Tuesdays and Thursdays are always fun around here, because those are the days that my local paper comes out. The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript serves up all the news that's fit to print for our tiny region. Some of the most fascinating news items and discussions recently have centered on the ever-controversial new shopping center that's being constructed.
What, you're asking, can be the big deal about a shopping center? Well, it's not the actual stores that are the problem — the only tenants are a Shaw's grocery store and a CVS pharmacy. No, the things that has the jaws flapping is the planned road access: a roundabout.
Oh... my... gawd.
When it was announced that a roundabout was to be installed instead of the 'normal' traffic light/turn lane combination, you would think that they'd also planned to sell dead puppies at the Shaw's. It's been stated recently that the USA has taken the gold medal in whining about the Beijing Olympics. Maybe we need to have an Olympic whining competition, because there are some New Englanders who would certainly end up on the medal stand.
What's the problem with a roundabout? You know... they look funny? And they're tricky to drive through. Apparently, fewer people will visit the grocery store because of this thing (right... it's the only major grocer in town!). Oh, I forgot about the safety issues. Despite what a mountain of traffic study data suggests, people will just not be convinced that these things are safer. There's is a variant of the roundabout, usually called a 'rotary,' that does indeed cause problems. They're often multi-laned and are wide enough to allow for fairly high speeds. No, the roundabout is small and is built so that entry must be at a slower speed.
Oh... my... gawd.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
You should send a letter suggesting they build a long distance runaround instead. Thanks for the mention.
2 - Tom Johnson
Awesome, EB.
Mark, I'm not sure if you've seen my mentions of roundabouts on my site or not, but I live by a set of them that function as the "intersection" from offramps to local roads from a major freeway. I believe they are the first of their kind in the entire state of Arizona. The word "clusterfuck" was invented the daily mangle of cars that attempt to get through them without running into each other. Granted, Arizona now boasts the title of having some of the worst drivers in the US, but it may be in reaction to entirely stupid decisions like these roundabouts. If I didn't have to actually endure driving through them (and I do everything I can now to avoid them,) it would actually be amusing to watch as people routinely disobey just about every known traffic law while passing through them, not to mention offenses to common courtesy.
One of the biggest problems I have noticed is that people have no idea what the term "yield" means, nor what is that upside-down, yellow and white triangle that bears that word. So they just plow straight ahead and into the roundabouts - apparently, at least in their minds, if you don't know what something means, you are free to do as you please, even if 20 other cars are coming your way. This works just fine as long as the other drivers aren't thinking the same way, or there is a semi-truck hauling a full-size trailer through the roundabouts (this in itself is entertaining - they can't actually fit, so the cab typically winds up driving over the inside curb of the roundabout while the outside wheels of the trailer scrape around the outside curb.) When these two meet, you can imagine what happens. We've had one car run into as he attempted to outrun the truck in the roundabout and another that got stuck under the trailer itself. Oh, and let's not forget the incompetent truck drivers, like the tanker truck driver who flipped his in the roundabout, spilling whatever was in it all over the place, backing up morning traffic for miles in every direction.
Other than that, they have worked out really well.
3 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
If things get too quiet around there, after the dust has settled and the ribbon-cutting's done, you may want to start a new round of concerned letters in the newspaper suggesting the roundabout was paved with dead puppies. Purebred puppies (read: expensive). That'll rile 'em. Just a thought.
Thanks for an enjoyable read.
4 - Tom Johnson
Jesus, apparently I have no idea what a Yield sign looks like. "Yellow and white" should read "red and white."
5 - Mat Brewster
I'm thinking of turning my driveway into a roundabout. That way salesmen won't know where to stop.
6 - Zak Normandin
I personally don't find the roundabout to be much of a hassle at all. It beats having to sit at a traffic light. We'll see what happens once Shaw's opens in the spring.
We just wrote an article about this at The Monadnock Review:
The Monadnock Review | The Peterborough Roundabout. Day One.