow' of traffic in a particular direction and traffic isn't too heavy; right turns (left turns in the US) are easier to accomodate than at a traffic light junction, most of the time there is a short wait for traffic entering (if at all) and no particular movement clogs up the other arms of the roundabout.
Where there is a dominant flow, traffic from the other directions can be made to wait a very long time for a gap if one of the roads is constantly spewing traffic onto the roundabout. If the traffic exceeds the capacity of the roundabout, or there is a bottleneck on one of the roads off the roundabout, then all hell breaks loose as traffic is unable to leave and blocks off all the other exits.
In some situations roundabouts can increase accidents; especially when placed to connect a very minor road with little traffic to a major one, as drivers can get so used to 'nothing coming' from the minor road that they plough onto the roundabout without looking properly. Roundabouts near petrol stations can suffer from lots of spinouts, as drivers skid on diesel spilt from overfilled trucks.
(Perhaps) interestingly, in the UK the current fad is to put traffic signals onto roundabouts to increase their capacity, as they're often used here for major junctions with a shitload of traffic, and they jam up. For light to moderate traffic loads, connecting roads of relatively equal importance, they work well.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
...more difficult to navigate for unfamiliar American drivers...
Yeah, in other words: they're traps for old people, who get stuck in them and go around and around until they pass out from exhaustion and die. You see, once Obama figured out that his "death panels" were unacceptable to voters, this is what he came up with to reduce Medicare expenses.
You people can't drive stick, and now not even navigate a simple roundabout. jeeez
I've driven over a thousand miles in the last three years in the british isles, and I really like roundabouts. I also drive in Carmel IN several times a year, and roundabouts here are a whole different ballgame. The British isles have roads that are small and terrain that makes them not arrow straight (like in Carmel). Many british roads are only one lane with "passing places". These passing place roads would kill american drivers. So it seems that the British citizenry seem to understand that the road is not "theirs" and everybody is in this together. So there is a sense of cooperation.
The Carmel roundabouts are driven by people who are used to lanes that are 30 feet wide, and who have a sense of entitlement that their Yukon Denali is here now, and everybody better get out of the way. Then you throw in a mix of confused drivers and aggressive drivers, and the Carmel roundabouts aren't as enjoyable as the british ones.
But honestly, Must things suck in America compared to the british isles.
Don't get me started about the lack of proper transmissions here in the states; we apparently think our cars should be golf carts.
Sheldon
BBC gets snide about Americans on the 4th July. Eat your pudding
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I am not a fan of roundabouts replacing lights but in my area 2 of them replaced 4 way stops. I hate 4/3 way stops with a passion, unless its a school/park zone where you want to force people to slow down.
I have to say tho, they have worked out really well. I have seen some close calls and thats mainly caused by people not yielding as they enter the roundabout trying to push it and squeeze in. Hasn't been too much of a problem for me since I bought my Dodge Ram truck tho.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
here
The US is conveniently located close to the UK.
Notice twice as many fatalities per 100000 vehicles in the US (15) than the UK (7).
It's a similary picture in most of Western Europe and there are plenty of roundabouts all over Europe.
Doesn't really prove anything, but it seems unlikelly that roundabouts significantly increase the number of traffic accidents. Even if they do, they certainly do not increase the number of deaths.
Rotaries are nothing new here in Massachusetts, but out-of-state drivers tend to do stupid things like stopping in the middle. Like with most other issues on the road, the issue is that driver training in the US is completely inadequate. If we actually trained drivers adequately — like in Germany or Finland — crashes would decrease, both on rotaries (which are more fuel-efficient than traffic lights, at least for low to moderate volume traffic) and elsewhere. That drivers are as distracted as they are, despite really poor car-control skills, is a deadly combination.
Smarter, more traffic-aware traffic lights would also be an improvement.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Would you rather be t-boned by an idiot driver who runs a stop sign or hit in a glancing blow by an idiot driver who can't navigate a roundabout? A good roundabout where the curbing forces tangential entry is safer.
its about time. i remember when we got our first roundabout here in hamilton (ontario, canada).
as for the critics - i don't get it - are they saying americans are too stupid to figure out something as basic as a roundabout??
2cents from toronto
j
The problem here is that there's no real alternative to driving for most of the US, to the point that it can literally be drive or die of starvation.
So, they hand out driver's licenses like candy, and even when they take them away, people just drive illegally.
Every time I've driven in the UK and Australia I've been amazed by what a great idea they are. Traffic flows through them so much better than at a light and they must save a ton of gas.
I really hope that this catches on.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
The town I grew up in had a roundabout that circled a monument, but I left it before I started driving. After college, I moved near two towns that have greenspace in the middle of the village, forcing a roundabout pattern. Locals, including tractor trailers, pass through it problem-free. Last month, I spent a few days in Sweden with a rental. I drove more roundabouts in a day than I had driven in over 20 years of US driving, and the only time I didn't feel perfectly safe is when I couldn't clearly see the entrance to the circle on my left. A new one is going in right now in the next town, but people are fearful. Why? Because they've not driven in them before. After two months, I bet things will be just fine.
...is that Americans are dumber than people from Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Cyprus,Israel, Malaysia, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom* - all of whom seem to cope quite happily with the concept.
I totally understand that there is a problem with driver education about any kind of new road layout, but the idea that americans are somehow intrinsically incapable of using a roundabout is just weird. Can americans really be intrinsically incapable of cooperating with other road users and generally being aware of those around them?
How do people cope with things like changing lanes or merging onto freeways? Both require awareness of other road users and a certain amount of spontaneous cooperation.
Or are you suggesting that America, the land of personal freedom, only works properly when someone or something (like a set of lights) else tells everyone what to do?
* - according to Wikipedia
Paul Leader
First of all, I agree with the theory; roundabouts should be easier to navigate and increase traffic flow. *should*. The problem is, most drivers display an amazing lack of intelligence when behind the wheel. We have a few of these things around my home town. I have seen drivers go the wrong direction in a roundabout ( I want you to visualize how awkward that would be ) no less than 5 times in the past 6 months. I have seen 2 accidents because someone didn't understand the whole concept of no stop signs in the roundabout, and I have see moron drivers IN the roundabout yield to incoming traffic ( picture it; everyone in the roundabout is stopped while this moron waves someone else in ).
So no. I do not support them in the US. We simply aren't smart enough to handle them.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Ever since I first encountered roundabouts on a trip to the UK, I've found that I really hate four-way stops. Aside from the unnecessary, gas-wasting stop when there's no other traffic, it turns into chaos when you have cars lined up in all four directions.
That "cooperation is un-American" BS sounds exactly like the sort of willful stupidity that's turning this country to crap.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
The fact is, it's harder to get a driver's license in a lot of other countries. The standards and expectations are higher. In the U.S., I exaggerate only very slightly to suggest that a driver's license (and even automobile ownership) are seen as a fundamental human right, rather than a privilege. Most places, public transit is something that poor people use until they work hard enough to live the American dream (with accompanying house in the 'burbs and two-car garage).
Many other driving nations impose stricter conditions on new drivers, graduated licensing schemes (which require the passages of time and/or tests before new drivers are allowed greater driving privileges--the use of high-speed highways, driving late at night, driving without another experienced driver, etc. may all be prohibited to new drivers), older minimum driving ages, and more complex driving tests than the United States.
Despite its abundant roundabouts, the UK enjoys a non-motorway death rate about 15% below that of the U.S. (Their motorway death rate is more than 60% less, but that's pretty much irrelevant to the roundabout issue.) Better public transit also means that people who can't or shouldn't be driving are less tempted to do so.
~Idarubicin
My first experience with roundabouts was during a vacation to Australia (Brisbane). They are absolutely everywhere and once I'd gotten used to the etiquette in play, I fell in love with them. I drove from Brisbane all the way north to a little resort where we were catching a chart to snorkle the Reef. Traffic never really stops, folks on the roundabout have the right-of-way, but the pace is deliberately slow so that merges on and off and controlled and traffic continues to flow.
You *cannot* run a red light or miss a traffic signal as the intersection usually has a garden or statue *right in the middle of traffic*. If you are somehow so inattentive or drunk entering the intersection that you miss the big wall in front of you, folks on the roundabout have plenty of time to recognize that you aren't going to stop as you *are* in their field of vision as they travel on the circle. They can either stop or take evasive action as you smash into the concrete barricade. Drivers are empowered and required to remain attentive, even when they have the right-of-way. As you need to make a tight circle while on the traffic circle, you *must* drop speed or you'll never make the turn. Accidents on a traffic circle tend to be low-speed with minor or no injuries.
A standard traffic light abdicates all responsibility to a device. Vehicles traveling in a straight line through an intersection tend to do so at or above the speed limit - so pedestrian and driver error is frequently catastrophic or fatal. I don't know about others, but I'll take an increase in fender-benders to avoid head-on or t-bone accidents.
http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/roundabouts.html has some excellent information about roundabouts. Note in point 5:
"5 What are the common types of crashes at roundabouts? What can be done to prevent them?
Despite the demonstrated safety benefits of roundabouts, some crashes still occur. Fewer crashes are typically seen at single-lane roundabouts compared with multilane roundabouts.5
An Institute study of crashes at 38 roundabouts in Maryland found that four crash types (run-off-road, rear-end, sideswipe, and entering-circulating) accounted for almost all crashes. A common crash type at both single-lane and double-lane roundabouts involved vehicles colliding with the central island. These crashes, which often involved unsafe speeds, accounted for almost half of all single-vehicle run-off-road crashes. Collisions occurred more frequently at entrances to roundabouts rather than within the circulatory roadway or at exits. About three-quarters of the crashes involved property damage. There were no right-angle or head-on collisions, potentially severe crash types that commonly occur at traditional intersections.6
In the Maryland study, Institute researchers concluded that unsafe speeds were an important crash factor. Some drivers may not have seen the roundabout in time. Measures to alert drivers of the need to reduce speeds (e.g., speed limit signs well in advance of roundabouts) and increase the conspicuity of roundabouts (e.g., larger roundabout ahead signs and YIELD signs, enhanced landscaping of center islands, pavement with reflector markings) may help to reduce crashes at roundabouts. Certain design features such as adequate curvature of approach roads also may aid in reducing speeds."
