Homer Watson and Ottawa Three Lane Roundabouts

[KevinL]

Meanwhile on Ottawa South, the roundabouts look functionally complete. I won't be surprised if they open on the weekend.

[robdrimmie]

They've started removing the cement barriers on Ottawa street at Alpine and Homer Watson. Traffic is going to be heavily disrupted for the next two weeks. My understanding of this next phase of the project has lane closures and traffic routing changing quite a lot. The north part of the roundabouts haven't been completed yet, there's still curb and pedestrian islands and such to be built, which is the bulk of wrap-up work done during this phase.

This appears to be the start of phase 3A, which is reducing Ottawa to two lanes west of Alpine. It suggests they're 3 days or so ahead of schedule, as the original estimated date was August 25, so that's nice.

After approximately a week worth of work, they'll move the 2-lane constriction to the Homer Watson intersection itself, to do the same work in the parts they haven't been able to get to you. This should be a slightly better traffic pattern as access to the highway on-ramp will be before (when coming from the west, which is a lot of the traffic) the constriction so people won't be blocked by those turning left, etc.

The last phase (approx. 4 weeks) should be good from a traffic standpoint, as the roundabouts themselves will be open. There wil be occasional lane closures, but mostly the work is a lot of clean up work on the section of Ottawa underneath the bridge, taking out the temporary roadway, and putting everything back to right.

The important thing, that Concordia club is readily accessible by tourists in time for Oktoberfest, seems very likely.

[KevinL]

Thanks Rob! I was about to post a (much shorter) update on this myself.

[robdrimmie]

They're changing the Ottawa roundabout traffic flows daily right now. Two days ago it was the post I made above, yesterday they'd moved the point of constriction past the highway access, and this morning traffic is routed onto the roundabouts themselves, which are currently constricted to the outside lane. I suspect this pattern will persist for a while as they finish up the missing curbs and such. Traffic was moving very well this morning, which was nice.

[Canard]

It's so fun seeing how they do this. A time-lapse from above during the changeovers would be incredible to watch. It's like doing heart surgery!

[KevinT]

I love the new roundabouts! Never have I gotten from Highway 7 eastbound to Homer Watson southbound so quickly!

[tomh009]

They've started removing the cement barriers on Ottawa street at Alpine and Homer Watson. Traffic is going to be heavily disrupted for the next two weeks. My understanding of this next phase of the project has lane closures and traffic routing changing quite a lot. The north part of the roundabouts haven't been completed yet, there's still curb and pedestrian islands and such to be built, which is the bulk of wrap-up work done during this phase.

This appears to be the start of phase 3A, which is reducing Ottawa to two lanes west of Alpine. It suggests they're 3 days or so ahead of schedule, as the original estimated date was August 25, so that's nice.

After approximately a week worth of work, they'll move the 2-lane constriction to the Homer Watson intersection itself, to do the same work in the parts they haven't been able to get to you. This should be a slightly better traffic pattern as access to the highway on-ramp will be before (when coming from the west, which is a lot of the traffic) the constriction so people won't be blocked by those turning left, etc.

I drove through this four times this past weekend as I made two trips to Cambridge (first time this year!), passing through the roundabout to continue along Homer Watson.  Smooth!  I much, much preferred it to the old traffic-lighted configuration.  Mind you, I have not yet seen it in rush-hour traffic.

[robdrimmie]

I drove through this four times this past weekend as I made two trips to Cambridge (first time this year!), passing through the roundabout to continue along Homer Watson.  Smooth!  I much, much preferred it to the old traffic-lighted configuration.  Mind you, I have not yet seen it in rush-hour traffic.

I've not driven through during rush hour myself, and was on vacation last week so my anecdotes are especially poor data, but as a bus and van passenger it's mostly moved well. Last night at 5:20ish approaching Homer Watson on Ottawa coming from downtown it was slow but that's in part due to the reduction down to one lane just before the roundabouts and people not knowing how to zipper.

I think once all the lanes are opened and the visual interference of the cones is removed things will go much more quickly than they did with standard intersections, especially for those coming off the highway to travel towards Conestoga Cottage along Homer Watson.

[Pheidippides]

Can someone explain with the "extra" entrances (circled in red below) to the Homer Watson/Ottawa Alpine/Ottawa roundabouts are for?
   

In my limited use of these roundabouts I have found that traffic gets backed up in them. For example, travelling SB on Homer-Watson there are so many vehicles coming WB across Ottawa, and cars coming WB from NB Homer-Watson, and cars that go WB on Ottawa from SB Homer-Watson the usual way, that vehicles using this cheater lane can't merge.

Maybe it will function better when 100% complete and the whole region has had a few month's practice.

[Canard]

They're turn-right bypasses. They have them on the Franklin/Pinebush roundabout. The one at 8/52/5 South of Cambridge has them too. So does the Fairway/Fountain one, too, actually.

[jamincan]

If traffic is backing up in them, it would be backing up without them too. The idea is that people who are making a right turn can bypass the traffic in the roundabout. In theory, it means that the intersection should be able to handle quite a bit higher volume than without. The ones on Homer Watson make a lot of sense, as there will be a lot of right-turning traffic there due to the highway ramps, but I'm a little surprised by the one on Alpine. Is Alpine really that busy?

[Bob_McBob]

They added right turn bypasses to Erb and Ira Needles to increase the capacity for Costco. It seems to help.

[KevinL]

I'm a bit surprised by the bypass on Alpine, but I imagine some kind of traffic analysis has indicated it would be useful.

[Canard]

It's probably just a standard thing now for all 3-lane roundabouts.

[SammyOES2]

I suspect (but have no real evidence or experience) that when you have the majority of the traffic being on one road (as in opposite sides of the round about) - you can get long waits at the other two entrances because there are no breaks in traffic. The addition of the right turn lane probably allows you to get a lot more of the minor road traffic through whenever you do get one of those breaks.