Traffic Roundabouts - not learning from history

| 1 Comment
I went to school in Boston back in the 1970's and at that time, traffic roundabouts were a big and upcoming thing. There were roundabouts put in all over. Considering that greater Boston had grown from a collection of villages and connecting horse trails, this was supposed to even out a lot of the chaotic traffic flow and make things safer. I hated these things. Everyone I talked to at the time hated them. They were forced on us by the "city planners" for whom this was a shiny new toy to solve a problem that did not really exist. Two years ago, Jen, my Dad and I went back for a family friend's memorial service and we spent a week going through some of my old stomping grounds. With the exception of the two monster roundabouts at the entrance to Cape Cod (we are talking a mile or two in diameter), every single one of these pestiferous wastes of taxpayer money had been taken out. Every last one of them. Fast-forward to today. The fair city of Bellingham seems to be quite taken with the idea. They installed a two test ones at smaller intersections out of major traffic flow but intersections that still see a lot of traffic (these are feeding the campus of a community college). The planners swore up and down that the roundabouts would reduce accidents. Today, I took a look at our local newspaper (Bellingham Herald) and saw the following front-page headlines:
Kellogg Road-Cordata Parkway roundabout had highest crash rate in city in 2008
Makes me wonder just what kind of scholarship is needed to get a job as a city planner. History is obviously not needed. And, due to the success of these two pilot roundabouts, they are putting a bunch of them on a major artery which connects to Canada.

1 Comment

The biggest problem is with driver training. In a roundabout, the folks already in the circle HAVE the right-of-way. This seems to cause the most confusion, as drivers are usually used to yielding to the drivers on the right. In a roundabout, you must yeild to the driver on your LEFT. (Roundabout flow is CCW.)

Leave a comment

October 2022

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

Environment and Climate
AccuWeather
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Climate Depot
Ice Age Now
ICECAP
Jennifer Marohasy
Solar Cycle 24
Space Weather
Watts Up With That?


Science and Medicine
Junk Science
Life in the Fast Lane
Luboš Motl
Medgadget
Next Big Future
PhysOrg.com


Geek Stuff
Ars Technica
Boing Boing
Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
FAIL Blog
Hack a Day
Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools
Neatorama
Slashdot: News for nerds
The Register
The Daily WTF


Comics
Achewood
The Argyle Sweater
Chip Bok
Broadside Cartoons
Day by Day
Dilbert
Medium Large
Michael Ramirez
Prickly City
Tundra
User Friendly
Vexarr
What The Duck
Wondermark
xkcd


NO WAI! WTF?¿?¿
Awkward Family Photos
Cake Wrecks
Not Always Right
Sober in a Nightclub
You Drive What?


Business and Economics
The Austrian Economists
Carpe Diem
Coyote Blog


Photography and Art
Digital Photography Review
DIYPhotography
James Gurney
Joe McNally's Blog
PetaPixel
photo.net
Shorpy
Strobist
The Online Photographer


Blogrolling
A Western Heart
AMCGLTD.COM
American Digest
The AnarchAngel
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Babalu Blog
Belmont Club
Bayou Renaissance Man
Classical Values
Cobb
Cold Fury
David Limbaugh
Defense Technology
Doug Ross @ Journal
Grouchy Old Cripple
Instapundit
iowahawk
Irons in the Fire
James Lileks
Lowering the Bar
Maggie's Farm
Marginal Revolution
Michael J. Totten
Mostly Cajun
Neanderpundit
neo-neocon
Power Line
ProfessorBainbridge.com
Questions and Observations
Rachel Lucas
Roger L. Simon
Samizdata.net
Sense of Events
Sound Politics
The Strata-Sphere
The Smallest Minority
The Volokh Conspiracy
Tim Blair
Velociworld
Weasel Zippers
WILLisms.com
Wizbang


Gone but not Forgotten...
A Coyote at the Dog Show
Bad Eagle
Steven DenBeste
democrats give conservatives indigestion
Allah
BigPictureSmallOffice
Cox and Forkum
The Diplomad
Priorities & Frivolities
Gut Rumbles
Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0
MegaPundit
Masamune
Neptunus Lex
Other Side of Kim
Publicola
Ramblings' Journal
Sgt. Stryker
shining full plate and a good broadsword
A Physicist's Perspective
The Daily Demarche
Wayne's Online Newsletter

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on July 26, 2009 7:02 PM.

What people are saying - Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm's brother) was the previous entry in this blog.

Now the fun begins - ex-Governor Sarah Palin is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Monthly Archives

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 5.2.9