Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[danbrotherston]

Here, when I am approaching a crossing and a car pulls up to it...and stops RIGHT in front of it, I feel no trepidation about the driver not stopping. They are traveling all of 20km/h and usually in a much smaller car, in a much narrower lane. It just feels safer.

There is definitely a "tipping point" within the context too. In Japan cars turning left (right in Canada) pull around the corner right up to the pedestrian crossing while waiting for pedestrians to clear, and I also never doubted that they would stop. Cars doing that here though feels pushy and uncomfortable, and I do have doubts that they will stop for pedestrians. The difference being that 1) cars are expecting pedestrians 100% of the time, and 2) it may be the only way for a car to make a gap between the crowds of pedestrians.

But there is a tipping point when pedestrian volumes are low and car volumes are high, so the context suggests you don't need to slow down and watch out for pedestrians. This makes the environment so hostile to the few pedestrians that they get worn down and eventually disappear by avoiding the area entirely.

But I do believe that engineering is as big or bigger an issue. Driver attitude and behaviour (and vehicle selection) is a huge problem, but if you put a Dutch driver in a Canadian roundabout, they are going to behave similarly to a Canadian driver, IMO.  The reverse might be harder to achieve, but I still thing engineering is the key.

I do also wonder if some of these problems are just inherent to the large 2 lane roundabouts we almost exclusively build. My impression of the Netherlands is that at-grade roundabouts are almost all a single lane, and multi-lane roundabouts are usually grade separated. This would suggest that cheaper engineering solutions being suggested here aren't adequate for multi-lane roundabouts.

Two lane vs. one lane is definitely one issue. FWIW I picked the roundabout at Victoria and Ira Needles specifically, it's one of the smaller roundabouts (not even fully 2 lanes) and while it probably carries more traffic than the ones here, I doubt it needs to be a as big as it is.

It is interesting that the roads actually narrow at the roundabout. Not just in width, but in lanes. The service roads end (the bike lanes continue) and sometimes the transit lanes merge into the general lanes--actually the example one I showed the transit lanes don't merge, and you can see different crossing configurations.

You can see here a two lane roundabout where I live, it is actually VERY similar to some of the large roundabouts in KW, with right turn bypass lanes and all.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1940944,...a=!3m1!1e3

It does have grade separated crossing, as the Dutch generally won't mix 70+km/h traffic with cycling and walking, but even so, the geometry of the roundabout is still very very different from Waterloo's design. The approach lanes are straight reaching the roundabout are pretty nearly straight until reaching the circle, and the exit lanes are also not contoured. I guarantee you traffic is moving slower through here than almost any roundabout in KW.

But it's still a huge roundabout and easily capable of handling any of the traffic in KW.

The example I showed first, I did mainly because it is so typical, there are 13 of them on the arterial road through the suburb we are in and they are all more or less the same modern design you find everywhere with minor configuration differences.

The biggest differences are probably here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1959157,...a=!3m1!1e3

Where the highway interchange is, you can tell the volumes are higher here and they do avoid crossing the highest volume sections because they can avoid it in this context, but it still does have at grade crossings of two lane roundabouts. (I would also note that the markings and low curbs probably eliminate the most common types of collisions we have between cars in our roundabouts where drivers turn improperly...why is this so hard for us?)

You can also see the geometry is a little more contoured here to improve flow, but it is ONLY contoured where there isn't a crossing.

There are also some interesting one off roundabouts in the city like this one I go through on a daily basis:

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1447597,...a=!3m1!1e3

Which is totally weird in that it is between 7 streets but only 4 of them actually intersect for cars at this location, and the main road (Kersenbaan) is actually inaccessible (mostly) from the roundabout (in the underpass) and 2 are accessible only by bike and foot.

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1585203,...a=!3m1!1e3

And this other monster^ is probably the most interesting. It also has an underpass for the main road, but ramps still connect it with the roundabout. This one actually carries a lot of traffic and feels very busy when you use it, but I haven't had any issues with it.

You'll notice it's not actually a circle, and instead and oval, and I think that is to further increase the sharpness of the turns for the main through road and decrease speeds since it is so large. And there is extra space for vehicles to queue when the crossings are blocked.

So yeah, definitely not a "one size fits all" situation, but the principles for safe design are still visible everywhere.