Nightmare

[elizilla]

Baker Road is the shortest route between my town and the freeway. It is super busy during rush hour. There are two intersections that are particularly bad because they lead to schools. Traffic just creeps in that section during school drop off and pick up times. Anyways, the local news reports that Baker Road is going to be closed all summer because they are going to install two roundabouts at those intersections where the schools are.

Perhaps this is why I had this weird dream. I dreamed about designing those roundabouts. It was just awful. No matter how I drew it I was going to have to tear down some houses. Also I was going to have to have the corner of the cemetery dug up and relocate some caskets. And what about the sidewalks? It was a terrible nightmare and I woke up grinding my teeth painfully, even with the bite splint I was managing to hurt myself.

I am glad I don't commute and I don't live near Baker Road. Apparently my subconscious is pretty worried about it. I wonder if traffic through downtown, will be better or worse with Baker Road closed?

Comments

[bikergeek]

Ugh. Well that sounds unfun.

Also I have an entire rant about people who think roundabouts are a good idea, based on having lived in two states that thought they were a good idea before WWII and spent much of the 1970s and '80s removing them in favor of channelized, signalized intersections.

[elizilla]

They have been installing a lot of them around here. We didn't used to have them. Some of the new ones are very successful. Others are more terrifying. Mostly, the successful ones are replacing former four-way stops in sprawl areas, or the kind of traffic signals where traffic waits for no reason most of the time.

I think the Baker roundabouts will be successful, if they can find room for them. They're going to have to sacrifice at least one house. I think the house they'll tear down is a rental and is owned by the school, though, so they probably already have that part arranged.

I have been on the terrifying roundabouts in Mass, the ones with six multi-lane roads dumping into an enormous four lane circle. The ones we are getting here are much, much smaller. My biggest concern is what happens to the sidewalks, especially in school zones but also in other places.

[khaylock]

In the UK, you will have come across the little fried-egg mini roundabouts? I think to make them work you might need a 'culture of roundabouts' like we have in europe, but they take up a lot less space than a full on roundabout...

[elizilla]

Yes, I have seen those. I was calling them dinner plate roundabouts. We don't have a culture of roundabouts; they are a new thing to us, so I don't think that would work here. The ones we are getting are never that small, but compared to the ones in bikergeek's neighborhood they are tiny.

One of my friends got hit in one of our new roundabouts, last week. She is unhurt but her husband was driving and she was in the passenger seat when the pickup truck failed to yield, so she was on the side that was hit. Her car was totaled, all the airbags deployed, etc. She's car shopping. She really liked that car so I asked if she would get the same one again. She said no, she would be triggered every time she got in it.