U.S. expert rips city’s traffic circles

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This article was published 22/10/2010 (5497 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There are design defects in Winnipeg’s mini-roundabouts, a U.S.-based traffic circle expert says.

“There appears to be a real flaw in how the city has set up the approaches to the roundabouts,” said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a Virginia-based non-profit safety group funded by automobile insurance companies.

“It doesn’t look like they’ve done a very good job with signage or putting in lane markings that help alert drivers that they’re approaching a roundabout.

“There needs to be more notice to drivers who may be unfamiliar with the fact that the intersection up ahead is not a typical intersection, that it’s a roundabout. It looks like there’s room to do more lane markings and put in splitter islands, which could be raised or painted yellow, to show drivers they need to be moving into a circular pattern. That would be helpful.”

The Free Press sent the IIHS a number of pictures and documents of Winnipeg’s newly constructed roundabouts for evaluation.

When told the city has the roundabouts in various areas but with different signage, Rader said consistent signs are a must.

“It’s really important to have adequate signage and lane markings to alert drivers that they’re approaching a roundabout. You can see from the pictures that somebody unfamiliar with the change or who isn’t from the neighbourhood could really be confused about what they’re coming up to as they approach this,” he said.

In the wake of a two-vehicle collision on Grosvenor Avenue and Waverley Street earlier this week, City of Winnipeg spokeswoman Tammy Melesko defended the roundabout design.

She said it’s not uncommon for drivers approaching traffic circles in residential areas to be unable to see other drivers until they’re virtually in the roundabout because of the houses on all four corners.

“That’s why it’s important for drivers approaching any intersection to always be aware of their surroundings and to adjust their manoeuvres depending on pedestrian, vehicular or bicycle traffic they may encounter in the intersection,” she said, adding once winter comes, the roundabouts will be maintained at a “high level of service.”

Melesko said the traffic circles purposefully create a visual and physical object that requires all vehicles to manoeuvre around them to varying degrees.

“Even though smaller vehicles require less manoeuvring to negotiate a traffic-calming circle, it is still incumbent upon the driver to drive prudently and appropriately for the conditions,” she said.

Rader said he’s not surprised to hear the traffic circles have been met with significant opposition in Winnipeg.

“Our experience is people often object to roundabouts when they’re first proposed and when they first go in. When you do surveys after the roundabouts have been put into place, they show a big change. Drivers who may have been opposed to them in the planning stages strongly support them after they’ve had experience with them,” he said.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca