Protected bike lanes are the latest approach US cities are taking to help their residents get around by bike. But these protected lanes lose their buffer separation…
They just put in like six of these on the main street of my parent’s town in Washington. For a route that would otherwise be a stroad they beat the heck out of a traditional signaled intersection, but do little to make the area any more hospitable for biking and walking as they still take up so much space and feature continuous traffic. So, quite good for through routes but not great for density or street “completeness”.
When built correctly, the roundabouts mean you only have to cross lane(s) of one-way traffic, with the same sort of safety islands as in the pictured signalized intersections.
Then again with places that are adding roundabouts for the first time, it’s hard enough getting people to yield to other drivers let alone bikes and pedestrians.
My complaint isn’t that they’re impassable for pedestrians and cyclists, it’s their sheer size. They’re every bit as big as a 5 x 5 lane signaled intersection despite servicing a 2 x 2. And I’ve yet to see anywhere in the US that has implemented them figure out that they can still put buildings next to them, so they’re always occupying the middle of a goofy-wide strip of undeveloped land that functions as a “natural buffer” between the road and the inevitable wall around an adjacent sub-development or big box parking lot. My complaint is just that they’re not urban infrastructure, just an improved suburban exchange still in no man’s land, and as such don’t really improve the land use of an area.
That’s true, they do take up more space. That’s the trade-off. Sacrificing compactness for the sake of safety. There are fewer conflict points and they remove the chance of getting t-boned. Collisions in a roundabout are less deadly.
They just put in like six of these on the main street of my parent’s town in Washington. For a route that would otherwise be a stroad they beat the heck out of a traditional signaled intersection, but do little to make the area any more hospitable for biking and walking as they still take up so much space and feature continuous traffic. So, quite good for through routes but not great for density or street “completeness”.
When built correctly, the roundabouts mean you only have to cross lane(s) of one-way traffic, with the same sort of safety islands as in the pictured signalized intersections.
Then again with places that are adding roundabouts for the first time, it’s hard enough getting people to yield to other drivers let alone bikes and pedestrians.
My complaint isn’t that they’re impassable for pedestrians and cyclists, it’s their sheer size. They’re every bit as big as a 5 x 5 lane signaled intersection despite servicing a 2 x 2. And I’ve yet to see anywhere in the US that has implemented them figure out that they can still put buildings next to them, so they’re always occupying the middle of a goofy-wide strip of undeveloped land that functions as a “natural buffer” between the road and the inevitable wall around an adjacent sub-development or big box parking lot. My complaint is just that they’re not urban infrastructure, just an improved suburban exchange still in no man’s land, and as such don’t really improve the land use of an area.
That’s true, they do take up more space. That’s the trade-off. Sacrificing compactness for the sake of safety. There are fewer conflict points and they remove the chance of getting t-boned. Collisions in a roundabout are less deadly.