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Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

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Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#61

Post by snowwrestler »

> however, the roundabout provides a better throughput of traffic than other designs and has an excellent safety record, since traffic moves too slowly to do serious damage in the event of a collision. In 2010, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program concluded that the roundabout reduces injurious crashes by three quarters.

One of the hardest things in local democracy is that the best traffic patterns are often also traffic patterns that are unpopular with motorists. Sometimes that is directly linked (e.g. “road calming” where narrowing the road forces drivers to pay closer attention to their surroundings) and sometimes it’s just that the aggregate statistics are counter-intuitive (e.g. “road diets” where trading 2 lanes in each direction for 1 each direction + center turn lane often has no impact on total throughput).

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#62

Post by dboreham »

A sign of globalization: there are now many roundabouts in Montana. I get the impression that every new road construction project, where there is space, uses roundabouts. Many drivers still don't understand how to use them however.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#63

Post by mcv »

oskarpearson wrote: post #50
mcv wrote: post #43

A better solution for high traffic flow is the turbo roundabout[0] which is getting increasingly popular in Netherland. Before you enter the roundabout, you select the lane for the direction you want to go. You only cross traffic when entering the roundabout for the first time. After that, you simply follow your lane and it delivery you where you want to go. It looks complicated from above, but it's very simple once…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout#Turbo_roundabouts English link

I try adding it to the language list for turbo roundabout, but Wikipedia doesn't allow that. Different languages organising their content in a different way hurts the ability to make these kind of cross-language links.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#64

Post by DanTheManPR »

dghughes wrote: post #55
mcv wrote: post #43

A better solution for high traffic flow is the turbo roundabout[0] which is getting increasingly popular in Netherland. Before you enter the roundabout, you select the lane for the direction you want to go. You only cross traffic when entering the roundabout for the first time. After that, you simply follow your lane and it delivery you where you want to go. It looks complicated from above, but it's very simple once…

I don't understand how the turbo roundabout is any different than a typical two-lane roundabout. It looks like a regular two-lane roundabout from that picture in your link.

I'm not seeing the difference between this and two lane roundabouts. We have a bunch of these in the southern suburbs of Minneapolis/St Paul, and they work well even on roads with moderately high traffic. My only issue with them is that I find them somewhat scary as a pedestrian during winter.

The first few times I encountered a two lane roundabout, I had some concerns about whether you had to cut across lanes to exit in some cases (especially when going straight across the roundabout). But after using it a bit, it's clear that it works pretty well, and that it's no worse than a 1 lane roundabout.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#65

Post by mft_ »

zabzonk wrote: post #57

Hanger Lane Gyratory System - the most frightening roundabout in the UK (or possibly anywhere) - https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/ealings-noto...

Having commuted through it every day for 2.5 years, I’m genuinely not sure what the fuss is about. It’s just a big roundabout. (And while this isn’t a pure positive!) if you were unsure, it was usually so slow moving you had plenty of time to figure out what to do.

The only disturbing aspect it brought to my life wasn’t navigation stress, but rather its unpredictable effect on my commute. :)

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#67

Post by dsfyu404ed »

oskarpearson wrote: post #48
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #3

I find the whole "inner ring for people who know what they're doing and outer ring for people who have no business driving in heavy traffic" concept highly attractive but the fact that the safety claims revolve around injuries and makes no mention of overall accidents (if it reduced overall accidents surely they would mention it) makes me suspect this thing is a fender bender (and therefore traffic jam) factory.

From tfa: > In 2010, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program concluded that the roundabout reduces injurious crashes by three quarters

>From tfa:

> In 2010, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program concluded that the roundabout reduces injurious crashes by three quarters

Since you seem to find it fit to question if I read the article I may as well question whether or not you even read my comment.

I specifically mentioned the article's claims about injury reduction (which I don't doubt). How could I possibly question what is omitted from those claims (overall accident reduction) if I didn't read the article to read those claims in the first place?

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#68

Post by burntoutfire »

dghughes wrote: post #55
mcv wrote: post #43

A better solution for high traffic flow is the turbo roundabout[0] which is getting increasingly popular in Netherland. Before you enter the roundabout, you select the lane for the direction you want to go. You only cross traffic when entering the roundabout for the first time. After that, you simply follow your lane and it delivery you where you want to go. It looks complicated from above, but it's very simple once…

I don't understand how the turbo roundabout is any different than a typical two-lane roundabout. It looks like a regular two-lane roundabout from that picture in your link.

The difference is that, on a turbo roundabout, when you're on it, you're not allowed to go straight when on the right lane. Right lane is only for exiting the roundabout, while left lane is for either exiting or going forward to the next exit. This contrasts with the regular roundabout, where if you try to exit from the left lane, you are risking collision with someone on the right lane who's not exiting.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#69

Post by zamadatix »

dghughes wrote: post #55
mcv wrote: post #43

A better solution for high traffic flow is the turbo roundabout[0] which is getting increasingly popular in Netherland. Before you enter the roundabout, you select the lane for the direction you want to go. You only cross traffic when entering the roundabout for the first time. After that, you simply follow your lane and it delivery you where you want to go. It looks complicated from above, but it's very simple once…

I don't understand how the turbo roundabout is any different than a typical two-lane roundabout. It looks like a regular two-lane roundabout from that picture in your link.

In a traditional 2 lane roundabout you aren't forced out of the roundabout. An example would be https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9561738,-86.1623079,150a,35y...

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#70

Post by Nr7 »

rwmj wrote: post #49
mcv wrote: post #43

A better solution for high traffic flow is the turbo roundabout[0] which is getting increasingly popular in Netherland. Before you enter the roundabout, you select the lane for the direction you want to go. You only cross traffic when entering the roundabout for the first time. After that, you simply follow your lane and it delivery you where you want to go. It looks complicated from above, but it's very simple once…

There's one of these on the junction of the A3 at New Malden. https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/A3,+New+Malden,+UK/@51.3...

Here's one in Helsinki, Finland: https://goo.gl/maps/NoWE44KLKukEeq4d9

I also disagree that it is simple while you're on it although I have to admit that I'm not a very confident driver at the best of times so maybe that's just me.

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