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We're excited about our new roundabout

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Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#201
post #194
post #108

This is oddly timely. I'm travelling in Europe at the moment and have been covering a lot of area with a lot of roundabouts where they would be signaled or signed intersections in the US. They definitely make traffic flow smoothly and I've noticed a few areas where they are used to eliminate dangerous left turns at places like parking lots, you leave turning right, hit the next roundabout to "uturn" then head back th…

> They definitely make traffic flow smoothly They make slow or medium traffic flow smoothly. If the traffic is heavy, roundabouts make everything worst.

Have you measured it?

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#202
post #165
post #147

No discussion about roundabouts can be complete without a mention of the (mostly) Dutch "turbo roundabout", where the lane you take going into a multi-lane roundabout depends on where you want to exit, and you can't / are not allowed to switch lanes while on it: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:roundabout%3Dturbo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout#Turbo_roundabouts https://www.arcadis.com/en-us/knowledge…

This is literally just how you're supposed to go round any roundabout. Right lane if you're going straight ahead or right (to any extent), left lane otherwise. Anything else _will_ cause crashes, because vehicles will necessarily have to cut across each other to exit the roundabout. The "turbo roundabout" might make this explicit, but it's not different.

This is hugely oversimplified and doesn't really correspond to real life. Not all roundabouts are symmetric and not all have four entry-exit pairs. Many roundabouts have two lanes on some entries, but a single lane on others, similarly for exits. In scenarios like this you will inevitably have to switch lanes in some scenarios. It isn't really as big of a problem as you make it sound though, since roundabouts naturally have everyone go slow, crashes are very rare so long as the layout is clear.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#203
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They absolutely are. Even if they don't prevent all collisions, they turn T-bones into glancing hits and so save a lot of lives. The worst roundabout beats the best 4-way stop any day of the week. Sometimes there really are easy answers.

No easy answers, no solutions only trade-offs. Perhaps better for safety, but they makes crossing as a pedestrian longer and harder. And while intersections designed for roundabouts can be pretty smooth, retrofitting undersized roundabouts into intersections designed a 4-way makes for ugly and difficult to navigate messes. I like them, but it is a mistake to blindly install them anywhere possible.

What's wrong with mini-roundabouts? We've got lots of them here in the UK, mainly in residential areas and I don't see the issue with replacing a 4-way stop intersection (U.S. style) with a mini-roundabout. All that's needed is to remove the STOP signs and splash a bit of white paint onto the road to mark the mini-roundabout. Optionally, build up the mini-roundabout to make it harder to drive over.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#204

At least that one is small. They'd know for sure from the change in numbers pretty soon if it improved things or not. But for multi-lane ones I absolutely lose my shit and freak out when I get into one. Many decades of driving experience, but when in Europe (France, Italy, Spain) i encounter a multi-lane roundabout, every time it feels extremely confusing and unpredictable. People moving in all directions, cars, scoo…

One of the first things I did after getting my driving license was fly to Lisbon and rent a car there. At the time, you left the airport by merging onto a four lane roundabout with essentially no lane markings with people driving like maniacs and 5 or so exits for different highway directions. At the end of that vacation, I was driving a lot more confidently. But I wouldn't recommend that Darwinist approach to learning how to drive in the real world.

When done properly, multi lane roundabouts can be quite efficient. They are common in Europe as an alternative to just having a lot of traffic lights at any junction. Some of the bigger ones can also have traffic lights.

A good guideline is that if you need to go 3 quarters around, you probably want to be in the left most lane when you enter and move right as you progress. In case of doubt, just go around a second time. If you are too far right, merging left is something you want to be careful with and not necessarily legal in some places. But it's not that different from sorting into the wrong lane for a crossing. You kind of commit to where you exit before you enter. Usually the signage should help.

