I have started a facebook page as a clearing house for info on new roundabouts and how to kill them:
http://www.facebook.com/RoundaoubtResistance
At this point I just want to concentrate on WI. Once we get this figured out here I'll be happy to open it up nationally. Or if someone in another state wants to take up the cause there I'll be happy to share as much info as I can.
I hate them.
I hate stop lights so I love em.
I want more.
They are putting them in in Michigan. I hate them, they are confusing and dangerous. The newest one near me is going on an expressway overpass. What a disaster that will be! Why not just put in traffic lights?
I’m sorry, but your project is wrongheaded.
We have lots of roundabouts here in Kansas, and they work exactly as intended: traffic can flow smoothly through heavily traveled intersections without backing up as at traffic lights. In areas with heavy pedestrian traffic traffic lights are superior to the combination of roundabouts and pedestrian-right-of-way crossings, but in areas where it’s basically all vehicles, roundabouts are much better than traffic lights, any combination of stop-signs, or uncontrolled grade intersections.
We call them circles.
“Look kids, Big Ben, Parliment!” - Clark W. Griswold European Vacation
“Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament!” - Clark W. Griswold European Vacation
We had a terrible intersection where 2 major roads meet before crossing a bridge. It was always a 10-15 minute wait to get through the intersection. Now a 2 lane roundabout has replaced the old intersection and traffic moves at ~20mph but never has to stop. It’s a breeze getting through the area now.
I hope we get a lot more roundabouts here. The ones that people hate must be poorly designed.
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/7566296/
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/25/2218567/crash-prone-roundabout-in-raleigh.html
Dang you people that offer that knee-jerk observation. We ditched the old country when we established out independence from it. All you liberal European socialists just STFU!!!
I am so pleased that this newspaper is one of the first to offer a truly American observation and sound the cry to sink this outgrowth of phony moral superiority amongst lovers of liberalism.
They won't be happy till we're all riding bicycles around those stupid roundabouts dressed as Chinese Commonists in identicle clothing shaded by those cone-headed coolee hats like in 1972 when Nixon (another socialist) went there to see some ping-pong games!!!
Until you have been on the roundabout in the middle of Paris, France, you haven’t lived (err, almost died).
I was with a seasoned French woman driver of roundabouts and that’s the worst kind because they jam their foot on the gas and brake at the same time, alternating those at the speed of light. It was frightful.
Then we had to get our bags out of the hotel and there was no place to park, so she parked in a driving lane in front of the hotel. We threw our bags in the car, all the while a police car was two cars back of us with screaming siren going trying to get to us because we were blocking that lane of traffic jammed with cars.
We took off in the car and I don’t know what happened to the cop car.
Then, another day, after shopping for china, she is driving us through the Alps and it’s two lanes made out of one lane, and there is a sheer drop off to eternity on my side. She is driving in the middle since it’s so narrow, going around blind curves at this fast speed. I am thinking the beautiful china I just bought is going to end up off the mountain along with me if a car comes around the bend.
French drivers are nuts.
I love roundabouts, because they separate drivers from idiots. However, a lot of roundabouts are built a little too small, which makes it hard to easily maneuver around them.
There are other really cool ways to do intersections that make a lot more sense than the traditional 4-way stop sign/light. But people are resistant to change, even good change.
For example, one thing we are seeing more of is the urban interchange. In this configuration, instead of a large cloverleaf (which people do like, and which btw is a lot like a roundabout), you bring the lower road entrance/exits away from the road, but then swing them back at each other, having them intersect in a cross at the bridge with the other road. This gives you a 6-way intersection, which you can control easily with a stop light. Takes up almost no space, hence the “urban intersection”, but also reduces accidents if the cross-road is very busy (controlled light instead of idiots trying to merge).
Anyway, the thing I loved most driving in England was their roundabouts. I was actually better at them than the british drivers, who didn’t have the skill we get here in the states at speeding up to merge into small gaps.
I close with my favorite wife anecdote. We’re driving through England, where they use road signs that tell you where you are going, rather than what road you are on. We hit a roundabout, and I started circling while my Wife looked at the map to figure out which way to go off the roundabout. I circled once, twice, and said “figure out yet where we are going” and she said “no”. Circled 3, 4 times, and said “are you ever going to figure it out”, and she burst into tears.
Blame the US Department of Transportation for this one. Their FHWA guidebook says that roundabouts should be favored over traffic signals.
just follow the money though....they make big bucks for somebody's friends....
I love roundabouts. The ones built in Alaska have reduced congestion and greatly sped up traffic. I’m all for them.
Why kill roundabouts?
They work better than intersections, they save time and fuel.
They are also safer than intersections.
The only reason to hate them is if you don’t know how to use them.
They are easy to use, really. Just remember:
When entering the roundabout yield to the traffic already in the roundabout. You don’t stop before entering except to yield to traffic already in the roundabout.
If you are IN the roundabout you don’t stop at each entrance/exit point (unless some idiot pulls out in front of you, of course) you have the right of way and the traffic that is waiting to enter the roundabout is supposed to yield to you.
If you miss your turn out, just go around again!
Really, if somebody can’t handle something as simple as a roundabout then they really should reconsider their fitness to be behind the wheel.
Roundabouts beat the daylights out of four-way stops and some busy two-way stop intersections. And while the cost of the road may be higher, the cost of a traffic light is eliminated. A roundabout was built in my town at an intersection that was busy enough that the school buses couldn’t turn at rush hour, but that didn’t carry a load of traffic most of the day. Wrecks were frequent back when is was a standard two way stop intersection. I know of none since the roundabout opened. Works great.
Since interstates were developed in Germany, are they anti-American too? I don’t understand the blanket rejection. Some are good, some are great, some not-so-good.
Big roundabouts are far the most sensible way to route converging traffic in European cities where roads into the city converge on central points. When properly designed they can be much quicker and smoother to navigate at a major intersection than a traffic light would be. Tulsa has one such. All the rest of the roundabouts I have seen in the USofA aree clumsy attempts to emulate Europe. It doesn’t help that in this country they remain oddities and drivers are unaccustomed to them. It only takes a small percentage of drivers that don’t deal with them well to render them dangerous and to slow progress unnecessarily.
I even lightly rear-ended some lady who started into the roundabout with me following and then she suddenly stopped. When I asked her why she stopped she said she didn't know what the guy coming in on our left was going to do...(It was clear for us because the guy had stopped for traffic on his left)
There are places where they work great, and places where they are insufficient.