To motorists like Wally Lucas, roundabouts or traffic circles are organized chaos. There’s nothing wrong with a roundabout that a couple stop signs wouldn’t cure.
Lucas is so frustrated he wants voters to abolish roundabouts in Colorado Springs.
Not so fast, says Dave Krauth, principal traffic engineer for Colorado Springs. He and other traffic engineers absolutely love roundabouts.
They are a thing of beauty. Check out these views from GoogleEarth.com:
Traffic engineers praise roundabouts for reducing the number of wrecks at intersections as well as the severity of injuries and damage due to wrecks. You don’t get those nasty T-bone crashes at roundabouts because there are no right-angle turns and speeds are lower.
Here are a few of the roundabouts scattered across Colorado Springs. First, the hotly debated and fiercely opposed roundabout on Lake Avenue.
Here is a look at one on Mesa Road at the entrance to Kissing Camels.
The new Wolf Ranch subdivision on Research Parkway, east of Powers Boulevard, is an example of traffic engineer utopia. It is littered with roundabouts. Take a look.
Then there is the “green” factor of roundabouts. Since you don’t stop, your fuel efficiency is enhanced.
But Lucas said too many motorists are unfamiliar with the concept of continuous flowing traffic. The South Carefree Circle roundabout is especially treacherous because it has two lanes of traffic going in every direction.
Krause and traffic engineers say roundabouts are simple, if people take the time to educate themselves. Study the signs. read the pamphlet and watch the video the city produced. It might help.
You can find even more information on the city’s Traffic Roundabouts Web page at SpringsGov.com.
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The video still does not address the following problem: Say driver #1 enters from the south and plans to exit west (left turn) Driver #1 enters and exits the circle from the inside lane per the video’s instructions. What if as driver #1 is passing north getting ready to exit west, driver number two enters the circle from the north intending to go south (straight) Driver #2 would be in the outside lane and would crash into driver #1 as he exits the circle and (properly) crosses the outside lane of traffic to do so? I would love to hear an explanation of how this would work.
I’m glad to see someone standing up for roundabouts. I have always taken a great interest in traffic engineering, and consider myself quite knowledgable on the topic. The big difference between a roundabout, and the older style traffic circle is how the right of way is assigned. In an older style circle traffic in the circle was requiered to give way to entering traffic. In a modern roundabout it is reversed, with traffic inside of the circle having priority. The “magic roundabout” in Swindon is actually called a “ring junction” by the British.
The big problem with the S. Carefree roundabout is lane assignments. People turning right from the inside lane conflict with drivers in the outer lane. This could be solved by forcing each lane one step out as it passes every exit, almost like peeling lanes off an onion. If you wanted to turn left you would approach the roundabout in the leftmost lane and transition to the inner lane of the roundabout. After the outer lane exits, the inner lane takes its place and a new inner lane begins for vehicals entering the roundabout. This produced a hurricane pattern of stripes. I realize it is hard to visualize, so I found an example in England. Remember, everything is reversed.
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=51.621527~-0.255129&style=h&lvl=19&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=12429307&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&cid=2EF475CADA3655A6!141&encType=1
I understand Lucas’ fruestration, but I think his efforts would be better spent in an effort to have roundabouts included in driver training and testing. If a referendum making the drivers test more difficult made it on the ballot, I would likely vote in favor of it.
I totally agree with Mr. Lucas. Lets get rid of them!
My family doesn’t shop any of the stores at First and Main because of that ridiculous roundabout. I’ll wager there are others like us as well.
Where does Mr. Krauth get his statistics from? It certainly isn’t from the roundabout at First and Main. It has one of the highest accident rates of any intersection in the city. I’ll wager as well that his statistics don’t come from Colorado Springs or even the State of Colorado.
I have the same question as Susan and Kevin about the South Carefree Circle roundabout. Glad they were able to articulate it, because I wasn’t even going to try! I just remember to yield when exiting from the inside lane as described above. Would be nice if it was completely clear, though.
@Susan and Carrie,
I drew up an example of how the S. Carefree roundabout could be redone to eliminate the specific point of intersection you are talking about. I think if the city restriped the roundabout in such a manner, accidents would decline. Trace every possible path, you only have to yeild once as you are entering the circle.
