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Tips/Techniques Urban and traffic planning

Tips/Techniques
Dabbler said:
oh, yes. far better.

1) they eliminate the possibility of a t-bone accident (all too common).
2) the capacity for the intersection to handle traffic flow is about 40% higher.
3) saves a little on gas for each car - with many cars, it adds up.
4) eliminates the ignominy of sitting at 11pm at a red light with no traffic in sight
5) In our municipality, it is about 25% cheaper than installing and operating a traffic light.
6) it calms traffic speeds in residential areas
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Doggggboy said:
When we first arrived in New Zealand, I asked a local how to navigate a traffic circle. He looked at me like I had asked how to pour piss out of a boot.
At least for a single lane circle, if you're on the circle you have the right of way.
If you're trying to enter the circle, yield.
Done
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Oh, understand how they are supposed to work: it all falls apart when the people that are supposed to yield actually do, and on the ones with multiple lanes the people in the outer lane that are supposed to exit keep going around. Also don’t work well in the situation where 90% of the traffic comes from one direction and is going 3/4 of the way around: you’re SOL if you’re trying to enter at the 1/4 or 1/2 point.

The really bad circles are the ones in the UK: they go clockwise!!!! Very confusing.
 
In our area they love the f'n things but they don't work worth $#@t because they're dots not circles and drivers are twats. If it wasn't for idiots I'd be very lonely on the roads.

:mad:
 
Needless to say, I love circles over intersections. When everyone agrees on the rules.

It also helps that users have a basic competency in driving skills. It seems that competency gets rarer with the passing years. (or my standards get higher).
 
ChazzC said:
The really bad circles are the ones in the UK: they go clockwise!!!! Very confusing.
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laughing-hard-funny.gif
 
Dabbler said:
Needless to say, I love circles over intersections. When everyone agrees on the rules.

It also helps that users have a basic competency in driving skills. It seems that competency gets rarer with the passing years. (or my standards get higher).
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Same goes for 4/way stops: what makes them slow is when people don’t follow the rules or sit waiting for someone to do something when it’s actually their turn. Signals also help so you can turn right when it doesn’t interfere with the driver who has the right of way.
 
JustaDB said:
This. In spades.
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We in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge area of Ontario have seen dozens of traffic circles in place of intersections and they are great for maintaining flow.

I have driven many in England, Scotland and Ireland as well, there is a period of adjustment for drivers, but they do help traffic and reduce serious accidents.
 
I live in Toronto where they add bike lanes to make it less safe for bikers, and more inconvenient for everyone else. And many drivers have trouble with the difference between a red light and a green one; forget about ignoring right of way, passing on the right and being willfully blind to giant no left turn signs

About two blocks from my house is a traffic circle. It is a one lane affair that has been there since the 1940's on roads with 30Km/s speed limits. And roads so narrow and winding that no one really can speed even if they wanted to. This works well

My Wife's family live in Ottawa and every time I go there, I dread the new traffic circles because they seem designed to cause accidents.
 
mbond said:
I live in Toronto where they add bike lanes to make it less safe for bikers, and more inconvenient for everyone else. And many drivers have trouble with the difference between a red light and a green one; forget about ignoring right of way, passing on the right and being willfully blind to giant no left turn signs

About two blocks from my house is a traffic circle. It is a one lane affair that has been there since the 1940's on roads with 30Km/s speed limits. And roads so narrow and winding that no one really can speed even if they wanted to. This works well

My Wife's family live in Ottawa and every time I go there, I dread the new traffic circles because they seem designed to cause accidents.
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Don’t get me started on bike lanes! Here we are required to stay 5’ away from bikes, but they apparently can do whatever they like: don’t stop at red signals or stop signs, ride up between curbs and cars stopped waiting to signal to changed (so I have to maintain 5’ and they don’t?) and lean on stopped cars like they own them. Plus it always seems that the worst offenders are those outfitted like they’re in the Tour de France.
 
Dabbler said:
Needless to say, I love circles over intersections. When everyone agrees on the rules.

It also helps that users have a basic competency in driving skills. It seems that competency gets rarer with the passing years. (or my standards get higher).
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I love them too go through one everyday to work with pedestrian lights never seen an accident or an issue.
My experience is any delays you may encounter with less confident people are mere seconds or even a small slow down whereas stopping at one light your looking at 30 seconds sitting waiting for no one not including those who fall asleep at the light and you have to remind them.
 
Spent the last 3 months in France. Drove all over and only had to stop at a couple of stoplights. They traffic circles work well but some of them get so busy it is hard to get onto them. Some of them are so small they are just painted on the asphalt, kinda funny, but no stop sign.
 
