Star: City Hall eyes traffic circles

[MisterF]

Traffic circle: Traffic entering the circle has the right-of-way
Roundabout: Traffic in the circle has the right-of-way

Of course, this is the traditional definition. For all intents and purposes, the city could be talking about either one. There is no proof one way or the other. Bottom line, they look the same.

The city's talking about roundabouts, not traffic circles or anything else - diagram. Headlines can be misleading. This is interesting too - "Studies on two Waterloo roundabouts show that injury collisions have been reduced at those intersections." http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/268449. And those are two lane roundabouts on major streets.

 

[Le Gique]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout

<<Roundabouts are sometimes referred to as "traffic circles" or "rotaries", but a technical distinction was made in some jurisdictions between roundabouts and traffic circles in the mid-1960s.>>

good luck enforcing a distinction here in North America, at least for popular parlance.

how would folks in NYC, home to world's second rond-point after Paris (sez wikipedia), refer generically to Columbus Circle -- or would they bother?
-older suburbs in New Jersey have 'em, if I recall

methinks folks here may lean to "traffic circles" for the wee ones -- such as the stop-sign infested examples in North York

--has anyone posted a picture of that rotary/thing that used to be along the QEW in Mrs.-saga?

 

[299 bloor call control.]

A lesson to learn maybe? Edmonton used to be the traffic-circle capital of North America, virtually all main intersections built in the 60s and 70s were traffic circles and there were about 30 or 40 of them... There's only a handful left as they became useless once traffic volumes reached a certain level and although it reduces major left-turn impact collisions, there were an increasing number of side-swipe collisions.

107th Avenue traffic circle too costly to replace
Susan Ruttan, edmontonjournal.com
Published: Friday, May 16
EDMONTON - Despite efforts to make it safer, the traffic circle on 107th Avenue and 142nd Street remains a major collision site, a new report says.
The ultimate solution to the problem is to replace the traffic circle with a regular intersection, says the report going to city council's transportation and public works committee next week.
However, since that would cost up to $15 million, the report recommends some short-term fixes to try to reduce collisions in the traffic circle.
New lane-use signs will go up, pavement markings will be repainted, and a pamphlet is being prepared to explain how to navigate a traffic circle.
Gerry Shimko, executive director of traffic safety for the city, said today that Edmonton police will hand out the pamphlet.
He said work is also being done on making a video that will be put on the city website to show drivers how to use a traffic circle.
The curious thing about traffic circles, Shimko said, is that even the one with traffic lights at all four corners - located on 118th Avenue and Groat Road - has a high collision rate.
Coun. Linda Sloan, who asked for the report, said while replacing the 107th Avenue traffic circle would be the best solution, the city doesn't have the money right now to do that. In the interim, she said, it's important to put better signs up for drivers entering the traffic circle to help them navigate it.
sruttan@thejournal.canwest.com
© Edmonton Journal 2008

Though like they said, a lot of it is education... I wouldn't be surprised if the huge increase in traffic-circle incidents over the past few years is due to the large influx of residents into the city who have never driven in one before....

 

[MisterF]

I don't know much about Edmonton but those two intersections in the article aren't roundabouts. That one with traffic lights looks especially disfunctional! I don't think this point is really getting through...modern roundabouts and old style traffic circles are completely different!! Maybe this will clear it up....

The top right is a roundabout. The bottom left is more like those two circles in Edmonton. If they replaced those big circles with proper roundabouts accidents would probably go down just like they have everywhere else. I don't see how traffic would be an issue - those streets are just run of the mill 4-lane suburban arterials, something 2-lane roundabouts handle with ease. Sounds to me like they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater by getting rid of circle intersections altogether.

 

[RedRocket191]

Call me ignorant, but I still don't follow. To me, the two at Brock U look just like scaled up versions of each other.

Is the difference in who has right-of-way, or is the difference something else?

And frankly, I'm still not convinced that this isn't a case of two names for the same thing (LRT vs Tram vs Streetcar). I'm also not convinced that the name even matters.

People don't care if its called a roundabout or a traffic circle or a thing-a-ma-jig. What they care about is what they have to do when they get there.

 

[interchange42]

Traffic planners have very definitely decided that there is a distinction between the two, and yes, it is that in roundabouts the traffic in the circle has the right of way, and that in the older traffic circles, traffic entering the circle has the right of way.

The average person may not pick up on what difference the names are meant to reflect, but that's what planners mean. Traffic circles are not being built anymore - it is all roundabouts now.

People will get used to them as they experience them more and more. Signage at the roundabouts signals who has right of way.

42

 

[RedRocket191]

Thank you, and my apologies to MisterF for me being so thick-skulled.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Too bad that the Six Points interchange didn't even look at the roundabout, but settled on the Dundas Street Loop option: Kipling and Bloor West roads going through, and Dundas West looping off Dunbloor. The roundabouts or traffic circles were not even options for evaluation.

 

[nfitz]

The studies I've seen, the fender benders, and side swipes go up a bit, but the T-bone collisions are virtually eliminated. Fewer deaths and serious injuries.

More roundabouts = less dead people. Seems like a no-brainer to me, if there's space to do it.

 

[MisterF]

Really? I've always heard that all accidents go down.

Thank you, and my apologies to MisterF for me being so thick-skulled.

lol well that wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. I don't think there was much rhyme or reason to how the old circles were designed. If you zoom in on the one at Brock you can really tell how something like that would be nuts with a lot of traffic. I'm not an engineer but there's a lot of differences - the angle of the entrances and exits, radius of the circle, lane widths, signage, etc.

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

There are also much more complicated roundabout systems, such as Hanger Lane Gyratory System and the ever popular Magic Roundabout (see below).

 

[adma]

 

[299 bloor call control.]

From the Alberta Drivers' Handbook (the traffic circle section is in there only because of Edmonton and if you want your license in Edmonton the test includes safely navigating a circle -- like I said, that's probably why collision rates are up, newcomers didn't do this test and don't know what to do):

Basically, contrary what to interchange42 said, in the Edmonton case, circle has right of way. Drivers outside the circle yield to traffic inside the circle, and drivers inside the circle yield the drivers in the inside lane.

This is why there's congestion problems - they work fine at moderate levels of traffic, but Edmonton's reached a critical point in congestion in rush hours where the lineup of cars waiting to enter the circle is ridiculous. When I lived there and worked downtown, one of the main routes from the west end required the circle -- and usually spent 5 minutes queueing up at the circle.

If these were the much larger circles you see in the UK, you can have the inside yield to the outside.. but there's simply no room in Edmonton's circles to put this rule in.

 

[nfitz]

That would be a roundabout by definition in most places. I'm surprised they don't tell you to signal when you enter.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Signals? Aren't signals optional?

Its gets on my nerves when drivers do not signal when they are going to make a turn or change lanes. Its worst when I come up behind a driver at a red light at an intersection, the light turns green and only then does the driver ahead of me signals a left turn.