The image can be found at
http://www.4freeimagehost.com/show.php?i=39f133213c0c.jpg
@Phil,
I understand your fruestration, the roundabout at South Carefree was poorly designed. It has tall planter boxes obstructing the view of smaller cars, and the lane layout is a hazard. The city has come a long way since then. An example of some safe multilane roundabouts check out the 3-4 roundabouts on Tutt Blvd. just south of Woodman road by the new hospital.
T
I’m not frustrated by the roundbouts, they just take some getting used to. What I am frustrated about is the folks that insist on landscape them and in so doing block the drivers abiliaty to see what is happening in the roundabout when you approach one. There is one on Lake Ave the is particularly bad in this regard. Low level landscaping is fine, but tall growing plants/trees should be elilminated.
Roundabouts, love them, simple, compact, safer and keep traffic moving. I’ve (once) driven the magic roundabout (in swindon) and it is a little nuts and as far as I know not been repeated anywhere else (it is now a tourist attraction!).
Yes I agree that people have problems learning how to drive them, but I also know people that cant drive a stick shift or parallel park, but thats why we have a driving test.
It may take some time for people to get used to them, but Colorado Springs will be a better place for all when we don’t have to stop at the end of every block across town, and have lights flashing away all night in peoples windows.
Doug, actually satalite roundabout systems are quite common in GB, however the magic roundabout in Swindon is definitly the most well known. If you look SW of the center of swindon there is another satalite system with four mini-roundabouts. More common are what I call “penut roundabouts” where two circles are placed directly adjacent to one another in order to seperate higher traffic routs from a lower traffic circle meant to collect traffic from smaller roads before dumping it in the main circle.
I almost got plowed over at this intersection tonight by the driver of a white SUV (you know who you are!). I live about a mile from the First & Main shopping center and have driven through this roundabout hundreds of times over the last six or seven years, but tonight was the closest I’ve ever come to actually being hit. I grew up in Texas where roundabouts are more common so I’m pretty familiar with the way they work, but most people just don’t know how to navigate them. In this particular case, I think the problem would be solved if there were a right-lane-must-exit rule. Then the right lane would have to exit at each exit point while the left lane has the choice of either exiting or continuing around the roundabout. If you want to continue around the roundabout then you MUST be in the left (inside) lane. That’s what happened to me tonight; I knew I didn’t want to exit at the first exit point so I entered the roundabout into the left lane (after yielding, of course!). A white SUV entered the roundabout just ahead of me but entered into the right (outside) lane. He passed the first exit point we came to. (That didn’t affect me because I didn’t want to exit there anyway, but if I had, then the near-miss would have happened there instead.) But then, when I needed to exit at the second exit point we came to, I attempted to exit the roundabout while he tried to continue going around in the roundabout (so he basically cut me off). I had a lane to follow out of the roundabout so it seems pretty clear to me that I was in the right. But my teenage daughter was in the front passenger seat and she would have taken the brunt of the impact if I hadn’t stood on the brakes (in the rain, mind you!). And yes, I honked for almost a full ten seconds lol. Thank God I still have great reflexes at 41! I realize rates of speed are slower in roundabouts so damage and injury are less likely (although serious injury can still occur), but I think I would rather wait my turn at a traffic light than to risk any of my childrens’ safety, or even my own. Roundabouts are a good idea in theory, and in a perfect world they would be great. But like so many other things, they just don’t work in real life. If no one knows how to use them then they’re useless at best and dangerous at worst. People aren’t taught how to drive them in driver’s ed because they’re not that common, and they’re not that common because they don’t work. I keep trying to remind myself that Mr. White SUV probably wasn’t an ill-meaning moron, he was probably just uneducated. But would that have mattered if my daughter had been pinned under the dashboard and lost her legs? I’m with Phil, get rid of them. They just don’t work. You can put up signs telling drivers “right lane must turn right” but people will just ignore the signs.
I have no issue with the roundabouts, I got used to the in Austrailia. They make perfect sense to me. However, I would really, really like to know what the silly one-eyed green alien guy is doing standing in the middle of the roundabout IATA First and Main. Nobody who works around there seems to know.