102 replies to this topic

[Phil McAvity]

If you have any doubts about this, take a drive out to the airport and navigate the retarded traffic circle they have on the way out there.

He's right, the existing roundabout is a complete waste of time and money. The sensible thing to do was simply block East Saanich Road on both ends since the volume of traffic on Canora Road is/was far greater than that of East Saanich Road. Sadly, i'm getting increasingly used to municipal governments making idiotic decisions like that.

[G-Man]

I like traffic circles

[Phil McAvity]

Snub's right again, everyone in a roundabout should be constantly signaling, thereby defeating the purpose of anyone signaling.

I like traffic circles

You would.

[jklymak]

Snub's right again, everyone in a roundabout should be constantly signaling, thereby defeating the purpose of anyone signaling.

Huh? You signal to the right when you are about to leave the roundabout. That shouldn't be too taxing.

[Bingo]

That is true - however the traffic roundabout that I use daily has virtually no traffic coming from one side and lots coming from the other three, usually at high speed. I enter the roundabout and when I commence the left turn I put on my left turn signal to indicate I am going to continue past the next entry point and then I put my right signal on to indicate I am going to exit.

Most local roundabouts are single lane therefor there is no need for signalling. You yield to the vehicle on your left as you enter, and when you leave you have a dedicated lane to arrive in. If you are in a multi-lane roundabout in Europe, the circumference is much larger and turn signals will work, except people don't pay attention to them and you have to be more aggresive if you want to leave. We need more roundabouts in Victoria, as they are more efficient in most cases and cut down on the use of fuel.

[victorian fan]

The fountain circle roundabout worked well.

[sebberry]

Is it still ok to bring the roundabout/ traffic safety question into this thread - or does someone want to snip this off into a separate thread?

I came across a pointer online to this book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). Interesting, what it says about roundabouts (and other stuff):

Q: So much of what you uncover about life on the road seems counterintuitive. Like the fact that drivers drive closer to oncoming cars when there is a center line divider then when there is not; that most accidents happen close to home in familiar, not foreign, surroundings; that dangerous roads can be safer; safer cars can be more dangerous; that suburbs are often riskier than the inner city; the roundabout safer than the intersection. When it comes to traffic why are things so different from how we instinctively perceive them?
A: I think part of the reason is it’s easy for us to confuse what feels dangerous or safe in the moment and what might be, in a larger sense, safe or dangerous. We have a windshield’s eye view of driving that sometimes blinds us to larger realities or skews our perception. Roundabouts feel dangerous because of all the work one has to do, like looking for an opening, jockeying for positioning. But it’s precisely because we have to do all that, and because of the way roundabouts are designed, that we have to slow down. By contrast, it feels quite "safe" to sail through a big intersection where the lights are telling you that you have the right to speed through. We can, in essence, put our brain on hold. But those same intersections contain so many more chances for what engineers call "conflict," and at much higher speeds, than roundabouts. So when what seems quite safe suddenly turns quite dangerous — will we be as well prepared? Similarly, we might be reassured that that yellow or white dividing line on a road is telling us where we should be, but how does that knowledge then change our behavior, to the point where may actually be driving closer — and faster — to the stream of oncoming traffic? Accidents are more likely to occur closer to home. Mostly this is because we do most driving closer to home, but studies do show that we pay less attention to signs and signals on local roads, because we "know" them, yet this knowledge actually give us a false sense of security.

It's amazing how much of a difference making drivers think can have..

German town scraps lights

I have always thought that the more you regulate what people can and cannot do, the dumber they get. Soon we're going to need manuals that tell you how to operate and read owner's manuals

[Caramia]

http://xkcd.com/253/

[pseudotsuga]

Of the three options, I feel the yin and yang motif of the supercollider design make it the most very attractive.
It echos the ocean and the mountains of the west coast, and might provide valuable greenspace within.
I'm sure the design, build and maintenance phases will put many locals to work.

However, upon further reflection I've decided to vote against that option, considering the collisions will bring the end of the world:

collisions might produce doomsday phenomena, involving the production of stable microscopic black holes or the creation of hypothetical particles called strangelets.[44]

http://en.wikipedia....Hadron_Collider

[Bingo]

- Roundabouts are -- amazingly -- safer than any other type of intersection. In fact, there are 32 vehicle crash points at a standard intersection and only eight at a standard roundabout. Roundabouts that have replaced busy intersections saw a drop of 40 per cent in total crashes, while injury crashes dropped 76 per cent. There was an astounding 90 per cent fewer fatal crashes as a result of the conversion from intersection to roundabout.

A whole column on the benefits of traffic circles and roundabouts will appear in the coming weeks.

From Steve Wallace's column
November 27, 2009 Times Colonist

[sebberry]

- Roundabouts are -- amazingly -- safer than any other type of intersection. In fact, there are 32 vehicle crash points at a standard intersection and only eight at a standard roundabout. Roundabouts that have replaced busy intersections saw a drop of 40 per cent in total crashes, while injury crashes dropped 76 per cent. There was an astounding 90 per cent fewer fatal crashes as a result of the conversion from intersection to roundabout.

A whole column on the benefits of traffic circles and roundabouts will appear in the coming weeks.

From Steve Wallace's column
November 27, 2009 Times Colonist

That's because people have to actually observe what is going on around them rather than blindly assuming that a green light always means "proceed freely, everyone else has stopped"

[VicHockeyFan]

http://www.timescolo...6535/story.html

Traffic circle woes a sign of socialism

By Patrick MacKinnon, Times Colonist
March 28, 2010 1:16 AM

I see that the perennial and popular traffic circle topic once more comes to the fore.

As I have said before, these devices will never work in Canada, the land where people thank ATMs. There is no room for politeness in the operation of a roundabout.

Read more: http://www.timescolo...l#ixzz0jTMnvZvS

[G-Man]

I have been recently enjoying roundabouts much more. In fact I have been seeing places where they would be great all the time.

This is perhaps the most logical in the whole city:

http://maps.google.c...003449&t=h&z=18

[VicHockeyFan]

^ Ya, that would have been a good idea.

How about the 5-way intersection in James Bay?

[CharlieFoxtrot]

The city has said one is going in here:

http://maps.google.c...5,0.004624&z=18

[VicHockeyFan]

The city has said one is going in here:

http://maps.google.c...5,0.004624&z=18

Kind of a waste of money to me. The should just straighten Bay to intersect Catherine at a right angle, they have lots of room to do that. Or make Catherine stop at Bay, Bay westbound gets right-of-way onto Catherine southbound with no stopping. It's not that busy an intersection, 95% of the traffic is going and coming from the same route, from and to Esquimalt Rd. from Bay.

[Mike K.]

It's actually quite a busy intersection. Throughout most of the day you have vehicles lined up on Bay waiting to turn left onto Catherine, but because of a fairly steady stream of traffic heading from Esquimalt onto Bay (and not signaling, thereby causing confusion) or traffic heading down Catherine towards Esquimalt, some drivers decide to just nudge in and accidents there are frequent.

The turn onto Catherine is actually quite dangerous because vehicles do not clear the oncoming lane quickly due to the angle of the turn.

That new #10 route has stopped waiting at the intersection and turns right onto Wilson, then left onto Catherine one block north of the Bay/Catherine intersection. That's a much safer alternative.

[VicHockeyFan]

That new #10 route has stopped waiting at the intersection and turns right onto Wilson, then left onto Catherine one block north of the Bay/Catherine intersection. That's a much safer alternative.

There is the simple fix that doesn't cost $750,000. Every angled intersection is ****ty for crashes because of the same reason. They should be done away with.

[arfenarf]

I'm still cranky about the "fix" Saanich put into the intersection of Poplar/Cedar Hill X/ Richmond. (What a mess. I get white knuckles every time I go through that thing. *That* would be a great roundabout. Plenty of space, too.

[Coreyburger]

I'm still cranky about the "fix" Saanich put into the intersection of Poplar/Cedar Hill X/ Richmond. (What a mess. I get white knuckles every time I go through that thing. *That* would be a great roundabout. Plenty of space, too.

The current fix for people turning off Richmond onto Cedar Hill X -- such as every UVic-bound 14 -- requires an incredibly difficult shoulder check. This is waiting for an accident to happen. And yes, there is lots of space for a roundabout. You wouldn't even need to take out the tree, although there are a few issues with some of the smaller roads that might make it more expensive than a simple cutting of the existing median.