But where I live near Victoria, they have just put in a horribly confusing system of THREE roundabouts and a bridge. They even have a simulation animated video that is somehow supposed to show how simple and congestion-free it is. Thankfully I don't have to take this every day.
The biggest thing is that they drastically reduce serious (injury/fatal) accidents. Fender-benders are the main risk.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Roundabouts are annoying because of the people who are unable to make turns into traffic. I presently live in Florida, in an area with a very healthy elderly population. I have been stuck behind elderly people at stop signs for 5-10 minutes when there is no traffic. Literally no traffic. I would hate to be stuck behind them trying to get into a roundabout.
If they are going to start using roundabouts everywhere then I seriously hope they decide to start being a little more aggressive in the testing of elderly drivers, and even younger drivers who show complete incompetence behind the wheel. Floridians are, as far as I have experienced, the worst drivers in the world when it comes to turning into or across traffic.
The biggest problem with roundabouts/rotaries is that just one or two clueless users can disrupt the entire traffic pattern for everyone. In many other countries, where the users have some sense of what to do when they encounter a rotary, disruptions are self correcting. Here in the US, they are not, because there are always enough uneducated users to meet some sort of social mass stupidity threshold and the entire system falls apart.
How long has it been since they've been putting these up in the DC-Baltimore metro area? Gotta be at least ten years, since I was still in college when I started seeing these things pop up in the burbs. You'd think that's enough time for people to get accustomed to the idea.
Nope. 10-15 years after the fact, most of the people still have no fucking clue how to use them.
I go out of my way to avoid roundabouts in the US. Usually, I can get to where I'm going faster than if I go through them. If you're on a motorcycle, forget it. I ride a very big, very conspicuous motorcycle and I'm hard to miss. Which I guess is true in more ways than one because I've been clipped a couple times
And WTF were the traffic engineers who approved the rotary Joppa, Dulaney Valley and York thinking?
Knee down
In the last decade, the area (actually 3 towns) put in roundabouts all over. One of them put them in in quite a few places.
I personally don't have a problem with them. They make sense to me. However, there are a lot of people who don't understand the rules of them. They think they can go whenever they like.
I find this particularly bad on two lane roundabouts, of which there are two within a couple miles of my house. One of these I go through every day. It seems that folks have not realized that both lanes of the roundabout have right of way. I have nearly been t-boned in the roundabout because of this.
Driving, yet one more thing that we need to have a "you must be this smart to do it" metric.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Crudely put. But accurate.
If (and that is a very large and long "IF") we as Americans would put the cell phone down, put the radio on 1 station and leave it there and just generally remove our heads from our asses when driving, we would not need roundabouts, traffic circles, etc. A prime example of just how inconsiderate we are as whole is the long standing rule that any traffic signal that losses power is to be treated as a 4 way stop. Yeah, right. That is going to happen. Next prime example is construction zones where you see the signs for 3 miles that tell you the left lane ends ahead, merge right. How many of us "fine, considerate, American drivers" go ahead and start merging and how many run all the way to the end and them force our way into the right lane?
There were roundabouts in the Boston area in the early 1980s.
I love roundabouts therefore I must be a socialist. Happy Independence Day! Comrade?
Example: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=-36.79191,174.771398&spn=0.001697,0.003484&sll=51.629526,-0.175223&sspn=0.021045,0.055747&t=h&z=19
See the two roundabouts? They each have pedestrian islands on each side road.
The roads themselves aren't high volume, but rather than having to come to a complete stop at each intersection and look, or install traffic lights and wait until the cycle goes green, you can basically drive straight through and only check a single direction as you go. You don't need to check for oncoming traffic, nor do you need to check for traffic turning into your path, as it's a single flow. It greatly reduces the number of potential points cars can crash into each other.
And then a light dusting of snow comes and all the markings are gone!
Oh please no! People have a hard enough time following traffic lights. Red means, "if it's only been red a little while, you're probably still ok to go". Ridiculous.
Honestly, I see most American's having trouble with a normal roundabout, let alone that confusing monstrosity.
Roundabouts replacing crossings in The Netherlands are claimed to have been the major contributing factor behind the reduction of traffic casualties, going from the lowest in the world to by far the lowest in the world, when measured against traffic volume. There are now about 800 fatal casualties per year on a population of 16 million people. The amount of fatal casualties is about 8 people per 1 billion kilometers. (= 12 people per billion miles)
Quite... it's just N T-junctions off a small circular road. (Sometimes so small, there's no island, just a road marking.) How hard can it be?
Roundabouts are used because they are cheaper than cloverleaf junctions by several orders of magnitude. In densely-populated areas, it may also not be possible to buy out the dozens of homeowners necessary to build a cloverleaf. Cheapass road corporations use them to save on costs and shaft the driver.
If the alternative is supposed to be traffic lights, then the cost is in the same scale as a roundabout, but you have to make a judgment call on the level of driving skills and experience, and on the effect elsewhere in the street network of longer queuing for access under certain circumstances (eg time of day, proximity to public spaces like sports facilities, etc).
And I'm pretty certain I went round the only rotary in Boston in the early 80s, just after you came off the Mass Pike...
Exactly. We call them traffic circles and we've had tons of them in NJ for a very long time - way, way before 1990. Being able to navigate traffic circles in NJ is a trademark skill required for any resident and is often a problem for new comers. Many of the circles have been eliminated, or are in the process of being eliminated, simply because they don't scale well to the ever increasing traffic volume.
While I actually enjoy navigating circles, a well designed intersection with an adaptive traffic light system yields a much better result.
Yup, one central roundabout and five "satellites". You can go round in either direction. Just think of it as revenge for the Boston Tea Party, Regan and american TV shows
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
In the past decade, all of the high traffic ones have had, wait for it, traffic lights installed. Roundabouts are fine if the flow remains below a certain threshold, but once it gets too busy, some entrances and exits start backing up solid, people get frustrated, take chances, WHAM, BAM, and that's everybody's day ruined, and in go the lights.
Heh, we were told that the lights would only be "part time" during peak traffic. As it turns out though, not so much. So in effect we now have a lot un-necessarily big, un-necessarily complex light controlled junctions, got to pay the high roundabout fee up front, and the high light maintenance fee indefinitely.
So here you go, and enjoy your Independence Day - you always knew we'd get our revenge on you uppity Colonials somehow.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Until the 1990's, the main route between Philadelphia and Atlantic City had at least two Roundabouts. The earliest time I remember seeing them was during the late 1950's as a passenger in my parent's car. So, this is not a new invention this side of the Pond, but an old one that has been tried and abandoned after decades of use. I had the opportunity to drive this route before they were both redesigned, and I can tell you that the design is only effective when traffic is very minimal. It's extremely hazardous with high traffic volume.
The State of New Jersey clearly knows this, as does any American driver who has experienced what I believe is a misguided attempt at a "Can't we all get along" society. If you've ever seen the original Death Race 2000 movie, or played the Carmageddon series of video games, then you know what the highways are like in the Philadelphia area.
Properly configured traffic lights are much preferred to the risk of physical harm the Roundabout represents.
IMHO, YMMV
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Absolutely not. I roundabout is supposed to reduce the time a car spends idling.
Start posting real news again. This is as interesting as watching paint dry.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
One of the big pitfalls for roundabouts that I saw in Montana when they tried to implement them was not taking into account snow removal (at big deal in Bozeman, MT) and emergency vehicles. They placed large concrete islands in the middle of the intersection, and there was not enough room for the larger vehicles to navigate around it. The snow plows couldn't even see the island after a big storm and would run right over it.
They are not the end-all solution, but in certain circumstances, I can see where they would be beneficial.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
Not only is it not good for the USA, the USA will conduct secret treaty meetings that pressure other countries to outlaw Roundabouts.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Over here where I live, everywhere you go, there's a roundabout. To put things into perspective, we have around 10-15 intersections in the whole city (pop: 374,000). What I can tell you about roundabouts is that they are more accident prone and can be confusing at times, especially when they are large in diameter. However, they have their advantages as well. For instance, you don't have to wait as long as you do for the traffic lights to turn green - you simply wait for an opening, and enter the roundabout. For this reason, there should be a balance between the two. In the heart of the city, there should be traffic lights, mainly to avoid accidents. In the outskirts, roundabouts are much better, and can save you a lot of time.
The Federal City does things a bit differently than most of the US. I live in Columbia, MD but have driven in D.C. a lot over the years. There are traffic circles in that town that have the worst of both: A traffic Circle big enough for a number of stop lights. These are so much fun during rush hour that it is hard to believe... Especially in the summer with lost and confused tourists driving next to you.
Here in Howard County the county government has decided to replace stop signs on the outlying areas with roundabouts. Since most of them are single lane they seem to work great. You slow down a couple of gears but usually don't stop and then you can pick up the pace again. Works really well for ~ 35 - 40 MPH roads with little traffic. Stop signs are a drag out in the country anyhow.
bob@Osprey:~>
Roundabouts can only work when the direction of traffic flow puts the driver on the outer side of the circle. Talk about confusing, the only way they could be useful here in the land of right hand drive is to force counter clockwise access. Talk about Bubba in the large wheeled pick being confused.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
You must be from outside the US. The government of the US is vehemently opposed to mass transit of any kind. The results of the last thirty years speak for themselves.
bob@Osprey:~>
There has been an extensive road upgrade project in New Jersey to remove all the "roundabouts" (called "circles" here). Why? Because they only work under light traffic volume. Under heavier traffic conditions, you get either long backups leading into the "roundabout" or have lots of vehicle accidents going into/out of the them. I know of 6 that have been completely removed with another 3 that are in the planning stages of being removed. They are all being replaced via traffic lighted intersections (in some cases 3 or 4 due to how many roads connected with the original circle, since many of these have been here since the 20's when cars first started appearing in quantity).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Roundabouts are easy to deal with. When you start getting fancy hook turns, turning right from the left lane, that's when traffic has truly evolved into something else.
Task Mangler
No, that's about right.
Remember when Jimmy Carter was president, and we started converting the highway speed and distance signs over to metric, but had Miles too?
Sort of a transition/educational period for drivers to get used to metric.
