Far more interesting than paint drying

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

I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching the Free Press website Thursday morning.

We were broadcasting live from the traffic circle at Waverley Street and Grosvenor Avenue. If that sounds as exciting as watching paint dry, you should have been in front of your computer, too.

At any given point, a couple of hundred other people were watching.

There was an element of boredom, of course, but it was still compelling in the same way that ridiculous Christmas fireplace video is. The flames jump, pieces of ember drop, the man’s arm reaches in with a fresh log. I could (and have) watched that one for hours.

The Waverley and Grosvenor traffic circle was the site of a two-vehicle collision Wednesday morning. That’s partly why so many of us were interested in what goes on during rush hour.

If you’d watched the live feed, you would have seen why the circles seem dangerous. A significant number of motorists seem to have no idea how to approach them, who has the right of way or even that they’re supposed to slow down and yield to any vehicle already in the circle.

Most mornings on my way to work, I use the circle at Grosvenor and Lanark Street. I approach it with the same trepidation with which I approach red lights just as they turn green. There are enough Winnipeg drivers who see a yellow light as an invitation to floor it.

Some take the same approach to the new circles.

Our web feed showed a near-collision between a car and a dog-walker. The pooch and its owner had the right-of-way. The vehicle stopped and then zoomed through.

Not much later, three vehicles approached the circle at the same time. One stopped dead. A second started to enter but slowed to a crawl. If I’d been in the third car, I would have turned around.

A bus navigated the circle with no effort, pausing but likely just long enough to make sure the coast was clear.

The vehicles that seemed in the most danger were bicycles. Just as some drivers seem to believe bikes have no rights on city roads, some traffic circle users showed little willingness to yield.

And that’s what the signs say: yield.

Some drivers were flying down the street when they arrived at the circle, tires squealing to a stop. They were clearly fans of the near-stops you see at stop signs where the driver never really hits the brake lights, instead pausing briefly and hitting the gas again.

The speed of some of the cars illustrates why traffic circles and speed bumps are necessary in residential neighbourhoods. If drivers don’t care enough to drive cautiously, there’s got to be a way to make them.

As for the issue of larger vehicles having problems with the circles, a Transit bus, school bus, ambulance and a car pulling a trailer all made it through without any problem.

Could the city have done a better job explaining how to use the circles? I suppose, although the large yellow signs make it pretty clear. Should they also impose a speed limit? It would seem redundant but our live feed Thursday showed some drivers need a little more incentive.

The circles weren’t built to annoy drivers. They were built to make the streets safer. In much the same way as red-light cameras, they serve to encourage people to do what they should be doing already.

Turning this into an election issue and claiming the residents are all up in arms is a bit of a stretch. Some people find them inconvenient. Others are still confused by how they work. Still others are determined to ignore the right-of-way and plow right through.

But, if everyone follows the rules, they will slow down traffic and that’s their purpose. Watch the live feed and tell me if you don’t agree.

And stayed tuned: I’ve asked our crack web team to go to a local establishment and film a barber cutting hair.

It’ll drive ratings through the roof, I’m sure of it.

lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca