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Homer Watson and Ottawa Three Lane Roundabouts
#31
Rona Retention Rebuild at Ottawa and Alpine, to allow for the new roundabout.

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#32
Is there a diagram somewhere showing what these Ottawa St traffic circles are going to look like? As horrific as the Ottawa-Homer Watson intersection is, I have trouble imagining K-W's driving-challenged motorists coping with a roundabout of the scale that must be required.
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#33
(10-22-2016, 09:41 AM)panamaniac Wrote: Is there a diagram somewhere showing what these Ottawa St traffic circles are going to look like?  As horrific as the Ottawa-Homer Watson intersection is, I have trouble imagining K-W's driving-challenged motorists coping with a roundabout of the scale that must be required.

C'mon down to Franklin/Pinebush, we'll show ya how it's done. Wink
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#34
I drive H-W down to Cambridge and it seems to me people are getting better with the roundabouts, far less people stopping at empty ones. Just my feelings though... no idea what the data says.
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#35
Two items from Regional council in the past few weeks:

1. Approval of tender for Ottawa street reconstruction and roundabouts (Homer Watson and Alpine) http://calendar.regionofwaterloo.ca/Coun...0322.1.pdf
2. Information provided to Planning and Works about Highway 7/8 transportation corridor study from New Hamburg to Stratford: Spoiler alert - not much of anything new other than the Transportation Environmental Study Report will be released for public comment soon. (http://calendar.regionofwaterloo.ca/Coun...170307.PDF)
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#36
On schedule, Homer Watson has been closed at Ottawa. Can already see a distinct increase in traffic on Strasburg.
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#37
You had me at 'on schedule'.
...K
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#38
Here's CTV's coverage about it:

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-stree...-1.3431386

This is going to be a really neat project once it's wrapped up, I think!

I was in Woodstock yesterday and when I mentioned to the person I was speaking with that I lived in Waterloo Region, the first thing she said "Roundabouts!" Smile It makes me smile that we're so well-known for them with out-of-towners. She just about fell off her chair when I mentioned we had a couple of 3-lane ones now!
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#39
I like the roundabouts, and I understand why this dreadful intersection is being reconstructed as a roundabout, but I continue to be concerned about the ability of some local drivers to cope with a roundabout of this scale and traffic volume. I hope to be proven wrong, but in the meantime I'm just thankful that roundabout accidents tend to the "fender bender" variety.
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#40
The massive 3-lane one is working very well at Franklin/Pinebush. There are lots of close calls, sure, but I think I've counted all of 2 fender benders there since it opened and I go through it twice a day.
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#41
I wonder how Ottawa/Homer Watson will compare to Franklin/Pinebush in terms of traffic volume? The biggest benefit I can see wrt Ottawa/Homer Watson is that it will stifle the excessive speeds that plagued both streets with the standard intersection.
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#42
The biggest problem I've seen with roundabouts in the region are people who use the outside lane to take a "left" (aka, 3rd exit). Many a time have I had to slam on the breaks as I was going straight through and all of a sudden someone cuts across me to go left. I don't know whats so hard to comprehend about that for drivers in the region, or if the problem is just that they're assholes.
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#43
I made this mistake several times within the first hour I was driving in France in 2008. Finally one of my very polite friends said "I don't think you're doing this right." Smile There was no signage but I just stayed in the outside lane thinking I was being a nice driver. Now of course I know better!

The Black/White lane signs at the entrance make it pretty obvious where you need to be. I know the exact scenario you're describing, though.

At the Franklin/Pinebush one you have to really watch for people going straight through from the interior lane, which is perfectly allowed, when entering at 90 degrees from them.
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#44
(05-27-2017, 02:23 PM)GtwoK Wrote: The biggest problem I've seen with roundabouts in the region are people who use the outside lane to take a "left" (aka, 3rd exit). Many a time have I had to slam on the breaks as I was going straight through and all of a sudden someone cuts across me to go left. I don't know whats so hard to comprehend about that for drivers in the region, or if the problem is just that they're assholes.

This happened to me, once, the first time I went through the roundabout on Franklin at Pinebush. Now I know better. The thing is, if it happens once to everyone who ever drives through there, then that is a lot of occurrences.
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#45
And actually... if you're coming up Franklin, people in the outside lane from Pinebush heading East are perfectly allowed to use it to go straight through.

It is up to the person entering to determine if it is safe to do so.

The one I hate is when I'm going North on Franklin, right lane, queued to enter to go straight through and I never know if the person in the centre lane is going to exit or wrap around North on Franklin too, but in the left lane - because nobody uses their signal!

If they signal left, as in they're wrapping around, I can enter and parallel them. But if they're exiting they end up cutting across (allowed). It's just annoying because that lack of signalling hurts the overall efficiency of the system.
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