Well, Ronnie Raygun came in and put a stop to THAT. Spent millions rippin' those 'bilingual' signs out of the ground and replacin' 'em with good old 'Merican miles signs.
I live in Iowa in a rural area. There's a roundabout out in the countryside for what reason, I don't know. It was fine until someone decided trees planted in the center would look nice. I was almost whacked there one day because you can't see anyone coming from the other side.
In most rural Texas cities (where Im from) and many other rural towns these "roundabouts" have been here for 100 years plus. Most often they are found at the city center where city hall, maybe the court house, and a lot of the old mainstreet shops are located. They are called town squares in many places and function in the same way. Yes, they are sometime confusing, but a few trips around the thing and you can usually figure it out.
Shoot the Transportation Engineer! that ever came up with the roundabout AND the merging exit and entry lanes on highways (another circle of death)! Yes, on paper, if people ACTUALLY drove by the "Rules of the Road" and "Right of Way"-let alone the actual LAWS that govern vehicular operation in ANY country-they would do all the things they say. BUT, this is yet another classic case of theory v. reality. In theory, given the laws and rules of the road this would work. In reality, people learn stuff about driving to pass a test and then forget it all 15 seconds after they have the driver's license in their hand! People in the U.S. can't handle a four way stop! It's right of way based and they can't even remember those simple rules! SHEESH!
Big Ben! Parliament!
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
The UK has to many roundabouts to point of major interchange that should have flyovers or cloverleafs Have backed up roundabouts with traffic lights.
http://www.cbrd.co.uk/badjunctions/
I live in a small town (pop. about 9,000) where they recently replaced a busy round-robin type of four-way stop with a small roundabout. Before the change it was a rather nasty affair getting through the center of town, even in low traffic times. People were constantly losing their place in the queue and there were many near-accidents every day. Morning and evening there were cars lined up for a block or more and it would take several minutes to get through the queue, and then once you got to the intersection you'd have to decide whether you or the other cars stopped first. It was unpleasant.
The new roundabout was hotly debated for a long time. Many people did not want it. I think in the end the state DoT just basically said "we're building it whether you like it or not". I was unsure myself whether it would actually be an improvement. The circle is quite small, so there isn't much room to get in before cars enter the circle from your left. Each entrance is only a couple of car lengths apart. Nevertheless, it was built, and it works surprisingly well. Even at busy times of day the lines are much smaller and move much faster. When there are no lines there are some asshats who can't be bothered to slow down to the posted 15mph when they zip through, but even so it ends up being pretty easy to get through, and even if someone is close behind you or jumps into the circle in front of you the traffic is at least flowing in the same direction, so it is relatively easy to avoid collisions by just slowing down a bit. Much safer than when one person at the four-way is driving straight through and somebody across from them decides to come out and turn left into their path at the same time. There were a lot of almost head-on collisions when it was a four-way.
All-in-all, a vast improvement, and as soon as American drivers see roundabouts more often I'm sure they will work even better. As long as they are properly implemented, I think they should be welcomed.
Roundabouts are great when drivers actually use them as intended the problem is there are too many rude asshats to make them practical. Here where I live there are 6 of them, I cant count the times that I watch people just whip around them without even looking to see if other cars are coming or if there are other cars already waiting to turn into them. I had a guy plow into me at one last year, he claimed that since he had a yield sign at the entrance that meant I was supposed to stop in the middle of the loop for him...actually made the point to argue that in court when he was issued a ticket. Drivers around here are idiots though, thats why we now have stop lights at freeway on ramps...people were too stupid to realize that if you leave no room for cars to merge into traffic eventually you just create enough congestion that no one can go anywhere.
China does large roundabouts with traffic lights. :\
England does large roundabouts with traffic lights and a 60mph speed limit; which usually seems to be almost but not quite fast enough to get around without hitting any of the lights.
There is a distinction between a traffic circle and a roundabout. Your objections are true for traffic circles, but not roundabouts. As TFA notes, traffic circles were tried and rejected in the US as early as the 1920s.
The roundabout's advantages include fewer and less damaging accidents, fuel savings and the resultant environmental boost, and yes, less congestion.
It also notes that Americans are generally opposed to following rules and yielding right-of-way, a phenomena anyone who has ever driven in the US easily notes, especially on interstate on-ramps. I find this ironic in the land of the sheeples, but perhaps not so ironic; the disregard for rules (signal a turn, never mind a lane change? never!) is possibly from the fact that "nobody else signals or yields when entering an interstate, why should I?"
I'm amused at most drivers' propensity to race to the red light. If you can find the right speed, you can often get where you're going without stopping at all, and get there in the same amount of time, but apparently most people lack the intelligence to understand this. The true speed limit isn't the posted limit, but the limit imposed by traffic signals. The faster you race to the red light, the longer you're going to sit still getting zero mpg and greatly reduced mileage overcoming inertia to get that mass of steel moving again.
When I read TFS I thought "hey, this is incorrect, there has been a roundabout in Belleville since before I started driving in 1968", but IINM that intersection has stop signs, making it a traffic circle.
Free Martian Whores!
Don't mind 'em but it would help if they made the circles bigger.
:T:R:A:N:S:
How 'bout a "bogus story" title?
"The first British-style roundabout appeared in the U.S. in 1990"
That's bullshit. I'll admit that there aren't a lot of roundabouts in the US, but I've driven them many a time in Massachusetts. Ask any resident of Mass about them. I think the first one I ever saw here, was in Lynn, Mass. I've also driven around them in Indiana, Kentucky, and I'm pretty sure about Ohio as well. And, that doesn't even count extra large circles in downtown areas, that flow around a courthouse. I remember one, especially in Ohio - I think it was Washington, Ohio, but not real certain. Texarkana, Texas has a kind of squashed traffic circle, with the post office in the middle, and the state line runs right through the post office.
So, no, the first roundabout did NOT appear in the US in 1990. Bullshit.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
We have a number of roundabouts in the area. I drive through one a couple of times daily, and several more on a weekly-or-more basis. Most of them function wonderfully; better than a traffic light.
There's one exception: The city recently planned a two roundabout system just after exiting a freeway. However, they decided to save money by putting in a traffic light and a roundabout instead. Unsurprisingly, the interaction between the two is horrible. Two lights or two roundabouts would have been fine, but the combination backs traffic right out onto the highway.
(Another busier exit got two roundabouts as planned. It works perfectly.)
I've seen roundabouts in the UK, they worked great, especially with intersections that aren't 4-way intersections.
I have no problem and in many cases like roundabouts.
Around here though, it's a different story.
First, they don't build them properly. Yes, you can build a roundabout wrong. Let's start with too small, or the right size, but then has a giant barrier in it that makes it too small. The semis and other large vehicles abhor those, and end up having to drive over the grass/sidewalks to get through.
Second, there are tons of idiot drivers around here and they either don't care how they are supposed to act in one, or are too confused/stupid to do so safely.
I've even seen a moron come to a complete stop in the roundabout before he eventually took the exit. (The exit was clear, the driver was a moron.)
I have lots of other local horror stories of brainless/suicidal driving from here, and even more regarding bicycles, but that's another rant. (Just a note, on average 2/3rds of the bicyclists around here are breaking the law. Just one example, a huge percentage of them are riding against traffic. But since the lazy cops don't want to bother with it, they keep doing it.)
Really, no traffic circles before that? The one in Orange CA. has been there for at least 50 years, but I suspect much longer as it has what the city calls historical buildings around it.
33.787841,-117.853105
I'm sure that's not the only old one in the US. The big problem with traffic circles is people get into the inside lane and then are stuck due to the flow of traffic... When everything is a right turn there really should not be a left lane.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Note: Here in Massachusetts, "roundabouts" are called "rotaries". I also happen to know that in New Jersey they're called "traffic circles" and are banned. I remember one very LARGE "circle" in NJ that they took out and replaced with the most complicated mutant cloverleaf intersection you've ever seen - now NOBODY can figure out where the hell they're going.
We have a lot of rotaries in MA. (And if you want to see your geometry teacher's head explode, take them to the triangluar traffic circle at Roslindale square.) I encounter one pretty much every time I drive anywhere. Often three or four. I've come to a few conclusions about them:
1) I really like them in general. A plain rotary really speeds up traffic A LOT by enabling a more or less continuous flow where otherwise there would have to be lights and people stopped, waiting for others to go through the intersection.
2) They work best when nobody tries to "simplify" them by messing with the design by adding traffic lights. I think the lights actually cause more confusion and potential for accident than they resolve AND change the rotary from being faster than a standard intersection to slower, because people are trying to figure out both what's going on in the rotary and what to do about the light at the same time. So, the best rotaries just have roads coming together into a circle, and the worst have stop lights and roads running straight through the middle so people who are going straight can avoid the rotary.
3) People who can't handle driving on a rotary should have their drivers licenses revoked until they can complete remedial driving school. It's a standard road structure and everyone is supposed to learn about it in driver education and be able to deal with it before they get a license. If you can't cope with one, get off the road.
4) The bigger a rotary is, the easier it is, and I think the #1 factor behind this is that if it's large enough that you can't see the other side a lot of people fail to realize it's actually a rotary and consequently don't panic as they normally would when dealing with a rotary. I think driver panic is the #1 reason for problems in a standard rotary. (See #3.) So if they can't tell it's a rotary, no panic, no problems.
5) I think the #1 reason drivers panic about rotaries is because everyone says rotaries are scary. Stop listening to people who spout such nonsense and drive like a sane person and it'll be fine! It's just a road that happens to go in a circle! It's just like any other road!
Since there are multiple routes between any given entrance and exist, people in group 2 can around everyone in group 1.
...specifically Bahrain, and they are now replacing their roundabouts with traffic light squares...
Roundabouts get specifically confusing when there are three lanes. The tricky part is say you want to take the left (third) exit at a three lane roundabout. You have to start out in the innermost lane, because that is the left lane, and then after you cross the first and second exit, you have to move into the right most lane. Now this is hard to do while you are driving around in a circle. People can't even change lanes safely on a straight road. Also, other people on the roundabout are playing the same musical chairs with the lanes to get off on their respective exits and there are some possible deadlock situations.
