Crash prone 'modern roundabouts'

[tdindy88]

I think traffic's a little heavy going west on Smith Valley around rush hours based on my experiences there but the rest of the time the setup should be okay, I think. The loop ramp from EB Smith Valley to NB 31 is what irks me a little, I don't know if there's any advantage to having them use the roundabout to do a u-turn to turn head back west on Smith Valley and north on 31 but I suppose it may be to eliminate more people from having to use the roundabout. That or they could have traffic turn south onto Madison and then loop back up to US 31 at the light down there.

Fun fact about the area, the road just east of the roundabout is Meridian Street, but it's not the same Meridian Street as in Indianapolis. Sometimes it is called Old Meridian to differentiate the two. My travels through the area usually involve Old Meridian, Smith Valley and Madison to get to US 31.

I took a look at the plans for this roundabout online and saw that they are adding some things around it to beautify the area including what I believe to be a small column with the letter G (for Greenwood) in the middle of the roundabout. So when the first death occurs here we now know who to blame.

Note, I don't believe turning every road into Woodward Avenue or Telegraph Road is the way to go, I certainly believe these roundabouts to work most of the time and seem to be fine in Carmel, there's a one-lane roundabout very close to my residence on the southside of Indy that has really helped traffic flow in that area.

[tradephoric]

The Northland and Richmond roundabout in Appleton opened on September 1.  According to Appleton Police there have been 25 reported crashes between August 31st and October 10th.  At the current crash rate, there will be 228 crashes at the roundabout in the first year of operation.  Compare that to 27 crashes in all of 2014 when it was a signalized intersection (the highest crash intersection in Appleton that year).  On the project website, the stated reason the roundabout was selected was to address the high rate of crashes that were occurring at the signaled intersection.  This is the design they came up with.



So after 25 crashes in just 40 days, does anyone still think the roundabout will do a good job at reducing crashes at the intersection moving forward?  While there probably won't be 228 crashes per year, this roundabout could easily see 100+ crashes per year.  Their baseline is 27 crashes, and 100+ crashes is about 4X worse than that.  As long as this roundabout remains a complex 3x2 roundabout next to a busy commercial district, crashes will remain a problem.  But fear not, they will study the roundabout and throw hundreds of thousands of additional dollars to "fix"  the roundabout that they just completed.  Good job.

Crash numbers increase in new roundabout
http://fox11online.com/news/local/crash-numbers-increase-in-new-roundabout

After 155 days of opening, there have been 77 crashes at the new Northland and Richmond roundabout in Appleton (compared to 27 crashes/yr before the roundabout).  At the current crash rate there will be 181 crashes in the first year of operation.  The city is already attempting to "fix" the 155 day old roundabout by adding new signage.  Doubt it will be too effective...my prediction is that in a year or two, the city will eliminate a circulating lane inside the roundabout at a significant cost to the people of Appleton. 

Crashes continue in Appleton roundabout
http://fox11online.com/news/local/crashes-continue-in-appleton-roundabout

[tradephoric]

^In 2014 the top 10 highest crash intersections in Appleton experienced a combined 182 crashes.  At it's current crash rate, the crashes at the new roundabout will be equivalent to the sum of the crashes of the ten worst intersections in the city. 

Link to the 2014 Appleton Annual Crash overview:
http://fox11digital.com//news/PDFs/Appleton-Annual-Crash-Overview-2014.pdf

[DaBigE]

"The reality is roundabouts aren't supposed to be the cure to eliminate all crashes. They're supposed to do exactly what this roundabout is doing, which is eliminating the serious, injury-causing accidents"

Interesting quote from further down in the news story.

After 155 days of opening, there have been 77 crashes at the new Northland and Richmond roundabout in Appleton (compared to 27 crashes/yr before the roundabout).  At the current crash rate there will be 181 crashes in the first year of operation.  The city is already attempting to "fix" the 155 day old roundabout by adding new signage.  Doubt it will be too effective...my prediction is that in a year or two, the city will eliminate a circulating lane inside the roundabout at a significant cost to the people of Appleton. 

You assume the crash rate is going to increase, but in actuality, from those I've heard from in the Appleton-area, the rate is currently decreasing. And the project had significant funding from the state, meaning the city of Appleton would likely contribute a very small percentage IF design changes are deemed necessary.

[kalvado]

The city is already attempting to "fix" the 155 day old roundabout by adding new signage.

did they bill whoever designed the thing for new signage and 100 crashes due to poor design work? Companies - and engineers - should go out of business for such type of things. Or personal responsibility is so non-democratic?....

