ROUNDLY DISAPPOINTING BURLINGTON WALK-BIKE SUMMIT
About 100 attendees, mostly biking enthusiasts, gathered at the Main Street Landing “Lake and College Building” in Burlington Saturday (March 31) though nary a discussion occurred at the joint sessions about the treatment critical to walker safety: the roundabout.
Even the keynote speaker who also presented, Jeff Olson, the former New York State Department of Transportation bicycle pedestrian coordinator failed to mention that across the lake the roundabout became his former employer's policy standard seven years ago. While Vermont already has six walker fatalities this year compared to an average of four annually in the recent past, nothing about walker safety creeped into discussions. Burlington itself experienced a fatal and a serious injury at signalized intersections in a recent week.
The nation with an impressive comprehensive highway safety plan—France—leads the world in the number of roundabouts, about 31,000 at the end of 2010 building with 1,400 built yearly 1993-2003. The U.S.? A construction of 750 would be good for this year, about a $1.5 billion investment—if the U.S. invested at the rate of the French in the 1990s we would be building about ten times the current rate, about 7,000 roundabouts annually at a cost of about $15 billion--more than twice the amount built in the 21 years 1990-2011, about 2,500 roundabouts built. One cannot begin the policy of a “zero fatality rate” challenge posed for the first time by AAA without an aggressive investment in roundabouts. The U.S.--and Canada—remain two nations completely lacking even a hint of a comprehensive highway and street safety program, one with measurable goals by mode and ongoing monitoring of performance.
Vermont with eight roundabouts since the first in 1995 will have at least ten by the end of the year as two begin construction in Manchester Center this spring—a “French production rates” would be about 15-20 a year with at least a third in the Burlington metro area.
While roundabouts at busy intersections cut gasoline and emissions (including greenhouse gases) by about a third, reduce delay for all users, traffic calm in all directions to nearly 900 feet, and enable more walking and bicycling, their most important user impact is on average a reduction of serious injuries and fatalities by 90%. Car occupants and walkers get the bulk of the safety benefit and no modes receive a penalty.
Vermont boasts the first state or province policy in law to employ roundabouts at dangerous intersections, but Vermont has fallen behind as New York, Virginia and two western Canadian provinces which adopted “roundabouts only” policies.
Ironically, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the August 1992 three day walking/bicycling workshop in Montpelier where roundabouts were first introduced to community leaders and officials—and Montpelier home to the first northeastern roundabout in 1995, Brattleboro which led the northeast with the first interstate interchange roundabout in 1999 and Manchester Center in 1997 led the construction of the first Vermont roundabouts.
Perhaps next year the Chittenden Walk/Bike Summit will hear about the intersection which is standard in the land across the waters of Lake Champlain. Then perhaps advocacy can nudge the building of more roundabouts thereby bringing improved walker safety not only for the Burlington area but for the State as well.
Showing posts with label walkers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label walkers. Show all posts
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
TWO-LANE ROUNDABOUTS--SAFE FOR WALKERS (PEDESTRIANS)
Last night in response to a question about roundabouts use to improve U.S. Shelburne Road corridor from om the shopping centers at the I 189 interchange south to the re-constructed roadway to Shelburne, presenter consultant Stephen Rolle paused momentarily and said he was not sure about the safety of the two-lane roundabouts for pedestrians as two-laners would be required to replace the signals.
That question at the Shelburne Road public work session of the Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) typifies doubt which still remains about the use on a regular basis of roundabout technology at the busiest intersections. This corridor experienced walker deaths (I dislike the fancied up word “pedestrian”) in recent years and in the 1990s a worker at Price Chopper was killed at the Home Avenue signalized intersection on her way home from work.
For two state transportation agencies (New York since 2005 and Virginia) and two provincial ones north of the border (Alberta and British Columbia) the walker safety issue is “settled” regulation—at busy intersections properly designed and built roundabouts provide, as compared to signals, equal or improved safety for walkers as well as for car occupants and bicyclists.
Per Garder, University of Maine at Orono civil engineering professor and a roundabout expert, circulated a Swedish National Road and Transport Research Instittute (VTI) paper reporting a 1994-1997 thorough study. That study revealed—as do many other studies—single lane roundabouts cut walker injury frequency about 90% and injury severity. There is widespread consensus that single lane roundabouts are the safest intersection treatments period. The two lane roundabouts in the Swedish study also found no problem with two lane roundabout safety—even though the prevalent roundabout designs in place then were larger—about 200 feet in diameter—than current practice--the Federal Highway Administration guidance which is typical calls for two lane roundabouts in urban areas used by walkers to be in the range of 150-180 feet in diameter. These smaller circles mean lower speed, the critical factor in walker crash frequency and severity.