Also, in Bahrain when people take a driving test, the roundabout is one of the most dreaded parts. Its right up there with parallel parking.
I personally think Americans need to work on making roads safer not cheaper and faster.
Roundabouts are fine if the flow remains below a certain threshold, but once it gets too busy, some entrances and exits start backing up solid, people get frustrated, take chances, WHAM, BAM, and that's everybody's day ruined, and in go the lights.
The same goes for highways. There's always a point where flow control will be beneficial.
This roundabout in Berkeley, California has beem around longer than that. Check out the age of the surrounding houses. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Berkeley,+CA&hl=en&ll=37.890164,-122.272328&spn=0.0015,0.002406&sll=38.544906,-121.740517&sspn=0.134528,0.307961&t=h&z=19
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
For some context from a (small) country with more roundabouts (RAs) than traffic lights, please let me give some observations from personal experience...
Roundabouts are extremely efficient when there's light to moderate traffic levels, and no congestion in the "drains" (exits) from the RA. It is actually possible to cross an intersection while slowing only slightly.
The problems occur when the drains are full, so those in the RA can't exit, thus blocking those trying to enter. Ironically, this can occur when only one drain is congested and most who wish to pass through are exiting into an uncongested exit. This is because RAs set up the classic "Prisoner's dilemma" problem -- if I don't take the opportunity to enter the RA, even if my exit is blocked, you will enter, possibly blocking me.
I have proposed to the Government here (GoB) that one way to prevent this problem (or, at least, reduce it) is to pass (and enforce!!!) a law which says that one cannot enter a roundabout unless you will be able to exit it within 10 seconds. Or, set up a hybrid system, where traffic lights are installed which observe the current dynamic, and activate controls based on where traffic can currently exit when congestion is occurring.
However, these suggestions have not been implemented, and instead the GoB has spent tens of millions of dollars replacing several RAs with traffic lights. The congestion has actually become worse because of it....
Pull up to a 4-way stop. Just proceed with caution when it's you're turn... or is it?
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
I hate driving in Carmel. Definitely a city to be avoided at all costs. Not just for the traffic circles ... but that is one of the reasons.
Hurricane Island Outward Bound
OB
There is a new type of roundabout - the turbo roundabout. Essentially, instead of circles, the lanes spiral out. This way you don't need to change lanes. It is very efficient and nice to drive.
Where I grew up in New Jersey, we had "circles" at big intersections. In a state with possibly the least considerate drivers on earth, it worked fine. It confused out of state drivers, but once you grasped the concept of yielding vs. stopping, spontaneous consideration wasn't required. They were replaced by traffic lights in the early 1990s. It's irritating waiting at a long traffic signal when the circle used to let me keep moving.
They avoid idling for x minutes at a light. Good fuel savings.
The allow traffic to flow, flow, flow.
I've driven in England and in France, where rotaries are how it's done. I love 'em. The locals don't seem to mind them, they seem perfectly at ease zipping in and out of the many lanes on their way in our out of the roundabout.
They're only a problem in America, where no one wants to let the other guy in. Give it a generation, and people will wonder how come we used those pesky traffic signals for a century.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
People over here never learned how to merge in close proximity. If there's not several car lengths available, they slam on the breaks and screw up the whole ramp.
I fail to see how this requires more cooperation than an all-way stop intersection.
I'm from New York, apparently people have not figured out the stop sign yet.
Usually something like this, when making a left turn at a 4 way stop, signal, come to a complete stop, proceed into the intersection and watch for the person 3 blocks away to speed up and ignore the stop sign at 40mph. They would be going faster, but it's a school zone.
Sadly, this is one time that I'm not joking.
The difference between nearly causing an accident at roundabout speed rather than highway speed is that the other drivers have plenty of time to get properly raged up. I don't trust average driver perception one whit. There's a lot of objective data out there on accident rates, so I don't even know why the rageometer is part of this dialog. Most male drivers interpret any intrusion on hell-bent-for-metal as "almost causing an accident".
Definition: almost causing an accident
If I had leaned over to fetch my cellphone off the passenger floor matt at precisely the wrong moment, I would have rear-ended the guy coming in on the merge lane who paid no attention at all to the fact that I was cruising at twenty over the limit and my head wasn't even visible through the windshield.
The biggest thing about safe driving is to realize that somewhere among all the idiots and Darwincers is someone who got a phone call first thing in the morning that his or her mother went to hospital in an ambulance last night. And all you're worried about is your GF's sharp tongue when you show up ten minutes late, even though you knew perfectly well when you left that it was barely possible to make up enough time on the road, assuming everyone else on the road was dialed in for an F1 rally.
Quote from Romer in an EconTalk podcast: Everyone wants (economic) growth, but no-one wants change. Change happens. Adjust your rageometer accordingly.
Several years ago, a roundabout was added to what was (at the time) my daily route to and from work in Phoenix, AZ. It was on a corridor between housing and offices, so it was mostly used by daily commuters. For the first month or two, it was clearly slower and more dangerous. By the six month mark, however, traffic was flowing significantly more efficiently through the intersection, and I no longer observed any close calls or horns blaring -- even on the Friday evening mad rush to the weekend.
I should note that the intersection was particularly well-suited to a roundabout; two housing roads toward the South met three office roads toward the North, and most people using it used it regularly. It seems likely that not all intersections would be so ideally suited -- but in that case, the benefits appeared to far outweigh the costs once users were accustomed to it.
Perhaps a better example is this roundabout recently added on the main route from Phoenix to Las Vegas. Long-haul tractor-trailers, local automobiles, and vacationers zip smoothly around the large-radius roundabout without creating the half-mile backups I regularly experienced when the traffic went through a four-way traffic signal.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
That's nothing. Try a 6 way intersection: http://maps.google.com/?ll=32.750647,-97.360958&spn=0.007616,0.016512&z=17
Just wait until your government figures out they can just paint a big white circle on a junction and call it a 'mini-roundabout' - half the people approaching it treat it as a roundabout, the other half treat it as a junction. Hilarity/death ensues.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
On a motorcycle trip through Boston I entered a 2 lane traffic circle. A woman in the inside lane had her turn signal on and she was ahead so she had right of way. I gave her plenty of room to change lanes. She slowed down, so I slowed down. She slowed down bringing the whole circle nearly to a stop but she would not change lanes. My exit came up so I got off but I'm sure she went round and round that circle till she ran out of gas.
Disclaimer: the following summary is based wholly on anecodotal evidence and should not be construed as an actual scientific report. I have personally lived in cities where they have had roundabouts for generations, as well as in cities where they were introduced and kept... what follows is my own conclusions based on personal observation and assorted local news reports.
What I have noted is that when the driving population of the area is familiar with them, there are actually fewer accidents in traffic circles than there are at intersections (which everyone is presumed to be familiar with).
When the driving population of the area is unfamiliar with traffic circles, there is a sharp spike in traffic accidents at these locations when they are first introduced, far exceeding the number of accidents at intersections, and frequently give people what they believe is wholly sufficient reason to fear and loathe them, even though the accidents in traffic circles generally have a lower fatality rate. If the traffic circle is kept for some period on time in spite of this, however... the number of accidents in these circles ultimately begins to fall, ultimately approaching the same levels that are typical in cities where traffic circles have been used for generations.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The difference between right-of-way at a roundabout vs a 4-way stop, is that each lane gets its turn at a stop sign. In a roundabout, if it's bumper-to-bumper you can only get on if one or more vehicles take your exit, otherwise there is no gap for you to merge into. It helps the heavily-congested side while SEVERELY punishing the casual sides.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Long Beach, CA has had them since the 1930s, as well, and we call them traffic circles
Hi, I'm English, and for the longest time I've had difficulty understanding the excitement of Nascar. However after reading the comments in this thread I think I understand; you guys are absolutely terrified of driving in anything that approximates a circle! So the adrenaline rush when you see cars turning and continuing to do so must be astounding.
Roundabouts are much safer than un-signalised intersections (because they force people to slow down, unlike intersections), and much more reliable (there are no lights or controls that can break down). And because they never let people wait unless there is a need for it, they have higher capacity than signalised intersections with non-adaptive control (which includes about 95% of all US intersections). And they are a lot cheaper than adaptive-control intersections.
Therefore: Long Live Roundabouts !
What are you stupid, roundabouts are great, especially if you don't know the area. Go round it once to check out all the exits then pick one on the second time around.
If you have a navigator who can't make up her mind, no problem, just go round again. Nobody needs to get pissed.
Magic roundabouts are even better, you can go round the outside one way, round the inside the other way and even change your mind half way through.
Plus notice all the little roundabouts on a magic roundabout are "mini-roundabouts" that means you can, quite legally go straight over. You still have to give way, but there's no turning needed.
My perception is that most drivers should not be driving. Maybe that's because I live in Ottawa where half the drivers are rich/diplomatic assholes and the other half are clinically retarded federal employees, or maybe it's because I'm a computer programmer and I'm used to the concept of "idiot-proofing" in software, but I think the less we rely on user/driver intelligence, the less accidents we'll see. Roundabouts require more thinking than the average human can spare while operating a vehicle. They can barely drive down a straight road without screwing up, I have zero faith in them handling a curve with traffic coming at them from four tangents. Most people still shit bricks when faced with a yield sign :P
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I hate them. I drive through Carmel every day to work. In the article it talks about how much gas is saved due to engines not idling at stoplights. I'm sure that's helpful at 3am but in normal driving around there. During regular traffic hours I would say I spend more time sitting waiting to go around a roundabout. If you're trying to get out of Carmel into Indy, I'm sure they're lovely because you're always to the left of where traffic flows so everyone in Carmel thinks they're great because they get right around them but to everyone going into Carmel or trying to cross it, they're a pretty miserable experience. Also, as several other users have pointed out, they're not that safe. Carmel is a city full of people who make the most money in the state and many of the people there think that their car and drive is more important than anyone else's so you get a lot of boneheaded maneuvers in that area. Finally, I can speak from experience that: 1) The so-called great directions on the ground are almost impossible to see in the rain 2) A lot of people don't understand how the 2 lane ones work and there are almost wrecks every day 3) Most of the ones in Carmel are pretty small and so you have to gun the engine to get out into the traffic flow, I'm sure that's great on gas mileage 4) A lot of people flat out don't understand them as I verified the other day when an older couple went the wrong direction around one stopping up all traffic and almost causing a wreck I don't know what the hell they smoke over there, but the roundabouts aren't that great. My guess is that in reality Carmel is trying to be "trendy" and European so they can show how much cooler they are than the rest of Indianapolis but I don't know of anyone that really cares for them.