[DaBigE]

The city is already attempting to "fix" the 155 day old roundabout by adding new signage.

did they bill whoever designed the thing for new signage and 100 crashes due to poor design work? Companies - and engineers - should go out of business for such type of things. Or personal responsibility is so non-democratic?....

Yes, let's bill WisDOT...there's a smart idea.    That's like giving a police car a parking ticket. How about billing the drivers crashing because they can't follow a yield sign? Or get into the proper lane before entering? As other articles have said, the overwhelming majority of crashes at this site have been caused by drivers not yielding properly. The roundabout is not causing people to crash, poor driving habits is.

And why only hold the engineers accountable? You do realize construction projects get approved by politicians. They knew what they were getting into. In the case of this intersection, the choice was either this roundabout or an expanded signalized intersection, which would do nothing about fatal crashes, and would have been at the cost of at least 3 of the four businesses on that corner. These things are not as black and white as some would like to think they are.

[kalvado]

The city is already attempting to "fix" the 155 day old roundabout by adding new signage.

did they bill whoever designed the thing for new signage and 100 crashes due to poor design work? Companies - and engineers - should go out of business for such type of things. Or personal responsibility is so non-democratic?....

Yes, let's bill WisDOT...there's a smart idea.    That's like giving a police car a parking ticket. How about billing the drivers crashing because they can't follow a yield sign? Or get into the proper lane before entering? As other articles have said, the overwhelming majority of crashes at this site have been caused by drivers not yielding properly. The roundabout is not causing people to crash, poor driving habits is.

And why only hold the engineers accountable? You do realize construction projects get approved by politicians. They knew what they were getting into. In the case of this intersection, the choice was either this roundabout or an expanded signalized intersection, which would do nothing about fatal crashes, and would have been at the cost of at least 3 of the four businesses on that corner. These things are not as black and white as some would like to think they are.

Oh yes! Blame the victim!

[MNHighwayMan]

Oh yes! Blame the victim!

"I was assaulted by that roundabout! It's time we stood up and talked about roundabout harassment in this country! #metoo"

[jakeroot]

Oh yes! Blame the victim!

"I was assaulted by that roundabout! It's time we stood up and talked about roundabout harassment in this country! #metoo"

I'm not sure where you were going with that sarcasm, but these large roundabouts do indeed seem to be the problem in the equation.

[MNHighwayMan]

Oh yes! Blame the victim!

"I was assaulted by that roundabout! It's time we stood up and talked about roundabout harassment in this country! #metoo"

I'm not sure where you were going with that sarcasm, but these large roundabouts do indeed seem to be the problem in the equation.

My point was that there seems to be an awful lot of blaming the engineer and/or politician who designed or approved, respectively, of these roundabouts, and not the idiots who drive through them and cause accidents.

[kalvado]

Oh yes! Blame the victim!

"I was assaulted by that roundabout! It's time we stood up and talked about roundabout harassment in this country! #metoo"

I'm not sure where you were going with that sarcasm, but these large roundabouts do indeed seem to be the problem in the equation.

My point was that there seems to be an awful lot of blaming the engineer and/or politician who designed or approved, respectively, of these roundabouts, and not the idiots who drive through them and cause accidents.

For some of us those idiots are primarily taxpayers, who  fund all that construction, as well as provide the paycheck for engineers and politicians via their taxes; and citizens, most of them are also  dully licensed drivers. Please try to re-read your post with that in mind.

And a definition from Miriam-Webster dictionary.

snob:    
3 a : one who tends to rebuff, avoid, or ignore those regarded as inferior
3 b : one who has an offensive air of superiority in matters of knowledge or taste

[MNHighwayMan]

and citizens, most of them are also  dully licensed drivers.

I'll give you that, ironic misspelling or not.

And a definition from Miriam-Webster dictionary[...]

And now a definition from Merriam-Webster:

irony

1. a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning – called also Socratic irony

2. a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning
b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony
c : an ironic expression or utterance

[DaBigE]

Oh yes! Blame the victim!

Yup. And I'm going to sleep just fine doing so. Just the same if someone crashes after blowing a red light or a stop sign. If someone does either of those, 99% of the time it's not the traffic signals' fault, nor the stop sign.*

As I've said before, there are bad roundabout designs/designers out there (I've reviewed some of their work and tried to make corrections - sometimes to no avail, unfortunately), but I'm not going to chalk up failure to yield on a poor design or file them into the 'all roundabouts are bad/a waste of time' category, at least not in this case. I've been through the site many times. The signs and markings are clear as day. Even a good number of the Facebook comments from the Fox 11 story wonder [paraphrasing] 'what kind of idiot can't negotiate that intersection without crashing'.

