Posted on 06/02/2021 2:57:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
I hate waiting at traffic lights.
There's a solution: traffic circles, or roundabouts.
Traffic circles terrified me when I first confronted them in Europe. A movie, National Lampoon?s European Vacation, captured my experience when it portrayed Chevy Chase driving in London, unable to exit a rotary all day.
Besides being hard to navigate, I also assumed roundabouts cause problems, but a Freakanomics podcast woke me to their advantages. Roundabouts are a reason Britain?s rate of traffic deaths is less than half the U.S.'s.
We've converted almost all of our traffic lights to roundabouts because we save lives,? says the mayor of Carmel, Indiana, Jim Brainard. His little town now has 133 roundabouts.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study confirmed that roundabouts save lives. Roundabouts increased crashes a bit, but deaths and injuries dropped by 38 percent.
It's because of the angle of the cars, says Brainard. Instead of a T-bone, you got a sideswipe?
Roundabouts also slow cars down a little, giving drivers more time to react.
That makes it seem like it'll take longer for cars to get through intersections, I say to Brainard.
It really doesn't, he responds. A roundabout moves 50 percent more traffic than a traffic light.
More than a four-way stop sign intersection, too, according to a test ran by the TV show Mythbusters.
Roundabouts are also better for the environment. You never come to a complete stop, Brainard points out. Tremendous amounts of fuel are saved.
Indianapolis realtor Jason Compton says roundabouts even increase the value of homes ?because they just flat out look better (by adding) more green space.
Sometimes communities put artwork in the middle.
Bottom line: Roundabouts are safer, cost less, move more traffic and are better for the environment.
Yet, most Americans still say, I don?t want these things. I tell Brainard. They're confusing. I'm more likely to have an accident!
Well, it takes public education, he responds. Chevy Chase didn't do us any favors.?
Brainard points out that Chase was stuck in a large rotary, not a roundabout. Some traffic circles and rotaries have many lanes. The one by Paris? Arc De Triomphe connects 12 roads!
Those are dangerous, says Brainard. That's not what we're building. Modern roundabouts are small; the smaller they are, the safer they become. They're very different.
Europe learned that lesson. European countries are building lots of small roundabouts.
America is way behind, I tell Brainard.
America is catching up, he replies. When I started, we probably had under a couple of hundred in the United States. Today, we're pushing five or six thousand.
That's progress.
Still, his little town, with just 97,000 residents, has 2 percent of all the roundabouts in America.
PING!
Great idea when properly sized.
That is why you should always watch the car in front of you. My driving teacher told me that 54 years ago.
Smaller ones are indeed better.
Along as they aren’t sized for go carts.
Live in western Colorado … roundabouts are commonplace and effective. There is a learning curve of sorts but in light of the fact that a large percentage of the traffic that flow thru roundabouts is local and repetitive it quickly becomes routine. A large roundabout near my home that I traverse practically on a daily basis is far more efficient than the traffic light it replaced. Several people I know who were skeptical initially are completely sold on this particular roundabout. It has been in place about a year now.
The only traffic circles that should be in Texas are those that go around the Court Houses.
Yep. I’m OK with roundabouts, but not with the idiots who can’t drive.
What the heck? How does one navigate that nightmare? That’s got to be photoshopped. No traffic engineer is that insane - I hope.
Corner stores be long gone......
It will now be the Round About stores.
18 1/2 Vandyke.
Crazy, it circles in to M 53
I like em. Two installed recently in my neck of woods. Much better.
I hate ‘em.
That is NOT a “roundabout” that’s a big mess.
“I’m OK with roundabouts, but not with the idiots who can’t drive.”
AMEN!
Phone-distracted drivers don’t like them — one has to pay attention in them, no peeking at that next bff text.
The problem with round abouts is trying to maintain 60 mph thru them.
That's a rotary...they suck.
"Roundabouts" are only one lane wide. We have both in this state. I hate the rotaries.
Roundabouts confuse a lot of people. The worst are the ones that enter them and then stop to let people in.
I was put in a horrible situation. It was a totally dark night and pouring down rain and I was approaching a 3 lane roundabout at a huge intersection that I did not know was there.
There was a truck to the right of me so I did not see the sign that I was approaching a roundabout and I missed seeing what lane to be in for exiting the roundabout.
Luckily I made it out alive.
I think the huge roundabouts are a mistake. They need to be well marked with plenty of signs and lights prior to approach. Some people may be from out of town and don’t even know or expect a roundabout to be there.
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