I don't have time to make a sig
I can't tell from the satellite photo, but does that intersection even have lights ? It reminds me of the Clyde / Merivale corner, here in Ottawa, which is decently handled by regular street lights and right-turn ramps. Same idea though, too many ways to get on the same streets with redundant merges.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Instead of...
1) an adaptive traffic phasing (that's the term for light changes) system
2) creating a tunnel for the dominant traffic route under the rotary
3) changing the traffic in that area entirely
A roundabout is used instead. It costs very little to maintain, and there's
no lights to change. Its sad though, once these choke points
pop up drivers resort to driving in the surrounding, heavily settled
back roads, as fast as they can get away with. Which just creates
more safety problems.
After visiting Europe often, it struck me that when the new world was :(. America
formed that none of the city planners got on the first boats
needs better city planning, and then things like better public transportation
and less cars will follow.
Or we can look forward to more crap like this:
http://newenglandthings.tumblr.com/post/6801503864/rotary-in-east-longmeadow-massachusetts
www.alphalinux.org
I work at a government lab that recently installed a roundabout at a three-way intersection that includes a security checkpoint. This would be great for the people leaving work and not needing to stop for security. True to our lab's inefficient bureaucratic style though, they put in stop signs too. I've made it my small act of civil disobedience to run the stop sign every time I leave work through the west gate. I'm not the only one either.
That's my biggest issue with them. Stupid drivers ahead of me that stop!
--Jim (me)
I live in Indianapolis (Carmel is a suburb of Indy), and that city has gone Roundabout-Crazy!
A few months ago, I was looking for someplace that I didn't exactly know which street it was on, and thus, blew past it by one cross-street.
But, because of the over-use of roundabouts, I ended up having to go almost TWO MILES out of my way, to get back to the street I wanted.
About a week ago, driving to work (I work on the northernmost end of Carmel. Fortunately, there are no roundabouts normally on my route!), and diverted to a side-street to stop for gas. Getting back to the main thoroughfare (Meridian St./U.S. 31) required negotiating one of the damnable roundabouts. Not only is there no "unwritten protocol" like there is at stop signs, and thus, at busy times, aggressive/late drivers just bully on through, instead of stopping and waiting their turn; but the design of the roundabouts seems to REQUIRE an insane amount of lane-switching (there is a poorly-marked inner and outer lane), which PROMOTES, rather than PREVENTS, side-swipe type collisions, from people trying to cross lanes to get to their "exit" on the roundabout, rather than going around another "lap", like I'm sure the engineers had in mind. Roundabouts also take about 4 times (at least!) as much real-estate as a small intersection (which this was), and I can't even imagine how much more tax dollars they cost. If anyone else here lives near Carmel, this was the roundabout at 106th and Pennsylvania. Both are very small streets, but due to the density of businesses in that area, during rush hour, they are pretty busy. If the roundabout had been made larger (and even more wasteful), there would be more time to negotiate these lane-changes; but as stands, they are a traffic HAZARD.
But, a few years ago, the mayor of Carmel took a vacation in Europe, liked the roundabouts, and now everyone has to suffer for it.
then again, Boston has an odd road network (particularly in some older sections of the city laid out long before the automobile). Is that just another tihng that the natives get used to?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The thing I find puzzling about the American resistance to roundabouts is that they actually contain no new concepts at all, you don't have to 'learn' anything to use them. Topologically, they are just a one way street with T-junctions.
Ever pulled out of a side street into one-way traffic? That's exactly what you do when you join a roundabout. Even turned off a one way street into a side street? That's exactly what you do when you leave.
We (Sweden) have a fair amount of 'em (increasing lately) and when implemented right I have absolutely nothing against them. But we're also getting more and more of "1.5 lane" roundabouts which I don't like at all. Assume a 4 way crossing: 2 lanes into the roundabout from each direction, right lane is exit at first (ie right turn) or second (ie straight ahead) exit while left lane is for the third or fourth (ie left or a full 360 degrees turn). There is only one lane at leaving the roundabout at each exit.
Legally the 2 lanes in the roundabout is a 2-lane one way street with right of way. If you change lane in the roundabout it's just like on any road - you need to check that it's clear first.
If you're turning left in the intersection, you're supposed to (the lane marker lines even "spiral" out to indicate this) move from the inner (left) lane once past the first exit and be in the right hand lane as you pass the second exit and go for the third.
problem is that at one hand you have right of way in the roundabout before joining traffic, while traffic joining from the right might see the gap that you're supposed to move into as an opportunity to join.. Now as the distance between your cars move into the negative, did you fail to check before changing lanes or he fail to yield? (Typical impact point is about 170 degrees into the roundabout, measured from your entry) I don't know - have been trying to find out to haven't been able to.
The way I try to mitigate the problem is to act as if I were going for (the nonexistent) left lane at the second (straight ahead) exit, which tends to keep people from joining from the right, and then turn much more sharply to the left once well into the right lane, instead of sliding into the right lane as intended)
I know that game. Rename the thing, claim it's completely different, and then when it's built, it turns out to be exactly the same.
The only way that'll be true is if they get drivers to stay home. Which is probably the idea; this is the same bunch of traffic engineers which brought us "traffic calming".
If I beat the light, though, I might get into a pattern where I get through all the other lights too. The potential win is much greater than a minor mileage loss. There are plenty of sets of lights timed such that if you are stopped by one red, you're stopped by all the others in turn. (There are also sets of lights which are timed such that you can get through them all at the same phase -- provided you're doing 10mph over the limit).
Massachusetts has been using roundabouts for years. What is more remarkable, is given the local driving habits (I live just tad north in NH), they even have several two lane roundabouts in use at various junctures which somehow don't stand out with significant numbers of fatalities. Some of these are marked as such, some not so much and the drivers take some initiative and make it into two lanes on their own. I would propose that in my years of driving, one of the most creative maneuvers a driver can engage in is migrating from an internal round-about lane to an outside exit, particularly when they are busy (as again, one could postulate that the two lanes one were made two lanes for a reason).
When you replace an uncontrolled intersection with a roundabout then US and European drivers have to start looking for and yielding to traffic coming from the left rather than the right. This is hard to get used to if you have driven a crossing thousands of times. For UK drivers there is no change so those mini roundabouts don't require driver adjustment.
The problem with that one is the lane markings. They don't spiral out, so you have to think where you're going at every point.
Look Here (London, UK -- driving on the left, obviously). The lane markings guide the drivers towards the exit they wanted (assuming they picked the correct lane when they approached). Look on streetview if you wish.
Also, the road numbers are painted in the lanes in gigantic letters.
Just be aware that in Swedish "Token" means something completely different - more specific "Fool".
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I'm marking this as "not a bug -- works for me."
I've driven in the UK before. Although roundabouts are well marked, when traffic is REALLY heavy the markings mean squat and it's a free-for all. I was fine because I can be an aggressive driver when needed, but anyone without good reflexes and an iron will would be waiting at one of those roundabouts for quite a long time before they got through, with a light they would have been through just fine.
I also prefer them when traffic is light as you can just go right through with no stopping. Perhaps like onramps in the U.S., for peak traffic they need to install entrance lights that would prevent entry in waves from various sides, and give side traffic a chance to get in. Or main traffic for that matter, since a big problem with roundabout is a very light side traffic can utterly decimate forward motion from a main artery since no-one can get in.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only way they would be faster is if you hit a red light at every single intersection you cross rather then yielding to cars in high flow areas. If you throw in a heavy dose of road rage and a bad day this can lead to quite a few fendor-bendors and people with the inability to get out of the way of traffic due to the way they're shaped.
They're a just cluster fuck and have a 'cool' factor to them because they're largely absent from our culture, appear 'prim' because the English use them, and usually have some sort of fancy artwork in the middle. In no way, shape, or form can I imagine them being faster or safer then a light that automatically tells you if you have right of way or not (baring faults of the light). The only use I can see them having is replacing a four way stop sign in a low-traffic area as a yield, as people usually do rolling stops in these areas anyway.
This is a very bad trend for both those seeking more culture and those seeking a faster way to travel as after all these are installed and we realized how much of a pain in the ass they are as well of how they muck up traffic, they'll have to be exchanged for traffic lights. More so because I've started to see them put into intersections where there wasn't originally a four way stop!
Adding roundabouts wont fix anything, a better traffic light system which takes into account flow and patterns of traffic based on usage statistics that is tied into other traffic lights most definitely can though. I seriously hope they don't become more adopted and remain then the occasional curiosity in a low traffic portion of cities.
I know that game. Rename the thing, claim it's completely different, and then when it's built, it turns out to be exactly the same.
*sigh* look up "roundabout" in wikipedia. It explains the distinction, and it is a distinction with important differences.
If I beat the light, though, I might get into a pattern where I get through all the other lights too.
Yes, that is part of the strategy. If the light ahead is green, speed up unless it's so far ahead you know it will be red when you get to it. If the light ahead is red, it's stupid to not take your foot off the accelerator, and downright idiotic to speed up, no matter what the other idiots are doing.
Free Martian Whores!
Well.... sure, except for the Republicans.
That's pretty odd, since Republicans are the only ones who seem to have figured out that wild spending is bad and are trying to redeem themselves.
Meanwhile Democrats plow ahead, determined to spend until the hammer comes down on all of us.
So I'd re-think who is learning what.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We had our share of rataries here in Massachusettes. One of the most notorious ones, with the excpetion of the one to Cape Cod, was the Drum Hill rotary near Lowell. There were at least 3 to 5 rear end collisions a day. People would watch traffic while sitting behind a car that hadn't left yet. To do this they would have to look over their shoulder. If the car in front moved a foot, they would lose sight of the car. As soon as a break would come, they would hit the gas, running into the car in front of them, driven by a "cautious driver", that hadn't left the intersection, but had just inched forward.