* Now if the signal was malfunctioning (e.g., displaying opposing greens at the same time) or the stop sign was missing/vandalized, that's a different situation.

[tradephoric]

You assume the crash rate is going to increase, but in actuality, from those I've heard from in the Appleton-area, the rate is currently decreasing. And the project had significant funding from the state, meaning the city of Appleton would likely contribute a very small percentage IF design changes are deemed necessary.

On October 13th 2008 the DJIA had it's largest daily points increase on record rising 936 points.  Sounds great right?  Well considering the DJIA had plunged 3,000 points in the previous 8 trading days, that rise wasn't really that impressive.  The 936 rise was nothing more than a dead cat bounce as the DJIA continued to trend downward before bottoming out in March 2009.  The point is you got to look at the context of any event.  Should we be impressed that the latest data shows a slight reduction in the crash rate at the roundabout when compared to the crash rate when the roundabout first opened - even though the current roundabout crash rate is still several times higher than the signalized intersection it replaced?  You are focusing on the "dead cat bounce" and ignoring the overall failure of the roundabout in reducing the crash rate.

[DaBigE]

You assume the crash rate is going to increase, but in actuality, from those I've heard from in the Appleton-area, the rate is currently decreasing. And the project had significant funding from the state, meaning the city of Appleton would likely contribute a very small percentage IF design changes are deemed necessary.

On October 13th 2008 the DJIA had it's largest daily points increase on record rising 936 points.  Sounds great right?  Well considering the DJIA had plunged 3,000 points in the previous 8 trading days, that rise wasn't really that impressive.  The 936 rise was nothing more than a dead cat bounce as the DJIA continued to trend downward before bottoming out in March 2009.  The point is you got to look at the context of any event.  Should we be impressed that the latest data shows a slight reduction in the crash rate at the roundabout when compared to the crash rate when the roundabout first opened - even though the current roundabout crash rate is still several times higher than the signalized intersection it replaced?  You are focusing on the "dead cat bounce" and ignoring the overall failure of the roundabout in reducing the crash rate.

Careful, your bias is sticking out again...please try to tuck it in a little.

Congrats on the talent of being able to see the future. Any stock tips you'd like to share? Winning lotto numbers? Hindsight is always 20/20. Frankly, your assumptions aren't much different. You're declaring failure after only five months and a very small data set. Any one of these months could end up being statistical outlier. A typical crash analysis needs at least 3 years of before and after data to be given serious consideration. Even the APD officer knows you won't eliminate accidents. As the APD officer also said, there's only been ONE injury crash out of 77. No fatalities. The same could not have been said had the signal remained. Am I saying it's a great situation? Am I saying I'm happy to see any accidents, let alone an increase? No, not even close, but so far it's better than the alternative was.

Lund told the silver lining is that only one of those crashes resulted in an injury.

"The reality is roundabouts aren't supposed to be the cure to eliminate all crashes. They're supposed to do exactly what this roundabout is doing, which is eliminating the serious, injury-causing accidents," he explained.

What would you have done differently at this site to solve the serious/fatal injury problem this intersection had? Not to mention the capacity issues it was also suffering from. An interchange is out of the question, as is closing the intersection. A larger circle wouldn't solve the failure to yield problems. Wisconsin already has a yielding to trucks law on the books. Any signal-related improvements would have cost the taxpayers the added expense of at least 3 viable commercial businesses. And don't feed the same tired IIHS crap again; we are all well-aware that the data is out of date. Any engineer worth their salt is not using that data anymore.

[kalvado]

What would you have done differently at this site to solve the serious/fatal injury problem this intersection had? Not to mention the capacity issues it was also suffering from. An interchange is out of the question, as is closing the intersection. A larger circle wouldn't solve the failure to yield problems. Wisconsin already has a yielding to trucks law on the books. Any signal-related improvements would have cost the taxpayers the added expense of at least 3 viable commercial businesses. And don't feed the same tired IIHS crap again; we are all well-aware that the data is out of date. Any engineer worth their salt is not using that data anymore.

