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Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

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Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#81

Post by gerikson »

Sean1708 wrote: post #14
kaffeemitsahne wrote: post #2

Imagine coming from mainland europe and having to drive on the other side of the road (thus also taking roundabouts the other way round), and then navigating this baby...

I strongly believe that the biggest reason people struggle with the Magic Roundabout is because it's called a roundabout, when it's actually just a collection of 5 roundabouts. If you tackle it one roundabout at a time it's actually not that bad at all, it could be much much better , but it's not bad .

So it's a recursive roundabout?

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#82

Post by bloopernova »

kaffeemitsahne wrote: post #2

Imagine coming from mainland europe and having to drive on the other side of the road (thus also taking roundabouts the other way round), and then navigating this baby...

Quick story time!

I moved from the UK to the US in 2001. I then learned to drive in the US (Had no need to in the UK).

Sometimes I dream of the UK, my dreaming brain realizes I'm on the "wrong" side of the road. So it tries to switch me over, but that means traveling to the US, so I then have to get on a plane to... drive on the right side of the road. I do it less now that I'm aware of what's going on, but it was very disconcerting to wake up from!

Actually driving in the UK (while awake!) is much easier, as you're just kind of following the flow of traffic.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#83

Post by TheCapn »

kerkeslager wrote: post #53

I guess what this shows is two things: 1. Scaring people into slowing down is a viable way to avoid accidents. 2. Perceived scariness of an intersection is not indicative of how dangerous it actually is.

RE: #2

Absolutely. Within Saskatchewan, east of Regina, we just completed three new bridges for suburban communities to access the main highway. In two of the three bridges were atypical designs using a Diverging Diamond at one point, and dual roundabouts at the other.

When announced lots of people were fearful of the new designs and there was unsurprisingly a lot of outcry from ninnies who were afraid of the unknown. There's been a couple instances of people taking improper directions on the bridges but they're typically by elderly drivers who probably shouldn't have been behind the wheel in the first place.

I personally have my own qualms with the design of one of the bridges but that's outside this discussion. I like the concept enough that I hope to see them use diverging diamond more and more roundabouts as people get used to the efficient flow.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#84

Post by djaychela »

I first drove this back in the early 90s when I happened to be near Swindon (for some training), and a friend (who often worked in the area) had told me about it, so I deliberately went to it. Bear in mind this is pre-common-internet use era, so everything was hearsay and so on...

He told me it was a 'nightmare', and 'weird' and so on. I was actually pretty underwhelmed when I drove it - it seemed really logical to me, and it was a bit of a non-event - I was expecting some kind of white-khuckle 'driving in Marrakech' sort of experience. I think people's perceptions of it are significantly different from reality, but maybe that's because it makes sense to me, but if it's as safe as they say it is, maybe not...

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#85

Post by toyg »

kaffeemitsahne wrote: post #2

Imagine coming from mainland europe and having to drive on the other side of the road (thus also taking roundabouts the other way round), and then navigating this baby...

By the time you reach Swindon, you've likely trained yourself well enough that it stopped being a problem.

It's much more dramatic near Dover: traffic is channelled from the port straight into a bunch of roundabouts. My dad was metaphorically scarred for life after disembarking a ferry with his Italian campervan in 1986.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#86

Post by bkor »

lightbyte wrote: post #56
dghughes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think it just is a regular two-lane roundabout? We have one of these nearby me in Cleveland, it works pretty well. https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B027'58.2%22N+81%C2%...

The inside lane changes into the outside lane. This is usually done by traffic analysis. Meaning: it doesn't always immediately change the inside lane into the outside one. It works quite well for roundabouts with heavy uneven traffic (close to an Ikea :-P).

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#87

Post by jzwinck »

I recently cycled some of the south coast of China. Some small towns there had roundabouts which served to slow traffic down but had a different pattern than westerners are used to. They drive on the right, but people who want to turn left would do so immediately, keeping the centre island on their right side. People turning right or going straight would use the roundabout the same as westerners.

I also encountered a T junction with three lanes in each direction and traffic lights. When the lanes coming from the bottom had green lights they were one right and two left, and at the same time the rightmost lane coming from the right had a green light to go straight. Three inputs and three outputs, but sure surprised me. Traffic patterns are very local and often undocumented. Just like code.

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#88

Post by toyg »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
rusk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something of a roundabout afficionado it seems [0] ... also ex British Airforce, which given the odd way that the brits assign status, could provide alternative explanations for this madness beyond charisma .... he hadn't even 10 years experience as a working civil engineer when he came up with this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Blackmore

It was the 1960s. There was a huge push for all sorts of High Modernist experimental (re)design of British towns. Ring roads, tower blocks, roundabout-only layouts like Milton Keynes, brutalist public buildings, all that kind of thing. The country is slowly recovering from this.

> The country is slowly recovering from this.

The country was slowly recovering from this. All indications are that we're due for a reboot, if the brutalist-light towers popping up all over Manchester are an indication of things to come. The new government is also led by a figure notoriously thirsty for bold statements in public works (garden bridge, estuary airport, bridge to Ireland, etc).

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#89

Post by mabbo »

chrishannah wrote: post #18

That's not even the best "Magic Roundabout", the one in my town is much better! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst...

I'm Canadian. We had a work trip to the UK. My manager kept saying "I think I can handle driving in there, how bad could it be?". I told him we'd die.

As we went through the Hemel Hempstead magic roundabout in the back of a cab, he turned to me and said "Okay... you might have been right."

Re: Magic Roundabout (Swindon)

#90

Post by mcv »

zamadatix wrote: post #74
DanTheManPR wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 exi…

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9561738,-86.1623079,150a,35y... is a "standard" two lane roundabout. Roundabouts like https://www.google.com/maps/place/Minneapolis,+MN/@44.883386... are more similar to a turbo roundabout but does not force traffic out after 3 exits or less, the inner lane could be followed indefinitely.

On that second link, I don't see any roundabout at all. It looks like a regular intersection to me.
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