As part of the route-3 construction project, all of the route-3 bridges were replaced and the rotary was turned into a series of stop-light intersections. While carrying more traffic, it is now much safer. In fact, I believe that Massachusetts has been going the other way, getting rid of all of the rotaries. Rotaries are fine for bedroom community type roads where you get minimal traffic. However, as another poster pointed out, they rapidly collapse under high traffic load.
David
just plain can't read the signs fast enough to grasp which way to go, thus cutting people off, making right turns from the inside lane.
Oh they understood the signs just fine. That's just what a lot of idiot drivers DO. They are the same people that go all the way to the end of a merge lane and then force themselves in suddenly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If it's done right this can be the best of both worlds.
You have to TURN OFF the traffic lights when there isn't much traffic.
When there's a lot of traffic the lights actually increase the total amount that can get through at the cost of it taking longer (on average) for a car to cross the roundabout. The one you're thinking of is probably configured for maximum capacity.
As for timing, they do sometimes try to make some routes round have green lights all the way, but usually this forces other routes have longer delays. Basically, you can't win them all without turning off the lights.
No I am not American but I have visited and Americans are the most corteous drivers I have EVER seen ANYWHERE in the world INCLUDING Japan.
Now granted this was in Arizona only so hardly a deeply researched anecdote but let me tell it nonetheless:
Phoenix is HUGE, to a european everything is laid out like a brand new industrial park stretched to breaking point. Those big cars that totally block a European road? Got about a meter on each side on a lane. Crossing the street on foot you better pack a lunch.
Most crossings have lights but oddly enough, the light for the pedestrians and parallel road traffic goes green at the SAME time. So, if you are dutch, you know to watch your back because drivers will rush forward at top speed, if you are lucky, just stopping in front of you if you are brave enough.
So, what do rude obnoxious unmannered American drivers do? They wait. NOT a milimeter in front of you, they wait AT THE LIGHT! ALL the way over on the other side of the junction and ONLY start to drive when you are WELL clear. I was there for over a week, NOT a SINGLE occasion did ANY driver not give me plenty of space to walk. Now granted I know a dutch geek is probably very imposing to the average American redneck but I at least have to say that Americans must have sent all their assholes out of the country when I visited.
Do round abouts work as a citizen of round about country? Not really, assholes are assholes. Maybe if the police did their job a bit better. Although that is odd, for a supposed police state I saw just one traffic cop. The day before I left holland, riot police was parked on every corner in Amsterdam with camera's everywhere because there were was soccer match...
Sometimes the world is not quite according to the stereotypes you have in your head.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Seriously, Fuck You. I absolutely loathe roundabouts.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your politician, and hitting them?"
That video timothy linked to is pretty cool. I've got two conflicting pieces of anecdotal evidence related to it. First, anyone remember the DC blackout last year? Traffic was FUCKED. Gridlock for miles. On the other hand, in my hometown, there is an 8-way intersection at the top of a motherfucking hill that's basically just a free-for-all. I've been told there has not been a single fatal accident there, ever. People just work it out themselves.
That was in PA, however, where people MUST know how to drive well, or they'll be dead before winter ends. Please don't do this in Arizona, the drivers here are just absolute morons.
But I do see a lot of people who claim that Tea Party is insane who themselves foam at the mouth at the first opportunity.
oh, like teabaggers don't foam at the mouth. bloody hell.
I know of three built in the last few years.
One, near Windsor, seems to serve no purpose at all, beyond complicating things. Almost never any traffic there, why even bother? Another is at the top of an exit ramp from a major highway, and I rarely see anything there either. Seems pointless, unless spending lots of tax money was the goal.
The most recent, is in New Minas, and there is a lot of traffic there. For the moment, almost all traffic is on one road, and almost zero on the crossing road. This seems to be teaching motorists that they don't even need to yield. It's scary if you are turning. And when traffic is heavy, it just stops, and no one can get in on the side at all unless someone lets them. It takes up a lot more space than a normal intersection, yet is still small enough to be a tight turn, with wavy roads coming in and out. And it has two lanes in this tight circle. And on one exit, the outer lane has a telephone pole in the middle of it. It's been months, and no sign of them taking it out.
Lunacy!
So let me get this straight.... the objection to having roundabouts is that being nice to other people is un-American???
Great. That really makes me want to go out and meet more Americans.
Wow. This is coming from the land that makes saying "Have a nice day" into a national slogan.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
In my country the goverment is getting rid of this abominations because it has cost us lots of money and deaths, they are a terrible idea and because it is assumed that people will go on it in an ordered manner, the problem is that some drivers want to outsmart others and this disrupts the whole system Oh, and god help you on peak hours, they are hell
New Jersey had them for years. They have been getting rid of them in the last 10 or so years. I haven't been paying attention to the reasons, but all of the areas that I am familiar with that used to have traffic circles and don't anymore used to be low traffic areas and now are high traffic areas.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Tyre costs.
:)
That's the only thing I think it costs me more on.
Usually nothing a regular tyre rotation can't reduce though
I think therefore I am... a Linux geek.
Given a choice between a roundabout and a four-way stop, I'll take the roundabout, thank you. For moderate traffic volumes, they work well. For heavy traffic volumes they don't, but that's what we pay the road planners for.
The fact that people don't know how they work is a significant issue, but around here (Vancouver, BC) people don't seem to have much grasp of any traffic rules or regulations. When I started driving again a few years ago after not driving for about 10 years, I actually looked up the laws about four way stops, because I had so many close calls that I wondered if they had changed in the interim. They hadn't. The drivers had.
The first time I drove in England I asked the guy at the car rental counter about the rules of the road at roundabouts, because I hadn't been able to discern any. I also asked a Melbourne taxi driver about hook turns, and he said the best thing to do was watch what people did before I tried it myself.
...laura
Here's what they're currently building in my city. They're replacing a perfectly functional overpass with a 4 in a row roundabout chain of death. That wasn't dangerous or confusing enough though so they added like 8 crosswalks so as you're coming out of a semi-blind angled roundabout exit at the last second when you realize that's your exit, you have approximately 5-10 feet to slam on the brakes for pedestrians and the pedestrians in that area are exceptionally stupid and slow in my experience.
Check it out: http://us41wisconsin.gov/remos_downloads/41_PIM_Exhibit_Breezewood_2x3Board.283.pdf
Correction: 18 crosswalks.
Up the street about a mile, they just built a double back to back one in a place that was actually a bit more appropriate and useful. It would work flawlessly if it was double the size because as it is, it's not useable as far as proper legal signalling goes but that wouldn't have fit. It does help traffic flow noticeably compared to the lights but there have been something like 80+ accidents in it in a few months. My friend was hit in it at full speed by some old guy who didn't know what it was all about and heavily damaged his brand new (used) Saab so that's what I think of roundabouts...well more like what I think of the intelligence of other drivers in relation to roundabouts. If you look at the whole website, they claim:
90 percent fewer fatal crashes
76 percent less crashes with injury
Fewer conflict points, meaning fewer opportunities for crashes
So it's better at reducing 45 MPH deadly accidents obviously and theoretically reduces potential opportunities for lower speed ones or whatever BS they're pushing. They neglected to fill in the hole in that stats which is low speed accidents in practice, not theory, which is 1000% higher bare minimum. Like I said, 80+ accidents in a few months and I remember 1 accident in the last 10 years at the intersection when it had lights. It's probably a 100000% increase in low speed, non-fatal accidents.
you will start driving the communist German economical diesels - still on the good side it will make smug Prius drivers STFU
The original rotaries on 3 of the 4 junctions of the Bourne and Sagamore bridges were put in when the current bridges were completed in 1935. 1 rotary was bypassed in 1987 by feeding the Bourne Bridge directly into MA-25 (north side Bourne Bridge), 1 was replaced with a freeway interchange in 2006 (north side Sagamore Bridge, only the one that is south side Bourne Bridge still has bridge traffic feeding directly into it.
This is the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet page on the current project to put a Double Crossover Diamond (aka Diverging Diamond) interchange in the intersection outside my office: http://www.transportation.ky.gov/us68dcd/
Traffic swaps sides of the road going through. So, you go from driving on the right-hand side to the left and back as you go through.
Yup, there has been one in the center of town in Pittsboro North Carolina for decades, long before 1990. No way they can claim a 1990 first, unless by British Style they mean that the drivers go in the wrong direction and drive on the wrong side of the road as they enter and exit.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I live in England in a town that was designed and developed in the 1960s. The ENTIRE TOWN relies on roundabouts. It houses around 100,000 people and there's literally only 1 set of traffic lights in town and they're temporary and on a roundabout anyway. The traffic flow is fine and i've never seen a single accident on them. The nearest i've seen is someone break down on one, and due to the size of the area they broke down in they didn't hinder traffic anyway. It sounds strange to think of people struggling with the concept of roundabouts but I suppose it's tricky to imagine being new to the concept.
There are conditions when roundabouts work (improve traffic flow vis a vis a traffic light), and when they don't work (less efficient than a traffic light).
They're not a panacea. True believers should abandon the concept that the roundabout solves all problems.
In DC, they have hybrid roundabouts - roundabouts with traffic lights. That's because pure roundabouts fail when there are lots of connected roads and high traffic volumes.
Roundabouts rock! I'm American and never encountered a roundabout until I rode a motorcycle through the U.K. for five weeks (awesome country, btw). I was *amazed* at how much more efficient they are than intersections. (Not to mention that the drivers in southern England are amazingly aware of and courteous to motorcyclists). I think all but the busiest intersections in the U.S. should be ripped out and replaced with roundabouts. We'd all get where we're going so much faster and more easily.
Cheers, Tim -- Tim Janke Part mad scientist, part lion tamer: sr. software engineer, global team leader, project mana
We use them successfully in these places not in america. You often don't need to stop, but everyone typically needs to slow down enough to negotiate the roundabout.
Do you lot really believe that your drivers are so inferior to the rest of the world that they're a traffic hazard?
