As a driver, I’ve actually been pleased with many of the roundabouts that I’ve seen in CO. They just weren’t a thing in DE, and I hated them for the longest time. They’re growing on me.
As a cyclist, I don’t have any normal routes that cross a roundabout, so I don’t know. Useful comment, I know.
rip whirlyball
This thread has me totally nerding out looking at aerial views of intersections!
Look at this shot of Grant Park during the Women’s March:
;(
Yeah that post makes no sense whatsoever with regard to this situation. If you care to actually read what I posted, you’ll find out that there are two different and perfectly “valid” ways to use two-lane roundabouts. If one guy uses one approach and the other uses the other, they have a pretty good chance of crashing. You can’t position your car so everyone knows which exit you’re heading for unless there’s a common understanding among everyone about how people get around in these things.[/quote]
Yeah, I read your post. You didn’t describe different ways to use roundabouts. You described 2 design approaches. The painted lines and road furniture dictate use. I detailed a single strategy to navigate through either design (pro tip: driving predictably is good outside of roundabouts too). Like I said, it’s not complicated, follow the lines and signs. If there are none, don’t. Rocket surgery.[/quote]
Not that it matters, but here it goes once again for the kid who was sleeping in the back of the class. There are two ways of using normal run-of-the-mill two-lane roundabouts which have no solid line or physical barrier between the lanes (i.e. where you can change lanes inside the roundabout). One approach is that you use it like a normal two-lane road. You can drive round and round in circles in the outside lane. If you want to get out of the inside lane, indicate and make sure the outside lane is clear. The other approach is that you only use the outside lane if you’re taking the next exit. In that case you don’t expect people to go past exits in the outside lane, so if you’re in the inside lane you generally turn off at your exit without looking too hard at what’s going on behind you on your right. We almost got creamed by an SUV turning off into us ages ago when my dad din’t know the Brits used system 2 and puttered around in the outside lane trying to work out which exit we had to take.[/quote]
So your dad was driving unpredictably and almost got hit? Thanks for clearing that up.
I got to deal with this boston roundabout a few weeks ago. The only way to get to our hotel was from the roundabout! Coming from the top of the screen, you’ve got to loop around the roundabout (following the red line), then immediately cross two lanes of traffic (coming from the blue line) to make a right turn into the hotel parking lot. It took me about three tries to get it.
My hometown has this fun one:
yeah but that traffic on the blue line has to yield to you.
This is a Seattle intersection I always thought could use a roundabout or SOMETHING:
All streets have stop signs. Bike lane on Ravenna is left-side, switching to right-side on East Greenlake Way. Huge quantities of pedestrians crossing every street. Insane commuting traffic in almost every direction, so impatient homicidal drivers all the time.
I bow out. The executive assistant jackass trophy of the day is all yours.
[quote=joy of vaping]I got to deal with this boston roundabout a few weeks ago. The only way to get to our hotel was from the roundabout! Coming from the top of the screen, you’ve got to loop around the roundabout (following the red line), then immediately cross two lanes of traffic (coming from the blue line) to make a right turn into the hotel parking lot. It took me about three tries to get it.
this was on my commute for a year and a half! one of the worst i’ve ever been through. the people coming out of that hotel are so eager to enter the circle that they DGAF if you happen to be cruising by on a bike. also, there is ALWAYS ultra traffic on that road so everyone is extremely aggressive and pissed when you split lanes. i do not miss that. although there is a chipotle on the other side of the street by the trader joes that i would regularly visit
<3 roundabout chat
I think my favorites I’ve riden through are the two at the bottom of the hill west of downtown Olympia
[quote=emor]This is a Seattle intersection I always thought could use a roundabout or SOMETHING:
All streets have stop signs. Bike lane on Ravenna is left-side, switching to right-side on East Greenlake Way. Huge quantities of pedestrians crossing every street. Insane commuting traffic in almost every direction, so impatient homicidal drivers all the time.[/quote]
The few times I’ve driven through there have been super stressful. Especially considering the intersection before that one coming from 65th is also a shit show. So worried that I’m going to hit some cyclist zipping through from one of ten different directions.
[quote=TimArchyLime][quote=emor]This is a Seattle intersection I always thought could use a roundabout or SOMETHING:
All streets have stop signs. Bike lane on Ravenna is left-side, switching to right-side on East Greenlake Way. Huge quantities of pedestrians crossing every street. Insane commuting traffic in almost every direction, so impatient homicidal drivers all the time.[/quote]
The few times I’ve driven through there have been super stressful. Especially considering the intersection before that one coming from 65th is also a shit show. So worried that I’m going to hit some cyclist zipping through from one of ten different directions.[/quote]
This is not much fun on a bike.
I bow out. The executive assistant jackass trophy of the day is all yours.[/quote]
I’ll gladly accept the verbal assault and trophy, thank you.
[quote=emor]This is a Seattle intersection I always thought could use a roundabout or SOMETHING:
All streets have stop signs. Bike lane on Ravenna is left-side, switching to right-side on East Greenlake Way. Huge quantities of pedestrians crossing every street. Insane commuting traffic in almost every direction, so impatient homicidal drivers all the time.[/quote]
I have traveled through this intersection basically every day that I’ve live in Seattle, so I’m numb to it, now, but it is almost unquestionably the worst intersection in the whole city. At peak summer, or if there’s an event of ANY kind happening in the park, it can take ~5 minutes to traverse, largely because the stream of pedestrians crossing from Greenlake is literally nonstop. I know pedestrian advocates hate this shit, but I’ve wondered if a roundabout with stop lights operated by pedestrian buttons with very little wait-time (like ~10 second, to allow cars to clear the roundabout) would be safer and more efficient.
But in fact, basically every intersection down Ravenna towards Greenlake is a total shitshow.
They just pushed back one of the commuter rail lines by 18 months for a really stupid reason:
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/17/rtd-north-metro-rail-line-n-line-construction-delay/
[quote]Meanwhile, RTD is building a nearly 2-mile-long bridge to carry the single-track line over York Street, existing rail road tracks and Interstate 270 in Commerce City. The so-called Skyway bridge also passes over a portion of the Suncor oil refinery.
But the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has deemed the refinery as important strategically, RTD’s Currey said, and mandated the agency add blinders on portions of the bridge so passengers can’t see down into the facility.[/quote]
The fuck? Do they not realize that you can see into the refinery with google earth?
Everyone knows most bike path users are terrorists conducting pre-operation surveillance
Oh, this was more about a train line (not really bike related) but I figured since we’re on infrastructure fails I’d throw it out there.
Oh shoot, I was thinking rail trail
