- Decatur superintendent Edwards to take local job [AJC]
- Outgoing superintendent leaving successor with a ‘deep bench’ [AJC]
- Avondale’s AutumnFest this weekend! [website]
- Decatur’s “Restaurants for Repairs” on October 6th [Decatur Minute]
- Roundabouts: The Surprising Facts About A Misunderstood Intersection [WABE]
- How Tasteless Suburbs Become Beloved Urban Neighborhoods [The Atlantic]
Photo courtesy of GDOT
“If you think about it, a driver that might be going 55, 65 miles per hour on the interstate. [Entering a roundabout,] they’re going to have to go through a geometric feature that slows them down and changes their mindset as they’re going into this community that, ‘Hey, you’re coming into something different;’ you need to slow down.”
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Roundabouts at major intersections instead of traffic lights is akin to the “shared space” concept of traffic management. The perspective expressed by Hans Moderman is that when “motorists are made more wary about how they drive, they behave more carefully.” This supposition was put to the test beginning in 1999 in Drachtan (Netherlands) with stunning results (search – Is this the end of the road for traffic lights? Telegraph).
As an experiment, Moderman replaced the busiest traffic light intersection in Drachten, handling 22,000 cars a day, with a traffic circle, an extended cycle path, and a pedestrian area. In the two years following the removal of the traffic light, the number of accidents plummeted to only 2, compared with 36 crashes in the 4 years prior.
Thank you for the topic and forum DM.
I believe I am the only resident of Decatur with a Hans Monderman t-shirt.
But I want one!
Let’s start a Hans Monderman festival to go with that t shirt!
And roundabouts will make even more sense as we move toward the age of driverless autos.
Roundabouts are awesome. Traffic keeps moving smoothly, fuel efficiency is better, and it is just an overall more pleasant drive than the constant stop and go of traffic lights.
Of course, you can still ruin it by doing something like … I don’t know… putting a stop sign at the entrance to a perfectly good roundabout (… Avondale…)
And if you’re too tired to go all the way to Avondale, we’ve got our own — albeit a tiny one — at Ponce Place and Oakland.
Except there is a stop sign too, so, I am not sure it qualifies.
Right. Glock made a crack about Avondale’s roundabout with stop signs. That’s what I was responding to.
Most people seem to treat those stop signs as suggestions, so the roundabout functions more or less the way it is supposed to.
I have rearranged my commute from North Decatur to Atlantic Station so that I encounter 4 traffic circles: two near Emory, one in Morningside and one in Ansley. I love them!
I get a little nervous at the McLendon Ave. traffic circle when I’m driving down Howard Circle from DeKalb Ave. looking to head west on McLendon toward Candler Park and Little Five. Vehicles heading westbound on McLendon have basically a straight shot coming down McLendon from Ridgecrest. They have a yield sign, but I’ve seen cars fly right through there.
I’ve often said that that thing on McLendon barely qualifies as a traffic circle. The fact that a car can fly right through there confirms, to me, that it is not exactly Grade A.
Agreed. I have had more than a few close calls on my bicycle in that intersection, where west bound traffic seems to think they can drive straight through. One driver came so fast she almost t-boned me (despite my bright colors and multiple flashing lights, and the bright overhead sun). I was so concerned that I actually circled back to make sure she had a yield because I thought perhaps I had been in the wrong based on her reaction to my daring to be in the traffic circle.
This is the same problem I encounter at the roundabout at Lullwater and N. Decatur. Folks traveling toward Emory on N. Decatur do not so much as pause in the slightest. I have been honked and shouted at for daring to attempt taking my “turn” off Lullwater.
No surprise that all the comments (so far) express love for traffic circles and roundabouts. We live in Decatur where all things European are considered superior. But if these ideas are so wonderful, why is opposition so great? Is it because most Americans continue to cling to the Bible, guns and old fashioned transportation ideas (like cars) or is it something else, like the elites are full of it?
Sorry for the double question response. First at the art post and now here. I must be losing it.
not only do i love traffic circles, but i want scotus to allow me the right to marry one (i got this idea for undermining the sanctity of traditional marriage from a class i took while attending an elite university in europe, and therefore superior to whatever school you corresponded at). for our wedding ceremony i’ll burn a stack of AK-47s in the middle of my new roundabout husband while pelotons consisting of french riders in un-american spandex tights circle endlessly around thumbing their noses at the helpless suv drivers who can’t drive to church because we have blocked the way (we’ll have a special shortcut for those going to mosque, of course). i invite you to be the best man if you are so inclined.
best person, please. genderism is so un-european.
LMBAO! Immodest Proposal, I’d propose to you for this if I weren’t already married! Eh, shove convention–let’s do the European thing & commit bigamy!!!
“old fashioned transportation ideas (like cars)”
Having slaves carry your Litter through the streets is an old fashioned transportation idea. There are still people DRIVING today that were born before the Model T stopped production.
@ Chris Billingley: I don’t give a rat’s rear end about Europe. I just prefer not to stop if I don’t have to.
You are off the mark on this one Chris. The example of “shared space” has nothing to do with Europe or superiority. I read about the concept in a book by James C. Scott during which he discusses something he terms gross human product (GHP). Scott’s view is that any activity we can imagine, any institution, no matter its manifest purpose, is also willy nilly transforming people.
Are the authoritarian and hierarchal characteristics of institutions and activities producing a mild form of neurosis? If it does, then perhaps public policy should foster institutions/activities that expand the independence, autonomy, and capacities of the citizenry. Scott writes that the regulation of daily life is so ubiquitous and so embedded in our routines and expectations as to pass virtually unnoticed. Traffic lights at an intersection are an example provided by Scott.
“The shared space concept of traffic management (a roundabout) relies on the intelligence, good sense, and attentive observation of drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. At the same time, it arguably, in its small way, actually expands the skills and capacity of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians to negotiate traffic without being treated like automata…”
On a local level, It is possible that roundabouts would address the speeding concerns and traffic flow issues posed by Scott Blvd. and elsewhere in Decatur. Barriers would very likely be regulatory and cost.
+1
As a vocal champion of the nanny state, Chris doesn’t care for shared space concepts because they’re predicated on personal responsibility. 😉
I’m pretty sure the political and philosophical basis/inspiration for the US Constitution came from Europe.
One at W Ponce/Nelson’s Ferry/Northern/Post Office please.
+0 (a circular endorsement, because roundabouts.)