All lights do is create stop/start, reducing traffic flow, thus increasing fuel consumption, time spent on the road (and thus traffic congestion), etc. They're also no good when they fail - roundabouts can't suddenly stop working.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
and typically caused by a red light runner t-boning someone at high speed. roundabout crashes are far less serious when they do occasionally happen.
incompetent drivers will crash irrespective of road design. roundabouts improve traffic flow and also make those who do manage to crash have less serious crashes.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Lee Circle in New Orleans has been around for a LONG time as far as things in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Circle It was previously named Tivoli circle, which a quick bit of research says it was there at the very latest since the early 1850's.
What word rhymes with buried alive?
Not knowing the specific configuration, head to the crosswalk and use it or press the button for a pedestrian crossing and get back into the lane.
Here's W Coliseum Blvd and Speedway Dr, Fort Wayne, IN, in Google Street View. No marked crosswalk, no pedestrian signal.
IIRC all intersections have implied crosswalks even if they are not marked and traffic is *supposed* to yield to all pedestrians.
Even when oncoming traffic has the green turn arrow? Because that's what I'm facing: waiting three, four, or five cycles with alternating cross traffic and oncoming traffic with a turn arrow.
the only way to use congestion charges to reduce traffic would be to raise them to the point where it's no longer profitable to go to work.
That just creates a market for products and services like those provided by Citrix Online.
Here in Australia the rule on who gives way is a race, "Who was in the intersection first?" Whoever was first in the intersection has right of way.
Dependence on cars for commuting and shipping. I hate driving. I hate needing to own a car. I wish I could be free of both.
In the U.S., with the massive entrenched vehicle lobbies and stigma of public transport, this may never happen.
Remember, these are the same things that even New Jersey finally woke up and declared a bad idea.
Even the (in)famous Airport circle outside of Atlantic City is going away. The diminutive Rt40/Pole Tavern circle is still...around, as is the ever entertaining Red Lion circle. Watching the Somers Point circle "fade" away along with the 30's era bridge into Ocean City has been an amazing example of gov't waste in action. .5 billion$)
(only
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traffic_circles_in_New_Jersey
Just chiming in on the state of roundabouts in New Zealand...
The main problem here is that *most* people do not indicate correctly. Generally this means people don't indicate at all, which won't directly cause a crash but can impede flow. What is dangerous is the second-guessing this encourages, that is, assuming someone is going to take an exit even though they aren't indicating.
This is pure driver error, but the road code contributes a bit to the problem by requiring drivers to indicate their intended exit as they approach the roundabout - left for the first, straight for the second, and right for the third (note we drive on the left). IMO this rule is mostly cruft, and distracts people from the most important rule which is of course to indicate left before exiting.
We have a lot of really good roundabouts, mostly larger two-lane affairs. We have some bad roundabouts on intersections with a dominant traffic flow (doing a U-turn at these is dangerous because other drivers second-guess you). We have some bad roundabouts that are too small - for these the 'give way to cars already on the roundabout' rule fails and 'give way deadlock' ensues.
Find Roundabouts scary? You should be scared. But shouldn't the question be, why don't you find intersections scary enough normally?
Roundabouts solve a few of the key problems that face drivers at intersections. That is, slowing down, looking, and being courteous. Roundabouts force drivers to be pay attention by being slightly more dangerous.
There is no Red light to ignore, and no green light that means all-clear-to-plant-foot-without-looking.
However they are still vulernable to people who don't use their turn signals, and really cannot follow rules. At least when an accident happens drivers have room to avoid, is at lower speed, and avoids t-bone and head on collsions. Overall result: they are superior to traffic lights and un-regulated intersections for most conditons.
(I live in a country that makes heavy use of roundabouts and has drivers that are similar if not worse than American drivers in terms of paying attention, being courteous and generally needless death and destruction.)
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
There is a distinction between a traffic circle and a roundabout. Your objections are true for traffic circles, but not roundabouts. As TFA notes, traffic circles were tried and rejected in the US as early as the 1920s.
I live in New Hampshire, and here all roundabouts are called "traffic circles". (Yes, I'm aware of what the Wikipedia article says -- here in NH, we use NH law and regulations, not Wikipedia. NH has actually been around *longer* then Wikipedia, interestingly enough.) To the south, in Massachusetts, all roundabouts are similarly called "rotaries". Most of these "traffic circles" and "rotaries" fit the criteria given in the Wikipedia article. The Portsmouth Traffic Circle, for example: Incoming traffic must yield to traffic in the circle (but if there is no traffic, there is no stop); traffic enters at an angle; pedestrians are prohibited.
By any name, they can still suffer from one problem the grandparent remarks upon: Under heavy traffic, circles can get in a mode where one entrance is flowing and all the others are stopped waiting for that traffic to cease so they can enter. This is a drawback. The fact that a drawback exists doesn't mean they're unworkable.
Unlike the grandparent, I personally find a 5-way intersection a lot more hectic than a traffic circle. You only have to worry about one complication at a time in a circle. Or if the 5-way is signal controlled, the light cycle takes forever.
You can usually pack a light or 4-way stop into a tighter space than a circle. That can be an issue around here, where things are sometimes built up right to the road. That's not an ideal design, of course, but old cities are full of non-ideal things.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The real problem with traffic lights (where power is reliable) only comes about due to lack of proper sensors. Seriously, they only have sensors that detect stopped vehicles? Really? They can't embed road sensors further back that detect approaching traffic? They can't detect vehicles leaving an intersection and predict when they might reach the next one? Do they really only pay attention to a sensor when the light is red in that direction? Are we in the '80s or something?
Roundabouts are a poor man's solution to the problem. They work better than stop signs, some of the time. Sometimes they are installed where it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, like a quiet residential street (tiny-tiny thing, you have to come to a stop just to make the corner into the circle). The only reason they're becoming so common is because they are the current fashion. Remember all that orange upholstery and carpet? It was popular once too. Decades from now we're going to look back and say: "What idiot made that decision? He sure got around!"
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
It's interesting that cooperation and yielding to others is considered "un-American" by at least some Americans. That simple statements speaks volumes about the dire straights that the United States is in.
You were trolled. That simple statement speaks volumes about your prejudices against the United States, and your willingness to bite into anything that fits them.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Ahhh! I've also been to all the states except North Dakota. But I've also been to Alaska and Hawaii..
Everyone tells me, North Dakota is a good place to be last on the list. The only thing I've ever heard is "Yeah, I went to Fargo once."
Not only do we already have lots of roundabouts here in Europe, we also have a Magic Roundabout.
Open Source Alternatives
Here in Norway, we have many round abouts... far too many. They are fine in smaller suburban areas where minimal traffic control is required. They're more effective than stop signs or stop traffic lights, but when the area is more heavily trafficked, they are an utter disaster. A while back, I wrote a traffic simulator program that I implemented with an algorithm called "Every 5th driver is a selfish opportunist prick". I tested many scenarios based on a few basic rules.
:
1) More than half the people driving do not understand how to use their turn signals in a round about
2) Less than half the people pay attention to turn signals in a round about since they are either lazy or far to busy building the courage to brave the round about
3) Many people, even those who grew up with round abouts fear them and will wait until there are no other cars in the round about and no other cars that look like they'll soon reach the round about while they're in it before entering the round about.
4) When round abouts are backed up, the vast majority of people will not yield to other queues to offload the queues from other branches. This is a result typically of people who are so frustrated from waiting for their turn, they feel entitled to the right of way at all times.
5) 10% of the people (generally Mercedes and Audi drivers) who see there is someone entering the round about further ahead of themselves will accelerate to reach the round about to ensure their right of way to avoid risking being on car further behind. 10% of them will very aggressively attempt to force their right of way either by honking or hostile driving.
6) More than half the people will see the round about as a self regulating traffic device. Meaning, they'll treat it as if it were a traffic light and that if they have managed to enter the round about, then the round about has decided that it should belong to them during their occupation of it.
7) 80% of all people (came up with this value by sitting at real round abouts during rush hour in the city and counting) DO NOT honor the multiple lanes in the round about.
8) 75% (same source as in 7) of people with license plates issued from areas other than the city containing the round about will fail to be in the proper lane of a multiple lane round about.
9) 10% of all people who are frustrated by waiting in the queue of a multiple lane round about will use an alternate lane's queue to cut ahead of other cars and then force themselves into the proper queue lane shortly before entering the queue. Effectively delaying the queue they are avoiding further and blocking the queue for the lane they used to cut in line until they have managed to bully their way into the lane they need to be in.
10) 1 out of 10 thousand cars will breakdown causing rubber necking while people are exiting the queues where the car is sitting disabled.
11) 60% of all car will make more simple mistakes in the presence if there is a police car present. Most importantly, they'll wait longer and prolong queues.
12) Bicyclists will take the right of way in round abouts nearly every time. Most often, they will not even decelerate when entering a round about. I believe this is caused by lack of driver education by the bicyclist. They see the cars are competition or the enemy.
I ran substantial testing based on
- Varying levels of congestion
- Distances between round abouts and other traffic regulating devices (including other round abouts, traffic lights, trolly tracks, stop signs etc...)
- Distances between round abouts and bottle necks generated by the reduction of the number of lanes in an exiting branch, or construction work.
- Time of day, testing of incoming and outgoing traffic
- Distance of signs defining the correct lane to use before the round about
- Angle of signs within a round about defining the exits including their size and readability.
- Quality of marking of lines for the queues to the round abouts.
- Added assistance within queues of cones, barriers or otherwise to avoid
And another type of intersection "sweeping" the US is the Superstreet. There are a lot of intersections in the US (or at least in Texas) where a major street is crossed by a minor street, and through traffic on the minor street is very rare. Allowing the rare situation of through traffic on the minor street results in inefficiency, so the Superstreet intersection requires all minor street through traffic to make a right turn onto the major street, then make U-turn for a left turn, similar to a Michigan Left for the minor street, only without the through cross-traffic. There are only two signal phases, one for major street traffic, and another for minor street traffic and left turns off of the major street. The one I have seen also adds a bit of extra U-turn arc to the right shoulder of the major street.
It was installed in 2009 on US 281 north of San Antonio, with other installs planned for Loop 1604 in far northwest San Antonio and Loop 360 in Austin.
