Tag: mini roundabouts

Posted on

Traffic Calming: Everything You Need to Know About Roundabouts

Asbury Park is the recipient of funds to implement traffic calming methods on 3rd and 4th Avenues.

Some residents have been vocal about their objections to mini roundabouts, citing loss of parking. This is NOT true – the parking they fear losing is not legal within 25′ of the corner. Yellow daylighting paint now clearly indicates required parking distance away from the corners at the intersections.

APCSC is happy to discuss the best ways to help prevent speeding, which can include other treatments like raised crosswalks, and speed humps.

Stop signs and signals are not traffic calming methods

Don’t rely on enforcement to stop speeding

Take a look at the information below.  As always, please feel free to reach out about proven ways to #slowthecars.

Onward~

Polli Schildge

APCSC Editor

Learn about roundabouts, including how to travel through them as a pedestrian, cyclist or driver.

PUBLIC OPINION

How Do You Feel About Roundabouts?

After driving roundabouts, the number of people who favor them more than doubles. A survey on drivers’ views of roundabouts before and after construction conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) illustrates public opinion. Before construction, the number of drivers in favor of roundabouts was only 31 percent, and those strongly opposed was 41 percent. After driving them, this shifted to 63 percent in favor and only 15 percent strongly opposed.

Studies have shown that roundabouts are safer than traditional stop sign or traffic signal controlled intersections.

Roundabouts reduced injury crashes by 75 percent at intersections where stop signs or traffic signals were previously used for traffic control, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). Studies by the IIHS and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have shown that roundabouts typically achieve:

  • A 37 percent reduction in overall collisions
  • A 75 percent reduction in injury collisions
  • A 90 percent reduction in fatality collisions
  • A 40 percent reduction in pedestrian collisions

National Association of City Transportation Officials Guide To Mini Roundabouts

NACTO diagram of a mini rondabout.

Mini roundabouts and neighborhood traffic circles1 lower speeds at minor intersection crossings and are an ideal treatment for uncontrolled intersections.

Mini roundabouts may be installed using simple markings or raised islands, but are best applied in conjunction with plantings that beautify the street and the surrounding neighborhood. Careful attention should be paid to the available lane width and turning radius used with traffic circles. 

A neighborhood roundabout in Washington State. WSDOT

A Study of the Traffic Safety at Roundabouts in Minnesota

Roundabouts have become an increasingly popular intersection type by traffic engineers, communities, and transportation officials. The purpose of this report is to examine the safety performance of roundabouts by comparing the before construction crash rates and the after construction crash rates and traffic volume data. Overall, roundabouts are performing well when looking at the crash reduction record. Roundabouts in Minnesota have had over an 80% reduction in fatal and serious injury crashes

Minnesota has ~200 roundabouts, and like any other skeptical traffic engineering team, they’ve been documenting the results.

Carmel, Indiana has 138 roundabouts, the most of any city in the US. Roundabouts move traffic more efficiently and reduce the number of fatalities and serious-injury accidents. They work because of their safety record, their compatibility with the environment, their aesthetics and their ability to make it easier for pedestrians and bicyclists to navigate.

 

Posted on

Speeding Is A Problem In Asbury Park

No surprise there.

Our streets are especially dangerous for people walking or rolling.  There’s an ongoing need to build more and better protected biking and walking infrastructure. We need to enable people to get around safely without dependency on cars, whether walking, riding a bike, riding a scooter, skateboard, or using a wheelchair.

What can be done right NOw?
We must design physical elements on our streets to deter speeding.

Bicyclists, scooter riders, skateboarders, elderly, children and their families are the most vulnerable road users. Asbury Park Complete Streets Coalition is committed to helping to make our streets safe for everyone to get around safely – if streets are safe for an 8-year-old or an 80-year-old, they are safe for all.

Asbury Park is the recipient of a generous grant of 500,000 from Safe Routes To School for a project utilizing roundabouts as a traffic calming method to prevent speeding.

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) safety and access improvements will provide traffic calming measures on Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue between Prospect Avenue and Comstock Street. The project Design and Construction cost is funded by federal funds administered through NJDOT Local Aid Transportation Alternatives (TA) Program and Design Assistance.

The SRTS funds are intended to install mini-roundabouts in key locations where speeding has been a serious problem.

Proposed roundabouts in Asbury Park
How effective are mini roundabouts?

The city of Carmel, Indiana has more than 100 roundabouts and is installing more. Studies have consistently found roundabouts to be safer than conventional stop signs or signal systems. In fact, replacing signals with roundabouts has been shown to decrease an intersection’s number of traffic fatalities by 90 percent (PDF).

  • Mini-roundabouts throughout the US are showing promising results as safety-conscious, cost-effective solutions, replacing less efficient all-way and stop-controlled intersections.
  • Mini-roundabouts are used where the existing speed limit is 25 mph or less and in urban, suburban and smaller municipal environments.
Mini-roundabout in Princeton

 

Mini-roundabout in Staten Island
Bottom line:

“Traffic calming is a full range of methods to slow cars, but not necessarily ban them, as they move through commercial and residential neighborhoods. The benefit for pedestrians and bicyclists is that cars now drive at speeds that are safer and more compatible to walking and bicycling. There is, in fact, a kind of equilibrium among all of the uses of a street, so no one mode can dominate at the expense of another.”

For a deeper dive, take a look at the USDOT Federal Highway Administration Lesson In Traffic Calming:

FHWA COURSE ON BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN TRANSPORTATION describes objectives, considerations, and various methods to calm traffic, such as circles and roundabouts, medians, bumps, speed humps. raised crosswalks. raised intersections,  bump outs, curb extensions, and more. All of these devices are intended to #slowthecars, and are carefully determined to be applied in areas in which they will be most effective.

How you can help:
  • Subscribe to this website to stay informed.
  • Share your email to APCSC mailing list/Google Group: apcpompletestreets@gmail.com.
  • Call and email Mayor and City Council to offer your support for safe streets for the most vulnerable, and using traffic calming methods, especially mini-roundabouts.
  • Talk to neighbors and friends.
  • As always we welcome your constructive comments!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

We Want To Stop Speeding In Asbury Park!

What the heck is the 85th Percentile Rule?

We recently had a meeting in Asbury Park about the problem of speeding, and slowing drivers on our streets, a proposed traffic calming measure, specifically mini roundabouts, and how speed limits are determined.

Our Transportation Manager attempted to explain to the attendees what the 85th Percentile Rule is as they questioned why we can’t change speed limit signs. We just can’t. Or at least not without great difficulty.

In simple terms it’s an engineering calculation that the speed limit is determined by the actual speed that people drive. It’s hopefully soon-to-be edited Manual For Urban Traffic Control Devices, MUCTD.

The 85th Percentile Rule is horrible. It’s not about safety.

Hear me? IT’S NOT ABOUT SAFETY.  IT’S NOT ABOUT SLOWING DRIVERS.

It’s about expediting the movement of vehicles.

Here’s a simple, short video with great graphics with Transportation 4 America director Beth Osborne, who joined Wall Street Journal correspondent George Downs to explain why one controversial method for setting speed limits results in higher and higher speeds.

It’s also clearly explained in the excellent site for National Association of City Transportation Officials, NACTO. These folks get it.

The crazy thing is that traffic engineers and planning people don’t seem to speak the same language.

We have city planners who are hamstrung by these regulations, but we can get around them with creative solutions to #slowthecars like mini-roundabouts, speed humps, street narrowing…and we have the grant money do do it.

Let’s get on the same page about saving lives and saving the planet.

Onward.