The old ways of traffic engineering - build it bigger, wider, faster - aren't going to disappear overnight. But one look at West Palm Beach suggests an evolution is under way. When the city of 82,000 went ahead with its plan to convert several wide thoroughfares into narrow two-way streets, traffic slowed so much that people felt it was safe to walk there.The increase in pedestrian traffic attracted new shops and apartment buildings. Property values along Clematis Street, one of the town's main drags, have more than doubled since it was reconfigured.Fascinating. Roundabouts with no signs or lights turn out to be safer than intersections with high-tech regulation. It's about the eye-contact between individuals negotiating the intersection instead -- I can certainly say that that's the only thing that keeps pedestrians in Philly alive!
(via Medley)
2 comments:
Yeah the British love roundabouts... maybe thats why they arent so popular here. They do take a bit of getting used to tho, in terms of how to traverse. But the good thing, even if you miss your exit, you can get there the next time around. Or the next... They definitely are safer, as there is no chance of running a red light etc.
Sid
They do have them in NJ, as well as in the Boston area (where they are definitively called "rotaries"), but definitely in the minority.
The wacky thing about that description was that it included bikes and pedestrians -- and they claimed that more of each felt safer using it since it became a roundabout rather than an intersection. (I'm not sure bikes will ever feel truly safe here...)
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