A1: "The good and bad of roundabouts"
Mirsada Buric brings in some numbers to put beside the raft of complaints about the roundabout at Willow Lake and 89.
Which number do you think is more significant, the larger number of fender-benders because unqualified drivers are freaking out, or the fewer injuries (and no deaths) despite all the freaking out?
Update: 6:40am: The graphic page is up now, with a graph by Tim that adds some perspective we don't see in the story. Check that rising trend at the Prescott Lakes intersection.
3 comments:
The graph's visual representation is misleading because it only shows the extent of accidents through May 20th of this year. It would have been more helpful it it showed a projection of thhe 2007 accident tally as well. That would have suggested 9.6 accidents at 89 & Willow Lake, 12 at 89 & 89A, and 7.2 at 89 & Prescott Lakes. Obviously the real numbers will vary and hopefully be less.
I would say that this looks promising for 89 & Prescott Lakes but not so good for 89 & 89A. What would be interesting (after the real numbers are in for the year) would be to look at the intersections themselves to see why there are increases or decreases in accidents.
To roundabout or not to roundabout? It might make more sense to ask, "Where do roundabouts make sense?" Don't just install them to be trendy, put them where they will be most effective.
Another element left out is that cross traffic at both Prescott Lakes and 89A comes into the 89 intersections on steep downhill grades. I'm sure that slides a few people into harm's way by mistake, making them less comparable to the Willow Lake intersection.
The 89A intersection will be completely different pretty soon, of course, as they get the overpasses built.
This was by far our most popular story of the day on May 31. More than 800 hits on this one, plus three pages of comments.
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