Comment by rcpt
Comment by rcpt 5 days ago
Are you talking about roundabouts? Those are a nightmare for pedestrians
Comment by rcpt 5 days ago
Are you talking about roundabouts? Those are a nightmare for pedestrians
For pedestrians, roundabouts also eliminate left turn lanes, saving ~9' of stroad width to cross and mean only looking one, predictable, direction at a time.
A disaster for cars, at a slower speed and similar direction than the comparable intersection (and no racing to/from from a light psychology).
So a disaster with significantly better outcomes than a red light runner (with a high speed side swipe or head collision)
Yep. Hence the appeal of turning the intersection into a roundabout and pulling the stoplights 3-5 cars from the roundabout and only stopping traffic when pedestrians are present (i.e. puffin and pelican crossing style). It gives cars enough time to turn and then halt with a bright red stop light to catch their attention.
Here's a link to the Massachusetts Dept of Transportation's guide on designing/building roundabouts:
https://www.mass.gov/doc/massdot-guidelines-for-the-planning...
It provides solid guidance on how roundabouts should approach crossings to minimize risk of accidents or collisions without impeding traffic.
Probably the best graphic is on page 45, figure 5-13
Some do have stop signs before you enter, but they should always have at least an implicit yield. Vehicles entering should be prepared to stop in case there's not room to enter the roundabout yet. The real issue with their suggestion is that only being able to cross "before the entry" wouldn't get you anywhere, you have to also cross where cars exit it!
How so?
Both as a pedestrian and driver I prefer roundabouts as they force drivers to slow down to non-lethal speeds and there's typically a one car length of road between the turn and pedestrian crossing, so the cars are already going straight when they cross it.
The only road users who don't mix well with roundabouts are cyclists on cycling lanes, as they get in and out of view too fast.
With heavy mixed traffic it's a nightmare for everyone. If pedestrians have the right of way (as they should) and there are a lot of them the whole thing would likely become a permanent traffic jam with almost always one car waiting to turn blocking most of the circle.
here in italy at certain roundabouts we have traffic lights that only work when a pedestrian called them. otherwise, the traffic lights flash a flashing yellow light and as a car you can use the roundabout as if the traffic lights didn't exist.
it's quite useful, if you ask me, it combines the best of both solutions. of course the traffic light has a countdown so if someone presses it immediately after having worked, it will wait for 30sec/1 min before being red again
Partially true, given the huge congestion that there is, pedestrian have to wait for the green light even if cars aren't moving due to traffic. However, it is situated in quite an important node of traffic going in/out of the city. in smaller roundabouts we just have zebra crossing without lights, while in more dangerous and big ones (eg more lanes or often has heavy traffic) we have traffic lights
Roundabouts aren't perfect but they greatly reduce the speed of traffic at the crossing point (while increasing the overall throughput of the intersection).
Without looking up statistics (and I'd love to be proven wrong here), I'd be willing to guess that roundabouts may result in some marginal increase in minor accidents but massively reduces fatalities or accidents that leave the pedestrian in the ICU.
Additionally with a roundabout the crossing can be moved a few cars down the street away from the roundabout itself so that cars can have line of sight to safely approach the crossing and pedestrians have time to react to incoming vehicles. On top of that proper placement of crossings allows a normal zebra crossing to be upgraded to a pelican, puffin, or toucan crossing without impeding flow of traffic within the roundabout.