"All roads in western NC should be considered closed." --NC DOT"All roads in western NC should be considered closed." --NC DOT
Something about pedestrian crash deaths that’s not mentioned a lot: 1 of every 6 occurs on a freeway www.ghsa.org/sites/defaul...
Sorry, definitely wasn’t saying it’s right to cheap out on safety! Probably shouldn’t have quoted like that. I’m still new and didn’t post on twitter either. Just joined to follow int’l transportation/construction/policy stuff, tried to contribute something to the conversation
Anyway point being, roundabouts are much safer than signals but they’re very expensive, and the US has a whole lot of signals. We’ve gotta put a higher price on life.
You can build them just about as cheaply as you like. But you sacrifice stuff that matters. See the pic, where space was a constraint, and exit speed across the crosswalk is way too high. Or you can leave out the splitter islands that protect pedestrians. Or use stick-on/moveable center islands, etc
It’s land acquisition, drainage, utilities. Costs we can get down for sure. But idk how out of line we are with France, which does them well. Apparently the one in the pic was €433k (2014). Quoted average is 2011 I think. (Would appreciate being corrected on this, I can’t really read French)
Much safer, and good capacity overall (for what that’s worth). Rarely built because of the cost. “Properly-designed modern” means careful speed control and pedestrian protection via approach deflections, splitter islands, etc. Easy to blow past 500k in a cornfield. Hard to stay under $1m in a city
It focuses on limited access divided highways, where the concept at least makes some sense. But scared DOTs started applying it everywhere. (Car runs off road and kills ped, driver at fault; tree in front of ped stops car and kills driver, widow calls lawyer)
Worth watching in full if you get time. This campaign by the Federation of Insurance Counsels was huge in bringing about the “forgiving roadside”. youtu.be/RCErGL2WIto?...
YouTube video by IIHS