4 ms·

Seems like a lot of lights, compared to a roundabout. I don't get why people don't like roundabouts, they seem to work quite well, at least until traffic backs

Seems like a lot of lights, compared to a roundabout. I don't get why people don't like roundabouts, they seem to work quite well, at least until traffic backs up (at which point nothing really works). They also avoid the left (or right, where they are most common), but typically with fewer lights. The second light in this system seems like it will really slow things down, but maybe it works. I'd love to see video footage of it in action during a busy period.

_delirium 16y ago
I have a sort of visceral negative reaction to roundabouts, but I think because most of the ones I've seen in Europe, when the road is more than one lane wide in each direction, seem to end up with a crazy ad-hoc-lanes thing going on in them, where it's as if you drove onto a huge plaza with no lane markings, where everyone is driving in all sorts of criss-crossing diagonal directions trying to get from their entrance road to their exit road across multiple lanes of traffic. I imagine some countries have more orderly versions, but that's how the Paris ones all felt to me. edit: video of an example, around the Arc de Triomphe -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lay8aZlsbB0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lay8aZlsbB0
- kikibobo69 16y ago
  Well, the Arc de Triomphe is not exactly a /good/ example. Your point is valid, but I (and others more qualified) argued this ends up being safer. People's mental model changes when they get to a roundabout, they sort of switch on their brain a bit more. I have in my head, but can't find a reference, that roundabouts are actually surprisingly safe.
- hugh3 16y ago
  I approve of one-lane roundabouts and wish America would replace all its four-way stop signs with them. Four-way stop signs make no sense and just make everything painful, especially for cyclists. Two-lane roundabouts are pretty dangerous, though -- while I've never had an accident in one I've always suspected that I might. And anything more than two just seems to be crazy.
philwelch 16y ago
Roundabouts aren't well suited for high speed freeway interchanges.
- kikibobo69 16y ago
  I wouldn't think this proposal is, either, with all those stoplights.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    If I understand correctly, the traffic on the freeway doesn't stop -- only the traffic on the intersecting road does.

_delirium 16y ago

I have a sort of visceral negative reaction to roundabouts, but I think because most of the ones I've seen in Europe, when the road is more than one lane wide in each direction, seem to end up with a crazy ad-hoc-lanes thing going on in them, where it's as if you drove onto a huge plaza with no lane markings, where everyone is driving in all sorts of criss-crossing diagonal directions trying to get from their entrance road to their exit road across multiple lanes of traffic. I imagine some countries have more orderly versions, but that's how the Paris ones all felt to me. edit: video of an example, around the Arc de Triomphe -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lay8aZlsbB0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lay8aZlsbB0

kikibobo69 16y ago
Well, the Arc de Triomphe is not exactly a /good/ example. Your point is valid, but I (and others more qualified) argued this ends up being safer. People's mental model changes when they get to a roundabout, they sort of switch on their brain a bit more. I have in my head, but can't find a reference, that roundabouts are actually surprisingly safe.
hugh3 16y ago
I approve of one-lane roundabouts and wish America would replace all its four-way stop signs with them. Four-way stop signs make no sense and just make everything painful, especially for cyclists. Two-lane roundabouts are pretty dangerous, though -- while I've never had an accident in one I've always suspected that I might. And anything more than two just seems to be crazy.

philwelch 16y ago

Roundabouts aren't well suited for high speed freeway interchanges.

kikibobo69 16y ago
I wouldn't think this proposal is, either, with all those stoplights.
- hugh3 16y ago
  If I understand correctly, the traffic on the freeway doesn't stop -- only the traffic on the intersecting road does.