Each concept has its limitations. At some point in this thread I compared roundabout with a turn on red (mandatory RTOR, not optional as it is in most cases)- which I still think to be a good comparison. You also need to yield to traffic on the left before taking off.
Now, 3-lane roundabouts are equivalent to making RTOR from third lane - and many states don't allow RTOR even from the second lane - for safety reasons. So even 2-lane roundabouts seems to be pushing established safety limits.
As for throughput, a german guideline showing maximum roundabout traffic at 30k/day was referenced in this thread (and everyone reference european roundabouts as example). I myself had to commute through a 50k/day traffic light intersection for a few years. It was pushing in terms of throughput - but not in terms of safety...

[tradephoric]

What would you have done differently at this site to solve the serious/fatal injury problem this intersection had?

What serious/fatal injury problem?  I have not once heard officials cite how many injury crashes there were at the Northland and Richmond intersection before the roundabout was built.  The 2014 Appleton Annual Crash overview only lists the total number of crashes per intersection and doesn't break it down by injury crashes.  All I gather is there were 27 total crashes at the Nothland and Richmond intersection in 2014.... zero could have involved injuries or all 27 could have involved injuries.  It's pure speculation that the roundabout has helped reduce injury crashes at the intersection.  What I do know is city officials kept highlighting that Northland and Richmond was the most crash prone intersection in their city and they alluded that the proposed roundabout would help fix the high crash rate.  Here are snippets from an article before the roundabout was built:

Mike Hardy, Asst. Traffic Director with the City of Appleton, said, "[The intersection has a] very high accident rate, a lot of crashes compared to the amount of traffic that's going through there."  To fix the issues, the city, county, and state are working together to build a roundabout. But not before some bumps in the road-- starting this week with utility work, causing some lane closures.
http://fox11online.com/news/local/fox-cities/first-phase-of-new-roundabout-construction-at-northlandrichmond-starts-in-appleton

If Mike was so concerned about the high crash rate at the Northland and Richmond intersection, he didn't do a very good job fixing the problem.  The city took the most crash prone intersection in their city and magnified the problem several fold.  Now there is a VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY high crash rate at the new roundabout.  Great job Mike.

[DaBigE]

What would you have done differently at this site to solve the serious/fatal injury problem this intersection had?

What serious/fatal injury problem?  I have not once heard officials cite how many injury crashes there were at the Northland and Richmond intersection before the roundabout was built.  The 2014 Appleton Annual Crash overview only lists the total number of crashes per intersection and doesn't break it down by injury crashes.  All I gather is there were 27 total crashes at the Nothland and Richmond intersection in 2014.... zero could have involved injuries or all 27 could have involved injuries.  It's pure speculation that the roundabout has helped reduce injury crashes at the intersection.  What I do know is city officials kept highlighting that Northland and Richmond was the most crash prone intersection in their city and they alluded that the proposed roundabout would help fix the high crash rate.

Thank you for cherry-picking what you will answer. How about tackling the rest of my question:

What would you have done differently at this site to solve the serious/fatal injury problem this intersection had? Not to mention the capacity issues it was also suffering from. An interchange is out of the question, as is closing the intersection. A larger circle wouldn't solve the failure to yield problems. Wisconsin already has a yielding to trucks law on the books. Any signal-related improvements would have cost the taxpayers the added expense of at least 3 viable commercial businesses.

As for "what serious/fatal injury problem," you have been privy to the same information I have had access to. I was going based on what APD has said in various comments, as well comments from the locals in this and previous stories that have run in the media. You have no problem speculating future crash rates, but have issues speculating their severity??

[Hurricane Rex]

And In my humble opinion, this is turning into a back and forth argument.

[tradephoric]

On October 13th 2008 the DJIA had it's largest daily points increase on record rising 936 points.  Sounds great right?  Well considering the DJIA had plunged 3,000 points in the previous 8 trading days, that rise wasn't really that impressive.  The 936 rise was nothing more than a dead cat bounce as the DJIA continued to trend downward before bottoming out in March 2009.  The point is you got to look at the context of any event.  Should we be impressed that the latest data shows a slight reduction in the crash rate at the roundabout when compared to the crash rate when the roundabout first opened - even though the current roundabout crash rate is still several times higher than the signalized intersection it replaced?  You are focusing on the "dead cat bounce" and ignoring the overall failure of the roundabout in reducing the crash rate.

Congrats on the talent of being able to see the future. Any stock tips you'd like to share?

I made that DJIA analogy the day BEFORE it dropped 1,175 points on February 5th, the largest points drop in the markets 122 year history.  Maybe i have a pulse on the markets more than you realize.  Similarly, i'm making these roundabout crash predictions BEFORE the roundabouts open.  Admit that Appleton city leaders claimed that the roundabout would reduce the number of crashes at the intersection.  Now that the roundabout is open and there is insanely high number of crashes, they change the argument and say that the roundabout has reduced the number of injury crashes - even though they provide no proof that this is true.  To date nobody has detailed the number of injury crashes at the intersection BEFORE the roundabout opened.  Until you can do that, i don't know that the roundabout is safer.  Ultimately the roundabout has failed to do what it was suppose to do.. and there are more crashes now than ever before.