The most annoying thing about roundabouts is the navigation endlessly going "At the roundabout take the second exit" (i.e. go straight on), which gets really annoying if you are on the ring road of some city that has roundabouts every few hundred meters. Which accurately describes a lot of smaller cities across Europe these days. Safe and efficient. But also tedious. If in the Netherlands, beware of your right hand dead angle and be on the lookout for scooters, e-bikes, etc. when you exit a roundabout. You are supposed to yield to them and they can really come out of nowhere.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#205
post #140

Roundabouts get a lot of praise whenever they're mentioned, and from a traffic flow perspective that's understandable - if by traffic you mean motorised traffic. For pedestrians and cyclists they are worse than the alternative (lights - or even a simple intersection) in my opinion. > Making a roundabout for everyone ctrl-f "walk", "cycl", pedes". Nothing.

I generally prefer a well-designed roundabout when either cycling or walking, but I see how they can be non-ideal when done improperly.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience driving in rural France was that nearly every intersection was a roundabout and it slowed things down dramatically. Many, many times I was the only driver within sight. Surely one of the two directions is more used and a couple of putting stop signs the other way would make more sense. Roundabouts are great sometimes, but they aren’t a magic bullet. That said we have a nasty intersection in the area on…

Try driving in England, rural or otherwise, and you'll see our current trend of adding traffic lights to roundabouts. If you think roundabouts slow you down (they don't really), just wait until non-rush hour at one of these "roundabouts" when you're the only car waiting on several sets of red lights, or during rush hour when the lights have failed and it's totally gridlocked where traffic simply cannot pass.

To be fair, most of the gridlocked traffic is caused by drivers not understanding that they shouldn't enter a yellow box junction until their exit is clear and similarly, they shouldn't be nosing out onto a roundabout when their lane is already full - that's what tends to cause the issues.

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#207
post #108

This is oddly timely. I'm travelling in Europe at the moment and have been covering a lot of area with a lot of roundabouts where they would be signaled or signed intersections in the US. They definitely make traffic flow smoothly and I've noticed a few areas where they are used to eliminate dangerous left turns at places like parking lots, you leave turning right, hit the next roundabout to "uturn" then head back th…

We love a good roundabout in the UK, however it can be taken to extremes. The Magic Roundabout[1] in Hemel Hempstead is basically a roundabout made up of 6 mini-roundabouts. When it was first built locals used to sit in the middle watching the crashes.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst...

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#208
post #140

Roundabouts get a lot of praise whenever they're mentioned, and from a traffic flow perspective that's understandable - if by traffic you mean motorised traffic. For pedestrians and cyclists they are worse than the alternative (lights - or even a simple intersection) in my opinion. > Making a roundabout for everyone ctrl-f "walk", "cycl", pedes". Nothing.

Strong disagree, a well designed roundabout is both safer and faster for both pedestrians and cyclists. See this roundabout [0] from Delft, Netherlands for a good example. Pedestrians have right of way over everyone, then cyclists, and lastly there's a set of traffic lights to give trams and buses right of way when they come by. Cars come last and traffic flows smoothly and safely.

[0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9970826,4.3550136,195m/data=...

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#209
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My elderly father will go 20 mins out of his way to avoid this series of intersections in Oshkosh: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5SiJhyQREhNSN8PJ9

I do love how on streetview they've caught what looks to be an accident on it: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0108294,-88.5835298,3a,75y,5... That being said that looks like a pretty decent and standard setup for a set of roundabouts, certainly wouldn't look out of place in the UK and would be vastly superior to a whole host of stop signs and red lights. It probably could've been simplified slightly by turning the t…

I was going to make the same point. With that slight modification it's an everyday thing for many U.K. drivers and fairly easy to navigate when one is used to such.

The Beaconsfield junction on the M40 is a randomly selected example of this very setup in the U.K.: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/51.59432/-0.62779

Or the junction of the A5 and the A442 in Telford: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/52.67883/-2.43871

Re: We're excited about our new roundabout

#210
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a traditional cross with traffic signals or stop signs on all sides, it's simple and effective. Roundabouts are a waste of space, disrupt traffic, and take more brain processing than I care to afford if I can help it. This particular example isn't even round.

I vastly prefer roundabouts, with a single exception. If traffic is heavy and dominated by the same entry and exit points, it can be hard to get a turn if you're coming from the side. Our nearest roundabout is this way. I once saw a roundabout with stop signs. I assume it was an attempt to address this situation.

This really is the big failure mode of roundabouts, it essentially becomes "live-locked"
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