Tag Archives: roundabouts

Chicago has at least 250 traffic circles

Posted on by

Chicago’s road grid is interrupted at least 250 times for traffic circles:

Photo by Tuesday Temptation on Pexels.com

The Chicago Department of Transportation reports it’s aware of 250 that appear on landscaping lists. The department is currently not clear on the likely sizable number of circles that require no landscaping.

One of the best features of traffic circles is that they force drivers to slow down and pay attention. They cannot blow through a stop sign or traffic light or unmarked intersection. If they can successfully yield and do not need to stop, they can keep their momentum going at a more reasonable speed.

This is an interesting way to count road features: those that need landscaping need to be on some list so that maintenance can be done. Those without the landscaping need would have to be on some other list to be counted. Is this the sort of task AI could do in the future with access to websites with satellite imagery?

How many roundabouts can the suburbs have?

Posted on by

Roundabouts are slowing spreading in Lake County, Illinois:

The Lake County Division of Transportation (LCDOT) closed Darrell, Neville and Case roads in Wauconda to through traffic for 110 days to construct a roundabout and realign the intersections…

This is the ninth roundabout in the Lake County Division of Transportation system. The $8.1 million project is the first of three roundabouts to be built as part of the Darrell Road corridor improvement.

Suburbanites are used to traffic lights and stop signs. Adding roundabouts or diamond interchanges presents a new dimension to driving. The roundabout offers the possibility of a smoother journey – if there is not too much traffic – but requires a different level of attention as there are multiple yield points.

Suburbanites can come to like roundabouts with experience. But, local drivers will likely need some time to get used to them. I am curious to see how many roundabouts will eventually populate the suburbs. They are likely not possible in many places due to existing land uses. However, if they help move traffic, are safe, and people can drive through them, we will probably see more of them in the Chicago region.

The roundabout capital of the United States is…

Posted on by

As Chicago area drivers disagree about existing and proposed roundabouts, the roundabout capital of the US is revealed:

Booster Dan McFeely of Carmel, Indiana, wants Illinois to embrace roundabouts.

“We have built 102 roundabouts to date, the most of any city in America,” said McFeely, Carmel’s economic development director. ” … We have steadily added them to Carmel over the past 20 years. They work wonderfully. And yes, we’ve seen a steady decline in accidents with injury.”

Carmel is regularly ranked as one of the best places to live in America. (It just took the #1 spot in Niche.com’s 2017 rankings. It also has done well in Money‘s rankings, taking the top spot in 2012.) Who knew the secret to their success was roundabouts?

As long as there are enough lanes and not so much traffic that people can easily enter the roundabout, I’m all for them. As a driver, I find little worse than traffic lights on timers where you sit for a long period of time with no cross traffic.

One interesting aside from seeing a suburban debate over a roundabout in recent years: they can take up a good amount of room compared to a traditional intersection. Therefore, they might be difficult to implement in older locations or where buildings are relatively close to the road.