Was traffic really backing up that badly before the Appleton roundabout and has the roundabout really helped improve traffic flow?  Maybe the roundabout is helping push traffic through better than the traffic signal but it comes at a tremendous cost.  Agencies don't want to see an intersection go from 27 crashes per year to 127 crashes per year.  But the only way they will be able to fix the crash problem is by downsizing the roundabout.. then the roundabout is moving less traffic through it and causing more backups.  It's a catch 22.  Case in point the Jacaranda roundabout in Venice, Florida.  To solve a crash problem they removed circulating lanes inside the roundabout.  Now that the circulating lanes have been removed, there is question to how much traffic volumes the roundabout can handle.  That roundabout has been a thorn in the side of that community for years.. and the problems it has caused isn't going away anytime soon.  I highly doubt they will be redesigning that roundabout again... they are just going to rip it out eventually.  I wouldn't be surprised if the Appleton roundabout shares the same history as the Jacaranda roundabout... where they fumble and F#$@ around with it for years to try to fix a crash problem... only to have to rip it out once it becomes ineffective at pushing traffic through it. 

Is it the end of the road for Venice's Jacaranda roundabout?
http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/is-it-the-end-of-the-road-for-venice-s/article_cb365e96-0c5e-11e8-ae2c-4be135dac9d0.html

[jakeroot]

Does anyone have any info on the Clearwater Beach roundabout? It was constructed in the late 90s, originally with a water feature. But the water feature was replaced by open grass in late 2002:



This article indicates that it was removed due to maintenance costs (something that roundabouts tend to have very little of), but I don't see why it was that big of a deal. The whole point of the fountain was to create a greeting to Clearwater Beach; was the price of welcoming guests really $250k/year?

To be honest, I'm wondering if they removed it because people kept driving into it. I'm skeptical that maintenance was the only reason.

Also wouldn't mind knowing why the roundabout is still marked in such a way that the left approach lane is only a U-turn (even though markings indicate both lanes head towards South Beach).

Here's a photo of the roundabout under construction in 1999. Not much of an apron, here:

[kalvado]

Does anyone have any info on the Clearwater Beach roundabout? It was constructed in the late 90s, originally with a water feature. But the water feature was replaced by open grass in late 2002:

Some quite harsh words in this article:
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-north-pinellas/clearwater/project-aims-to-ease-traffic-nightmare-heading-to-clearwater-beach

[jakeroot]

Does anyone have any info on the Clearwater Beach roundabout? It was constructed in the late 90s, originally with a water feature. But the water feature was replaced by open grass in late 2002:

Some quite harsh words in this article:
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-north-pinellas/clearwater/project-aims-to-ease-traffic-nightmare-heading-to-clearwater-beach

I'm not sure this is related.

[DaBigE]

Does anyone have any info on the Clearwater Beach roundabout? It was constructed in the late 90s, originally with a water feature. But the water feature was replaced by open grass in late 2002:

This article indicates that it was removed due to maintenance costs (something that roundabouts tend to have very little of), but I don't see why it was that big of a deal. The whole point of the fountain was to create a greeting to Clearwater Beach; was the price of welcoming guests really $250k/year?

To be honest, I'm wondering if they removed it because people kept driving into it. I'm skeptical that maintenance was the only reason.

I seem to recall hearing that winds tended to blow water across the roundabout, causing vision and traction issues.

[jakeroot]

Does anyone have any info on the Clearwater Beach roundabout? It was constructed in the late 90s, originally with a water feature. But the water feature was replaced by open grass in late 2002:

This article indicates that it was removed due to maintenance costs (something that roundabouts tend to have very little of), but I don't see why it was that big of a deal. The whole point of the fountain was to create a greeting to Clearwater Beach; was the price of welcoming guests really $250k/year?

To be honest, I'm wondering if they removed it because people kept driving into it. I'm skeptical that maintenance was the only reason.

I seem to recall hearing that winds tended to blow water across the roundabout, causing vision and traction issues.

That seems like a legitimate concern, especially since the fountain was raised above street level. I know of one other roundabout with a lake/water feature in Florida (not sure of exact location) but the water level is well below street level, so blowing water wouldn't be an issue.