vision2020@moscow.com: Traffic Circles

Traffic Circles

Joel Hamilton (joelh@uidaho.edu)
Fri, 16 May 1997 11:09:07 -0700 (PDT)

After 10 months of living in Brisbane Australia a number of years
ago, and another week last October, I HATE traffic circles. At least in the
Australian context I found them highly confusing, and dangerous to cars,
bicycles, and pedestrians. I admit that my reaction might be somewhat
colored by trying to get used to driving on the other side of the street, by
the Australians use of the circles at intersections on arterials, and by
their drivers tendency to try to drive the circles at what I thought was far
too high a speed. Does anyone have statistics on accident rates at traffic
circles used in the context of residential street traffic calming?

Joel Hamilton
____________________________________________________________________

At 08:44 AM 5/16/97 -0700, you wrote:
>I, too, like the circles in the middle of intersections. They are
>appropriate for the meeting of 2 residential streets (like 5th and
>Howard), but not for places like the ends of the blocks on Polk at 3rd or
>6th since one of the streets in those cases is an arterial and can't be
>blocked. So, we are looking at traffic calming devices to put in the
>street between the ends....
> BL
>
>On Thu, 15 May 1997, John Danahy wrote:
>
>> Personally, I like the idea of little circles in the middle of
>> intersections. Two years ago I had the opportunity to drive around England
>> for three weeks and found the "round-abouts" quite entertaining. I think
>> we should establish similar intersections here.
>> Also, as someone who has spent the last fifteen years walking the streets
>> of Moscow professionally, I can speak to the fact that we are becoming a
>> politer community. More people are stopping for walkers in crosswalks.
>> (except for our local gendarmes) However, there is still a long way to go.
>> Little circles in the middle of intersections would certainly cause
>> motorists to assume some measure of caution.
>> John Danahy
>> jdanahy@turbonet.com
>>
>
>


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