Tom O said:
True but most don’t care, like pedestrians walking with their headphones on entering an intersection without looking left or right trying to win the Darwin Award chanting “I have the right of way “.
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from Dale Carniege

Here lies the body of William Jay,​

who died maintaining his right of way.​

He was right, dead right, as he sped along,​

but he’s just as dead as if he were wrong​

 
Dabbler said:
2) the capacity for the intersection to handle traffic flow is about 40% higher.
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Not all the time, it’s very dependent on the traffic volumes. If the traffic volumes are not balanced then the people on the low traffic volume legs can sit there quite a while.
Dabbler said:
5) In our municipality, it is about 25% cheaper than installing and operating a traffic light.
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That’s not been our experience in Manitoba. I think it would be fair to say that roundabouts are between three and four times more expensive than signals.
But it depends on the scope, if you’re just putting a concrete pimple in the middle of the intersection then I can see roundabouts being cheaper. But once you’re digging up all four legs of the intersection for maybe 50m+ out the cost of a roundabout really starts to add up.
(Of course if you factor in the cost to society of a fatality, then I suspect you could say roundabouts are cheaper overall?)

I’m a big fan of roundabouts and in Manitoba they’re starting to be used wherever can. But lots of intersections will have better flow better with traffic signals.

It does suck sitting at a red light at 11pm when their is no traffic, but that’s because someone tried to save money and didn’t spend the $50k+ to put detection on all four legs. (Downtown Winnipeg is atrocious, they purposely didn’t put in detection which works Ok when the city core is bogged with traffic, but sucks after rush hour (Winnipeg “rush hour”, not Toronto “load your gun rush hour”)
 
StevSmar said:
But once you’re digging up all four legs of the intersection for maybe 50m+ out the cost of a roundabout really starts to add up.
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Calgary successes are limited to current residential - the pimple in the middle, and new developments where they are planned in. Thise only cost about 30% more than a typical 4-way intersection, but if it saves one traffic light per 5 intersections, it is still cheaper. In Calgary, apparently it costs just under 1M$ to put in a monitored traffic light, and 800K for an unmonitored one.
 
In Manitoba, a rural traffic signals installation will cost $500k or so (no geometry changes). Cheaper if it's in a urban area because it doesn't need as many poles.

Geometry changes add significantly to the cost of intersection improvements, so if that's happening I think that it becomes closer between a rural roundabout and rural traffic signals in terms of overall project cost.

It appears Manitoba tends to restrict roundabouts to single lane and in mid traffic volume areas, where the traffic on each leg is fairly similar.
I've driven on multi-lane roundabouts in Australia and the unwritten rule was never let anyone be beside you- those could be a bit of a gong show...

Personally, I much rather drive through properly constructed roundabouts than signals.
 
PaulL said:
Remember when swearing at bikes that you're the one driving the 3 ton death machine. It helps to keep things in perspective.
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I'm not swearing at the bikers - I'm swearing at those who have installed them. The bikers themselves are legitimate road users, but the bike lanes near my house make it more dangerous for them along with anything else.

On Bloor street (one of the ones in the news), the lane is to the right of the ordinary traffic. That means that the cyclists approach (in their segregated lane) into the blind spot of right turning traffic. That's a bad combination of raising the expectation safety for the cyclist, and reducing the ability of even cautious drivers to avoid them.

There are other problems too - like the new necessity for police, fire and ambulance to drive down the wrong side of the road because no one can get out of their way anymore. and yes, there one each of these stations on the exact stretch of Bloor near me. It is not something that I have just heard about, but I have seen it directly at least 10 times

And then there is the parking problem. And the pedestrian issues.

The short version is that they made the road a lot more dangerous and less efficient at the same time. None of which is the fault of any cyclist
 
My take on traffic circles is they are just fantastic as soon as people learn to use them. For the most part they are new to most Canadians so half the drivers do all kinds of weird things, on the other hand traffic circles during rush hour in big European cities looks like a well conducted symphony of efficiency.

They replaced the traffic lights with a circle on the main highway near our cottage and flow has noticeably improved. Red light was about a minute wait, delay entering circle rarely more than 5-10 seconds and usually no delay.
 
slow-poke said:
The way I see it...
If $hit ever hits the fan, all those "stupid" farmers will be well prepared well fed and armed. More than likely half the "smart" population in Toronto will wipe each other out fitting over the last litre of milk in the superstore.
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I am going to enjoy watching it happen.
Susquatch said:
Being on the shore of Lake Erie, we have a constant churn of new neighbours from the big city (Toronto, Ottawa, London, etc.). They don't understand animals or farming or even nature. They think Bambi & Thumper are buddies, talk to each other, read books, and die of old age. They don't like farmers using pesticides, fertilizer, or spreading manure. They drank Walt Disney's coolaide. They think farmers are all stupid and we all need to change all the rules to be more like the rules in Toronto. Very few come here wanting to become one of us and adopt a true country lifestyle. They want us to change to think and act like them instead.
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Exactly what voters from other provinces and citiots want when they come here. We don't want them.
This June I just involuntarily acquired another city neighbour next door . I have not gone over and spoke to him, and probably never will.
Sadly, as I am a friendly helpful person, I have learned the hard way to leave them alone, unless they won't leave me alone.
 
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