And Bicyclsists Are Scofflaws?

[mstone]

@Rootchopper 24213 wrote:

This whole 4-way stop thread has me thinking that many of these intersections would be better served with roundabouts.

People in the US aren’t any better at those than 4 way stops. Even the traffic engineers seem confused–I’ve even seen stop lights in circles.

[DaveK]

Virtually none of the DC circles are proper modern roundabouts. The closest one I can think of in DC is on Brentwood Rd near the Home Depot/Giant/RI Ave Metro station and that’s not even right (it might have signals, I can’t remember). The DC circles are black holes of dysfunction. VDOT has thousands of the things the further out into the hinterlands of Loudoun County that you go. The one thing on which they’re fairly progressive…

[KLizotte]

Best roundabouts I’ve ever seen were in Iceland. Marvellously designed and almost impossible to screw up as a driver. It was the first time I said “ahh, so that’s how they are supposed to work.” Very efficient and kept conflicts to the barest minimum – and no electricity required!

The UK also has a ton of roundabouts and those generally work well but they could use some design tweaks that I saw in Iceland.

I’ve never understood our reliance on square intersections with lights.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@Rootchopper 24213 wrote:

This whole 4-way stop thread has me thinking that many of these intersections would be better served with roundabouts.

That way people can have no idea what to do year round, rather than just when the power goes out. Driven on Washington Circle lately?

[mstone]

@KLizotte 24236 wrote:

I’ve never understood our reliance on square intersections with lights.

They make it easier to speed

[brendan]

@MCL1981 24217 wrote:

They started wising up about the traffic control situation in the Montgomery Blast Radius. Cones and tape down the middle where the main road has a median. This makes it so that intersecting traffic (the smaller road) can only turn right. This significantly sped things up since nobody could actually cross all the lanes. Most people are getting the hang of it too. The main roads, people slow and stop as needed to accommodate someone waiting to cross/turn. And where the view is clear, people just roll through in groups rather than stopping one at a time unnecessarily. Friday night and Saturday were an absolute nightmare. But by Sunday, people were figuring it out.

What really gets me is once night falls. Sometimes you don’t know you’re blasting through a controlled intersection until you see the light in the top of the windshield. I went through many dark intersection without even realizing I was in them

Route 50 also has the cones through the intersections so that cars on intersecting streets can only turn right. No one on 50 is even slowing at the non-functioning traffic lights

@MCL1981 24217 wrote:

You apparently have never driven through Dupont, have you?

That’s a poorly engineered roundabout from a modern traffic management perspective. Better yet, a calmed version of the circle, which would encourage automobiles to take other routes, would be nice.

Brendan

[MCL1981]

@brendan 24240 wrote:

Better yet, a calmed version of the circle, which would encourage automobiles to take other routes, would be nice.

Actually the current version of the circle does a fine job of encouraging me to take a different route as it is.

[jrenaut]

@Rootchopper 24213 wrote:

This whole 4-way stop thread has me thinking that many of these intersections would be better served with roundabouts.

Roundabouts only work when there’s no chance a pedestrian might ever try to come close to the street. The minute you allow non-vehicular traffic, you have to put in lights, and then you get Dupont Circle, the thing that every urban planner sees in his/her nightmares.

[DaveK]

@jrenaut 24260 wrote:

Roundabouts only work when there’s no chance a pedestrian might ever try to come close to the street. The minute you allow non-vehicular traffic, you have to put in lights, and then you get Dupont Circle, the thing that every urban planner sees in his/her nightmares.

There are ways to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists at roundabouts, but Dupont is not a good example. Of anything, really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEXD0guLQY0

[KLizotte]

@DaveK 24269 wrote:

There are ways to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists at roundabouts, but Dupont is not a good example. Of anything, really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEXD0guLQY0

That is a weirdly mesmerizing video. I was surprised to see the woman/girl walking the bike (6:50) and hesitating to cross; I wonder if they have different laws for peds in these situations (course she could have been a foreigner who was freaked out by the crossings). It was amazing to see how many of the cyclists didn’t even look to see if a car was coming/slowing while they crossed the roads; goes to show how safe they feel.

I’m kinda wishing I’d gone to the Netherlands instead of the UK for my last vacation. Oh well, there’s always next year!

[DismalScientist]

That video scares the hell out of me. I would rather be in the street, but I guess they have the drivers trained well there. One thing I noticed was that the sight lines were a lot better than where we have circles in the U.S. What happens when you add pedestrians to the mix?

[eminva]

@DismalScientist 24271 wrote:

That video scares the hell out of me. I would rather be in the street, but I guess they have the drivers trained well there. One thing I noticed was that the sight lines were a lot better than where we have circles in the U.S. What happens when you add pedestrians to the mix?

I didn’t see any provisions for pedestrians in the video — they would not be in the bike lane, because in the Netherlands they separate pads and bikes. Usually there is a sidewalk next to the bike lane for pedestrians. Either the pedestrians are shunted off somewhere else out of the field of vision here, or maybe this is a remote spot where people don’t walk.

Yes, Dave, you should go to the Netherlands for vacation!

Liz

[KLizotte]

@eminva 24276 wrote:

I didn’t see any provisions for pedestrians in the video — they would not be in the bike lane, because in the Netherlands they separate pads and bikes. Usually there is a sidewalk next to the bike lane for pedestrians. Either the pedestrians are shunted off somewhere else out of the field of vision here, or maybe this is a remote spot where people don’t walk.Liz

There is a sidewalk on a couple of the roads but not all of them.

[jordash]

The double standard for cyclists and motorists is huge. Why motorists are irritated when cyclists blow through stop signs or roll past red lights blows my mind. I see plenty of motorists who run red lights and blow through stop signs. By tapping the brakes 5 feet from the intersection, they’re slowing to maybe 10-15mph, which is plenty force to crush a pedestrian, cyclist, and, at the least, rack up a nice insurance claim. Indeed, I’ve seen motorists slam through stop signs faster than 25mph.

Motorists frequently imperil other motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians but have the temerity to be outraged when a cyclist passes them at an intersection or takes the right away at a 4-way stop.

No, rolling through stop signs or pushing through red lights isn’t legal and it might not even be safe, but I’d have a lot easier time listening to the media and cyclist critics tell me I’m the problem if they recognized that motorists are still the biggest abusers and danger to safe transport.

[DaveK]

@DismalScientist 24271 wrote:

That video scares the hell out of me. I would rather be in the street, but I guess they have the drivers trained well there. One thing I noticed was that the sight lines were a lot better than where we have circles in the U.S. What happens when you add pedestrians to the mix?

Driver training and responsibility is an absolutely key part of why cycling in the Netherlands is so much better than here.

[Author]

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