Unlike a roundabout, there are signals to control traffic. Unlike a regular intersection, this is much more efficient when there is very heavy traffic on the main street, and a lot of traffic going on and off the major street, but through traffic on the minor street is very rare. Because it is signalized, major street traffic flows at full speed without having to slow down for the curves of a roundabout, and minor street traffic gets guaranteed entry windows when present, due to loop sensors.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
What you think is a roundabout probably isn't.
roundabout
traffic circle
Notice the difference in shape? The roundabout has a geometry that is designed to point vehicles into the circle. The traffic circle is just a round road with four T-intersections.
Also, roundabouts always have a Yield-on-Entry rule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout#Difference_from_traffic_circles
Now pardon me while I get that damned Yes song out of my head.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
We just got a roundabout in the area, replacing a 2-way stop. During periods of low to moderate traffic it definitely makes traffic flow better. But when the traffic gets heavy on the cross-road, getting through becomes quite challenging. Problem is that with signals or stop signs the flow becomes broken, giving opportunity for others to get through. With a traffic circle one is dependent upon the courtesy of other drivers to allow traffic to play through -- so the chance for a collision goes up. We sometimes sit a long time waiting for a break in the flow to get across. So, pretty much like anything else that depends upon mutual cooperation to work. A string of selfish drivers can really bugger it up. At least with a congestion interrupter (respected, of course) there is a chance for less aggressive drivers.
Every time I'm on the road and some fool of a vehicle operator tries to make a right-hand turn at a 4-way intersection as though they were just another vehicle my blood pressure goes up a notch.
Vehicular turns are what most U.S. state laws appear to expect from cyclists. State traffic codes tend to treat bicycles as the non-motorized vehicles they are because like other vehicles, bicycles go 1. in more or less straight lines 2. much faster than pedestrians.
Seriously cyclists, just dismount and use the pedestrian crossing segments.
I would if they existed.
I pay for the roads with my fuel taxes.
I read somewhere that road wear is estimated as proportional to the fourth power of axle weight. The axle weight of a car and its driver is at least ten times that of a bike plus rider, meaning a car does ten thousand times as much wear. So even assuming that three-fourths of the fuel price is tax, as it is in some countries of Europe, the rounding error on my sales tax is probably enough to cover the wear that my bicycle does to the roads.
and has been busily removing roundabouts for the past 15 years. The insurmountable problem with roundabouts is that they have a maximum traffic limit above which they simply do not work. Yes, driver selfishness and lack of skill are pervasive problems. But even with perfect drivers, roundabouts simply do not work in dense traffic.
- Cardhu
If it cycled, you'd get your light, wouldn't you?
Not necessarily, if it's stuck alternating between cross traffic and a green turn arrow for oncoming traffic.
Can someone explain to me how the article and the OP says that roundabouts didn't appear in the US until 1990, when I distinctly remember driving on the roundabout near Bear Mountain (in NY) before that as well as several smaller roundabouts in New Jersey? Is there some sort of difference between them?
New jersey has had traffic circles since the 20's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traffic_circles_in_New_Jersey
I grew up with them, along with "jug handles". Out of staters seem to hate those, but they are great for making left hand turns.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
d. live closer to where you work
FTFY.
That doesn't help if residential real estate near work is unaffordable. Nor does it help if different members of the same household work in different parts of town.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
I drove occasionally in Cambridge, MA, for a couple of years in the early 90's. The Alewife Brook Parkway has a pair of inter-connected traffic circles (here they are in Google Maps - http://www.google.com/maps?q=cambridge,+mass&hl=en&ll=42.387688,-71.142134&spn=0.003633,0.004769&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=62.61328,78.134766&t=h&z=18) which have been there for a very long time. This particular highway is trafficked by daily commuters, so they know the routine. The deft entering/exiting/maneuvering was actually a thing of beauty to behold.
"I live in a UK "new town", lousy with roundabouts
It's OK, you can say "Milton Keynes", you're amongst friends and we promise not to tell.
Incidentally, it's iinteresting how even in the Sixties, planners had no real idea of how heavy traffic would be by now. Which isn't surprising when you look at pictures of somewhere like Piccadilly Circus in the Sixties - the roads look virtually deserted by modern day standards.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Here's how it happened: About 20 years ago the International Design Institute Of Transportation Services (IDIOTS) had a convention of representatives from the respective departments of transportation for different states. At that convention, someone gave a seminar, "Roundabouts: Our Intersection with the Future", in which a person, who was marginally smarter than the other convention attendees, and who knew how to use Powerpoint, extolled the virtues of roundabouts. One pointy-haired attendee, who had never had an original thought in his life, decided roundabouts were a great idea, and when he returned home, proceeded to push through projects for their construction at every opportunity. At future IDIOTS conventions, this pointy-haired bureaucrat boasted that roundabouts had saved his state enormous amounts of money, and other IDIOTS members took this information back to their states, and the idea spread. Now, roundabouts are popping up all over the place, often in areas where they are completely useless, because IDIOTS recommend them as a cure-all to every traffic problem.
Proverbs 21:19
There's been on in Greensboro, NC for at least 40 years. We didn't use the terminology "Roundabout." Most called it a Traffic Circle. I read the "distinction between traffic circles, rotaries, and modern roundabouts" section in Wikipedia, and this intersection meets the definition of "modern roundabout." So no, there were at least some around long before 1990. I recently used numerous roundabouts on Cape Cod. Most of them could also be called roundabouts. Part of the current problem is that drivers accustomed to their function tend to get impatient with those who don't know how to navigate them, and may become overly aggressive. I agree with some others that they work better for lightly travelled intersections. Heavy traffic necessitates more cooperation, and getting aggressive and meek drivers to cooperate is difficult (due to both).
Roundabouts are more efficient than stop signs or stoplights because they allow drivers to just go whenever they are able, yielding only if necessary.
DC's traffic circles are not roundabouts because they are entirely stoplight or stop-sign controlled. There are no circles in DC that depend only on driver yields for traffic control. In operation they are more like giant complicated stoplight or stop sign intersections than roundabouts. Not to mention that some of them have subterranean "short cuts" under the circle for major streets--which only adds to the driver complexity.
A few DC suburbs have true roundabouts in their neighborhoods, mostly in Maryland in my experience. No idea if they predate 1990.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
So much for the BBC. Those of us from Philly have known and loathed the traffic circles in New Jersey for scores of years; In Des Plaines, in the Chicago 'burbs, there's one known widely as the Dread Circle of Death, and it's been there for decades, also.
mark "give me a traffic light, please"
One nice benefit (or detriment if you're a city) is no red light cameras for giving out automated traffic tickets.
For drivers good, as it they really are just a revenue generating device that has nothing to do with safty.
For Cities bad, as you lose a possible revenue stream.
Full disclosure: I bicycle, but a motorcycle is my primary commuter vehicle.
I'm not sure about other states, but in California there is no law specifically permitting you to run a red-light in the event that your vehicle isn't detected. Instead, we rely on a bit of a loophole in the law - California requires that all traffic loops be able to detect bicycle and motorcycle traffic. If cited, we make the argument that because the light was unable to detect us as per the legal requirements for traffic lights, the light has failed, and should be treated as if it were a stop-sign with the green light having right of way.
There are two issues with this... The first, obvious issue, is that you may still be cited by a police officer for running the red light regardless of whether or not the light was working. This sort of thing is often up to officer discretion, and officers often won't respect nuances in the law. In court, you are also subject to the Judge's discretion - it's been my personal experience that Judges don't tend to be as open to legal arguments from average citizens as they are to legal arguments from lawyers. Even then, I've seen judges (even at the appellate level) dismiss arguments that would be legal, but highly inconvenient, to the court system. Regardless, going to court carries significant expenses even when you win - all said and done, going to often as much as paying bail and attending traffic court (fuel, time off from work, preparation work, etc.)
The second issue, is that it may not always be *safe* to enter an intersection. If cross-traffic is heavy enough, it's unlikely you will be able to enter the intersection safely.
Often, the best approach is either to find an alternative route, or use a pedestrian cross button.
I am not a lawyer, but I do have a personal interest in CA traffic law.
And if you're going an even more right speed, you can get where you're going without stopping at all, and get there even sooner. Most people lack the intelligence to understand this. Moreover, if what you say is true, and you're capable of finding an "ideal" speed that gets you through all the lights perfectly, what happens when you run into a single jackass going 5-10 mph slower than your ideal speed, therefore throwing off all your careful calculations and causing you to hit almost every light? Can you still claim you can get there in the same amount of time as say someone who sees a green in the distance, accelerates to close the distance (predicting the yellow), and manages to safely cruise through the light vs the "single speed driver" who doesn't modify their behavior at all and ends up arriving at the light exactly in time for it to turn red?
It doesn't work when there's a lot of traffic. Here, though, there's seldom anyone going slower, although maddeningly they seem to slow down for the green lights and speed up and zoom around you when the light is red so you wind up stopping behind them for a green light, because the moron's in no hurry to go when the light turns green.
Sometimes I wonder if some people are trying as hard as they can to waste as much gas as possible, theirs and yours too.
Free Martian Whores!
The intersection does not have street lights. There are stop signs in three directions, but one of the directions is exempt if you are turning right, and the opposite facing traffic can turn left at the same time, resulting in both parties turning onto the same street at the same time - with only 200' of two-lane before it turns back into a single lane road! This is all compounded by the Tim Horton's that is right on the corner. It is a very dangerous intersection, I've seen many accidents caused by people who don't understand the flow of traffic. I can't help but think that a roundabout would lessen the danger in using this particular intersection.
.sig
As I said, meh.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Well then I guess it comes down to what you define as "aggressive" driving. Because I'll definitely accelerate faster towards a green light (and in some cases even a yellow if I know the area and the general timing of the light) to beat the red. In the same way, I'll slow down when approaching a red so that I can carry some speed through the light when it turns green. Both of these behaviors are typically viewed as aggressive driving, whereas personally I see it as simply driving "smart". Thinking ahead in the dynamic environment that is road traffic seems like a far better idea than going one static speed with the cruise control on.
America needs to learn to co-operate.
I have to agree with you, I wouldn't consider that "agressive driving". Cruise is great on the highway, but you won't gain anything in the city.
Free Martian Whores!