Roundabouts [or] lights?

Iwannahurl

monument wrote: »

All roundabouts are not unsafe for cyclists or peds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkPbTvJZFSI

....Poor design, poorer design regulations, poor laws, poor driving and poor enforcement are another story. You can have just as bad if not worse problems for peds and cyclists with traffic lights.

Agreed. I have already posted videos from that YouTube channel elsewhere on Boards.

We have to work with what we have now, unfortunately. We're probably 30-50 years behind the Netherlands and Denmark in terms of legal and infrastructural protection for cyclists.

Irish policy-makers and roads engineers have been ignoring pedestrians, cyclists and bus users for decades. If they are unable or unwilling to make roundabouts safer and more convenient for vulnerable road users, then rip them out I say.

I encountered absolutely no problems with the large number of signalised junctions in Copenhagen, whether as a pedestrian, cyclist or bus user. One reason for the efficiency of these transport modes, and of traffic lights, in Copenhagen is that the volume of car traffic is low as a direct result of public policy. It takes a long long time for the penny to drop in this country.





EDIT: By the way, I saw one single solitary roundabout while in Copenhagen. It was a small one, in a 30 kph residential zone. Enough said.

ciotog

On the idea that people are proposing of installing zebra crossings at roundabouts rather than removing the roundabouts altogether, have any of you raised this through city councillors? They can work if implemented properly and are certainly far cheaper than the proposed works. Putting my cycling advocacy hat back on firmly the idea that a cyclist should become a pedestrian isn't feasible in the overall scheme of replacing short car journeys. As has been pointed out utility cyclists aren't accommodated by this. Ultimately you want to increase the number of utility cyclists to ease congestion so they need to be catered for.

Iwannahurl

ciotog wrote: »

On the idea that people are proposing of installing zebra crossings at roundabouts rather than removing the roundabouts altogether, have any of you raised this through city councillors? They can work if implemented properly and are certainly far cheaper than the proposed works. Putting my cycling advocacy hat back on firmly the idea that a cyclist should become a pedestrian isn't feasible in the overall scheme of replacing short car journeys. As has been pointed out utility cyclists aren't accommodated by this. Ultimately you want to increase the number of utility cyclists to ease congestion so they need to be catered for.

I believe there is a public meeting on the cards, to discuss the vexed question of roundabouts. Maybe that might be a good forum to raise the issue of zebra crossings.

Personally I believe zebra crossings would be good for pedestrians, but I have little or no idea how they would work for cyclists. If anything they would just exacerbate the current problem of cyclists using roundabouts in an unorthodox fashion, eg going round anti-clockwise on the footpaths.

The whole cyclist-as-pedestrian 'system' is really stupid, IMO. I simply can't believe that the engineers who come up with such ideas are regular cyclists themselves or have a clue what utility cycling is about.

EDIT: From another thread in this forum:

what_traffic wrote: »

from http://www.galwaycity.ie/GeneralNews/260511_02.html
on the 26 May 2011

Notice is hereby given that Galway City Council will host a Public Meeting on the proposed changes to the N6 Lynch Roundabout (Briarhill) on Thursday, 2nd June, 2011 at 7.30 p.m. in the Menlo Park Hotel.

also checkout the link:
Bothar na dTreabh (N6) Multi Modal Corridor Improvement Scheme

http://www.galwaycity.ie/GTU/190511_01.html

what_traffic

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Personally I believe zebra crossings would be good for pedestrians, but I have little or no idea how they would work for cyclists. If anything they would just exacerbate the current problem of cyclists using roundabouts in an unorthodox fashion, eg going round anti-clockwise on the footpaths.

It still would benefit cyclists. (those who use the road and footpath)
If they are raised zebra crossings or even just zebra crossings - they should assist cyclists by reducing speeds as vehicles approach the roundabout arm. On a single lane roundabout this would be very effective - perhaps not so much on the multilane; but would alter behaviour all the same. For footpath cyclists it should also be beneficial (they would have to dismout when crossing) but at least now as pedestrians they would have greater priority.

ScumLord

Luckily in Galway we don't have to make such a decision, we'll have both please A roundabout within a traffic light that is itself a larger roundabout with 20 traffic lights circling around it.