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I mean, the real issue is that American traffic engineering is usually loathe to put anything other than a 4-way stop. Americans do not properly yield at yield
by bobthepanda 4y ago
I mean, the real issue is that American traffic engineering is usually loathe to put anything other than a 4-way stop. Americans do not properly yield at yield signs, roundabouts take too much room, and we haven’t figured out how to routinely build speed bumps or raised crosswalks for less than six figures.
Also, it is a stretch to call some of that planning “learning” or “science.” As a general example, parking regulations for uses tend to be arbitrary, oversized and wildly out of date; most US retail parking lots are not full even on major shopping days like Black Friday before the advent of online, and now online is making all that space even more wasted.
- cjrp 4y agoRoundabouts don’t have to take up more room than a stop-signed junction. We call them mini-roundabouts, and they’re often just painted on the ground and slightly raised so that you can still drive over them.
- bobthepanda 4y agoUnfortunately, US civil engineering is very dogmatic, so if it isn’t approved by AASHTO it won’t be done. The civil engineers also like absurdly wide turn radii to accommodate 53 feet trailers and large fire trucks even in residential streets, so you end up with comically wide roads even for dead end suburban streets. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/suburban-street-2779407.jpg https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/suburban-street-2779407.jpg
- throwaway0a5e 4y agoI agree it's stupid but can you imagine how HNers would react if a trailer so much dragged an outside dual on their shrubbery. The hand wringing would probably start a fire.
- bobthepanda 4y agoFortunately for traffic engineering, they often remove those too, to maintain a “clear zone” for road safety. (The clear zone is intended for keeping cars at high speed from killing their occupants when they decelerate into stationary objects.)