Safety, Traffic Flow Give Roundabouts An Edge

New York drivers are increasingly finding themselves going in circles, and it's not because they're lost.

[Highway Worker]

Unfortunately, people here in CT are not courteous enough to be able to safely use a rotary. There was a reason traffic engineers stopped using them many years ago. Now, it seems transportation planners have a love affair with them. And for the life of me I can not see the reason behind it. They are only good at intersections where there is no definate priority to a given road, so they are used at intersections of odd numbers, like 3 or 5. I agree with the fact they make people slow down, but they also make confused drivers STOP! This is when the accident counts starts to pile up.

[Bob Hartford]

I am getting dizzy reading this commentary. Roundabouts have there place, they work well in rural areas but keep them out of the cities where you are mixing buses, pedestrians, bikes and trucks. The can be confusing and dangerous when mixed. One more complaint how do maintain them during winter snow months because snow accumulating or pushed into the center will melt during the days over 32 degrees and then freeze over at night creating a safety concern and additional maintenance.

[the real world]

I've got an idea - lets allow our brain-dead citizens that cant stop yakking on their cell phones to have their speed controlled by a colored light bulb suspended above the road. Sometimes they will obey it, sometimes they will speed right through it, but we have to trust their good judgement. Or, we can slow everyone down to a manageable speed that does not create fatal impacts, and will have less than half the accidents of the light-bulb intersection. Anyone who thinks signals are still superior to roundabouts must still be using dial-up.

[Road designer]

As an engineer involved with designing roundabouts, I constantly hear people who say roundabouts have their place, but not here because (make up reason here). Then the roundabout gets built and, what do you know, it works fine. With Connecticut drivers, 3 legs, 4 legs, 5 legs, rural, urban, they work in any of these situations. Granted, multi-lane roundabouts are more confusing than single laners, but since we don't have any multi-laners in CT, it's hard to understand how anyone can call them confusing. And they have them in plenty of areas with snow - New York, Vermont, Canada, Alaska. They plow them with no real problem. The snow gets pushed to the outside, not the center island. Bottom line - everyone can have their opinion but study after study shows roundabouts reduce accidents and make traffic flow better.

[Sid Keens]

gr33tz to all my listserv peeps

[Bob Hartford]

How do you get the snow off the center island? Usually the islands are not paved and if there are not catch basins on the inside of the island, you will get sheet flow to the outside of the road and then you will get daytime melting running across the road then freezing at night. This creates a maintenance nuisance for the highway departments.

[confused]

not much in the way of facts - I believe there are some pretty solid safety statistics for before/after. Most of us are aware that there are concerns, but the pros and cons were scattered around the article. What about pedestrians? Why are they being used at all? What about relative costs - short and long term?

[say the truth]

Traffic circles are not good because Americans think it's a free-for-all and don't obey the rules. They might work in Germany but not in the undisciplined USA.

[pr farmington]

There used to be a traffic circle in farmington at the rt4 and rt177 intersection. It was taken out in the name of progess and modern traffic lights. It is currently a daily traffic nightmare completely clogged and all the studies that have been done cannot seem to figure it out. Traffic circles moderate traffic much better, are better for the enviroment, and are cheaper. Unfortunatly, a large percentage of drivers do not understand how they work and given what I see every day on the roads are completely unable to perform the even the simple act of merging.

[Eric M]

I have been found roundabouts highly effective here in Montgomery County, MD, particularly along the DC-Montgomery County, MD, line. They have also proved effective in Vail, Frisco, Breckenridge and Avon, CO. I would like to see many more, particularly in places where there are moderate levels of traffic currently controlled by traffic lights.

[Jack from Colchester]

I am a civil engineer. When I was in England a few years ago, I noticed that roundabouts are used there frequently. They work.

[Joe]

Round abouts work really well. Think about it. Would you want to wait at an intersection for 5 minutes to have that green arrow come on to signal that you can turn left, or would you rather wait a few seconds to enter the round about and make your turn easily? I wish more round abouts would be put in CT instead of being taken out. The only ones I can think of left is one in Hartford near the park and one on rt. 81 in Killingworth..and they work easily, fast, and safely. The idea of snow problems are absurd. It snows in Finland, Sweden and Norway and they do just fine with roundabouts.