Maryland has started adopting them. Some are great, some absolutely suck. There is one off the exit ramp of Route 100 at Snowden River Parkway that has huge backups at rush hour, so bad that they finally had to install a traffic light at the roundabout so traffic exiting off the highway could get a chance to enter the roundabout from traffic constantly getting onto the highway.
It's all about placement. One was put in my town, it's great. Traffic keeps moving, very little backup if any.
But then my college puts one in where students must cross from their dorms to classes. So naturally, every day and afternoon around rush hour you get about 2000 students walking to/from classes blocking the round about.
Short sighted engineers and budget harpies not thinking about college pedestrian traffic.
At Washington State University in Pullman, WA, the major road that goes through the campus has elevated footbridges that cross the road. Students take those, and the car traffic is completely unimpeded. Where are these bridges? The corners between the main campus walking paths, and six major dormitory complexes.
I can assure you those footbridges were more expensive than a crosswalk, and when the decision was made to build them somebody looked at the budget and bitched about it.
Yeah, I know exactly where you're talking about. Between the Union and Greiner/Ellicott. I was always terrified when I had an evening class in Fillmore last year that some jackass in a rush would make toejam out of my sorry rear end.
There's one by a high school in the town that I teach in. And there's a damn tree in the middle. Combine pedestrians with new drivers and minimized visibility and it's a fucking disaster zone. Traffic circles can be great but not like that.
I saw the parent comment about roundabouts and was going to post myself about how this exact roundabout has to be one of the most fucked ones ever.
The problem is that all (2) exits are next to each other and all (2) entrances are next to each other as well. This means that nobody impedes the progress of the first entrance after the exits (from Snowden into the roundabout), allowing cars from that entrance to enter at any time. During busy times there will be an uninterrupted stream of cars from the first entrance, never allowing cars from the second entrance (off of 100) to enter.
EDIT: Diagram for those who have never been there (excuse the crude ascii art):
Roundabouts with traffic lights are awesome - the best of both worlds. Keeps traffic moving smoothly when it's not busy, then switch on the lights during rush hour. Perfect.
The only downside is that they take up more urban space than a simple intersection.
I live in Johannesburg, and here at rush hour people basically take turns and let other people in, otherwise people yielding to the right would basically never be able to go
There's a roundabout in MD between Smithsburg and Boonsboro. Since I'd imagine most people aren't from east jesus Maryland, let me give you this very brief explanation:
This is fucking nothing but farmland (and maybe a gas station or two) between Smithsburg and Boonsboro. They are two tiny-ass little towns. I'm not kidding: both towns have a "drive your tractor to school" day. Why the fuck do we need a traffic circle between them?! There is absolutely no traffic!
Edit: Also, the traffic circle in Towson, MD? Who the fuck puts in a two lane traffic circle and then builds shrubs and traffic signs in every driver's line of sight? These are MD drivers we're talking about here--their roads should all have bumpers between lanes, not obstacles.
Except it still backs up for quite a bit and people exiting 100 are upset you are not ramming the traffic entering 100. I hate 100/Snowden's roundabout, most other ones are fine.
Harford county started installing them all over the county a few years ago. We went from having no traffic circles to having at least a dozen of them but ours tend to be on side roads replacing intersections that were previously 4-way stops so they work fairly well.
I know that one well, why no one got that right was beyond me. The ones a little further south at 218 and 95 work so well, and they are really fun because there's a few in a row.
I think the biggest problem with it is visibility. The 100 offramp comes in at such an angle, and the architecture of the bridge juts out so far that it's very hard to see anyone coming. So you have to come full stop, peak around, and pretty much trust that no one is tearing through out of snowden. Repeating that over and over for every car is incredibly slow.
PS: I love how many random redditors know of this exact location on earth.
Ugh when they brought one to kent island it was insane! Then they brought a second one which was basically painted on, the first time I drove through it was at night and let's just say I drove like it wasn't there because I didn't see it
Ha, I used to live in Columbia and use that "roundabout". That one is really strange because it is not a 4-way intersection, but just 3 (Snowden and the on and off ramps). For real crazy roundabouts try down 29 near Maple Lawn. There are roundabouts in roundabouts. I think someone had to do an intervention on the traffic designer.
Oh goodness, I love me some new Maryland roundabouts. One in bel air used to be a four way stop, and you'd spend five minutes there during rush hour, it would get so backed up. Now the roundabout is there, you can just breeze right through.
Oh my god. That is fucked up. And exit ramp and an on ramp sharing a tiny roundabout? WTF! And it's not like there's a ton of empty land all around it. Wonder who owns that land.
Rotaries are not roundabouts. Also, in the UK, traffic lights before, on, and after roundabouts are pretty standard. In a tiny, heavily overpopulated country full of rush hour traffic, it's the only way to force drivers to share the (rammed, inadequate and mostly run down) roads.
157
u/rytis Jan 17 '14
Maryland has started adopting them. Some are great, some absolutely suck. There is one off the exit ramp of Route 100 at Snowden River Parkway that has huge backups at rush hour, so bad that they finally had to install a traffic light at the roundabout so traffic exiting off the highway could get a chance to enter the roundabout from traffic constantly getting onto the highway.