I am in agreement with Professor Garder that two-lane roundabouts pose no safety issue for walkers compared to signals or sign control. To the contrary single lane roundabouts provide a major walker safety benefit and two-lane roundabouts also a positive safety benefit.
Since 1990 when the first modern roundabout was built in the U.S. that number has grown to about 3,000 roundabout today—not a single walker fatality has occurred and the one bicyclist fatality occurred at a very large former rotary with roundabout entries and exits but retaining the higher speed context. Yes fatalities will occur at roundabouts--France with about 31,000 roundabouts records about one walker death per 15,000 roundabouts. A Melbourne statistical report for a five year period last decade found zero walker fatalities in the over 4,000 roundabouts (residential traffic calming circles were included in the overall number).
The Swedish studies of two-lane roundabouts were those with an average of 25,000 daily entering vehicles and 1300 walkers. The translation of the Swedish VTI report published in 2000 concludes its discussion of walker safety findings (emphasis added):
"For the two-lane roundabouts, there is almost perfect agreement between the observed
and predicted values. [“predicted values” were those derived from signalized and
unsignalized accident studies] For the single-lane roundabouts, however, the observed values are substantially (3-4 times) lower than those predicted.
The results suggest that roundabouts pose no problems for pedestrians compared
to “conventional” or signal controlled intersections. The results also clearly
show that for pedestrians single-lane roundabouts are much safer than two-lane
roundabouts."
Clearly roundabouts at busy intersections reduce delay for all users, reduce gasoline use and emissions including greenhouse gases (GHGs), cost less to maintain, and overall--and for walkers especially--provide a net safety benefit.
That question at the Shelburne Road public work session of the Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) typifies doubt which still remains about the use on a regular basis of roundabout technology at the busiest intersections. This corridor experienced walker deaths (I dislike the fancied up word “pedestrian”) in recent years and in the 1990s a worker at Price Chopper was killed at the Home Avenue signalized intersection on her way home from work.
For two state transportation agencies (New York since 2005 and Virginia) and two provincial ones north of the border (Alberta and British Columbia) the walker safety issue is “settled” regulation—at busy intersections properly designed and built roundabouts provide, as compared to signals, equal or improved safety for walkers as well as for car occupants and bicyclists.
Per Garder, University of Maine at Orono civil engineering professor and a roundabout expert, circulated a Swedish National Road and Transport Research Instittute (VTI) paper reporting a 1994-1997 thorough study. That study revealed—as do many other studies—single lane roundabouts cut walker injury frequency about 90% and injury severity. There is widespread consensus that single lane roundabouts are the safest intersection treatments period. The two lane roundabouts in the Swedish study also found no problem with two lane roundabout safety—even though the prevalent roundabout designs in place then were larger—about 200 feet in diameter—than current practice--the Federal Highway Administration guidance which is typical calls for two lane roundabouts in urban areas used by walkers to be in the range of 150-180 feet in diameter. These smaller circles mean lower speed, the critical factor in walker crash frequency and severity.
I am in agreement with Professor Garder that two-lane roundabouts pose no safety issue for walkers compared to signals or sign control. To the contrary single lane roundabouts provide a major walker safety benefit and two-lane roundabouts also a positive safety benefit.
Since 1990 when the first modern roundabout was built in the U.S. that number has grown to about 3,000 roundabout today—not a single walker fatality has occurred and the one bicyclist fatality occurred at a very large former rotary with roundabout entries and exits but retaining the higher speed context. Yes fatalities will occur at roundabouts--France with about 31,000 roundabouts records about one walker death per 15,000 roundabouts. A Melbourne statistical report for a five year period last decade found zero walker fatalities in the over 4,000 roundabouts (residential traffic calming circles were included in the overall number).
The Swedish studies of two-lane roundabouts were those with an average of 25,000 daily entering vehicles and 1300 walkers. The translation of the Swedish VTI report published in 2000 concludes its discussion of walker safety findings (emphasis added):
"For the two-lane roundabouts, there is almost perfect agreement between the observed
and predicted values. [“predicted values” were those derived from signalized and
unsignalized accident studies] For the single-lane roundabouts, however, the observed values are substantially (3-4 times) lower than those predicted.
The results suggest that roundabouts pose no problems for pedestrians compared
to “conventional” or signal controlled intersections. The results also clearly
show that for pedestrians single-lane roundabouts are much safer than two-lane
roundabouts."
Clearly roundabouts at busy intersections reduce delay for all users, reduce gasoline use and emissions including greenhouse gases (GHGs), cost less to maintain, and overall--and for walkers especially--provide a net safety benefit.
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