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Traffic engineers' job is to move traffic as efficiently as possible.
Social engineers' job is whatever they think they can do to manage and control other peoples' lives. These cars are on the road for a reason.
Safety is also a crucial aspect of the job, and economic development/community interests play a big deal into decisions made around projects (if the goal was just to move traffic as efficiently as possible, there would be no need for us to solicit input from the general public or elected officials).
Probably the biggest thing I've learned since going into transportation engineering is that traffic engineering isn't silo-ed into it's own field, it is intricately linked to more things than you think such as land use planning (is there enough capacity on a road to support certain types of developments), context-sensitivity (city/town wants a downtown/urban center street = not appropriate to build a 6 lane highway there), etc... that require coordination/input from multiple stakeholders.
I knew you were going to say NJ when I read circle because that's what they're called here.
Where did you grow up? I'm originally from Union county. I mostly saw jug handles in North Jersey. We had jug handles on route 22 up by the Watchung Sears.
I also lived in Browns Mills by route 70, there was one where it met route 72, another at route 202 with another at route 73. They did away with the route 73 one. If you go towards Ocean county on route 70, there are 2 more I believe so I'm wondering if that's where you lived.
Rt 23 in Passaic and Morris County - north from Rt 46 thru Wayne, Pequannock, to Riverdale. Rt 202 crossed into Wayne at one of the circles. I learned to drive on some of these crazy circles. They were mostly gone by the mid 1980s. Rt 23 was the 50 mph, 2 lanes in each direction, separated by a grass median highway. I had a front row seat for many horrific accidents.
Here in Florida, with a lot of retirees, roundabouts are not a timesaver. My sister, who just turned 65, stopped using a road she used to love because they put one in at an intersection.
I think they work well in the right situations, although there is a road near my house in which there are 5 or 6 roundabouts along the road, maybe within the span of 4 miles or so, and some of the roundabouts are slightly different in terms of number of lanes and pattern. Some of them are one lane in the circle, some of them are two lanes in the circle, and as an example if you want to make what would traditionally be a “left†turn, the way to do that from one is a bit different from the other even though both have two lanes. Even though I’ve lived in my neighborhood for about 6 years, I still have to stop and think at times when I travel on that road. But, overall, I can live with them. The traffic isn’t so heavy here to the point where they cause backups.
There's a town in Indiana called Carmel where they have constructed 120+ roundabouts. Go to Google Maps sometime and check it out.
(Another pro for the roundabout I just thought of is that it saves the municipality money in terms of annual maintenance/operating costs vs. having to pay for a signal)
There's a town in Indiana called Carmel where they have constructed 120+ roundabouts. Go to Google Maps sometime and check it out.
(Another pro for the roundabout I just thought of is that it saves the municipality money in terms of annual maintenance/operating costs vs. having to pay for a signal)
Yep, I work in Carmel. They've replaced just about every traffic light (in a city of 100,000 on the edge of Indianapolis) with roundabouts to the point I think the city has just 8 stoplights left with at least 4 more of those going in the next year or two. And I believe they are at 135 or so roundabouts, supposedly more than any city in the US. I go through 10 roundabouts on my 10 mile commute and my commute was reduced from 35 minutes to 25 minutes when they replaced 5 stoplights on my drive with roundabouts. Whenever I'm sitting at a red light now, especially with a left turn arrow, all I can think about is how much quicker I'd have been through if it were a roundabout.
Yep, I work in Carmel. They've replaced just about every traffic light (in a city of 100,000 on the edge of Indianapolis) with roundabouts to the point I think the city has just 8 stoplights left with at least 4 more of those going in the next year or two. And I believe they are at 135 or so roundabouts, supposedly more than any city in the US. I go through 10 roundabouts on my 10 mile commute and my commute was reduced from 35 minutes to 25 minutes when they replaced 5 stoplights on my drive with roundabouts. Whenever I'm sitting at a red light now, especially with a left turn arrow, all I can think about is how much quicker I'd have been through if it were a roundabout.
Do you think most people in Carmel generally have a positive impression of the roundabouts? Have there been any issues that you can think of?
Do you think most people in Carmel generally have a positive impression of the roundabouts? Have there been any issues that you can think of?
Overall, it seems most people that live here strongly prefer roundabouts to the stoplights they replaced. It's people that come in from out of town and aren't used to them that hate them, and that can be understandable. And that leads to the biggest issue with them. Being a suburb of a big city, with lots of medical facilities and offices, there are definitely a lot of people that have to go into Carmel that aren't used to it and get confused with the roundabouts, especially ones that are multi lane roundabouts, and they don't pay attention to which lane goes where. I've seen many instances where 2 lanes go straight through the roundabout yet someone in the right lane goes left or the left lane goes right. Each roundabout typically has trees, flowers, or sculptures in the middle to help them be seen at night and also to block the view across, I guess the idea is to make it so you only worry about what's coming from the left.
Winter weather can sometimes be an issue but Carmel really salts up the roundabouts when there's snow and ice. Often, the roundabouts are the most clear parts of the street!
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Don't have to sit at a traffic light ...
