Badly Designed Roundabouts?

Aaaw I’ve never seen it, but that might be because I’m negotiating it near peak time when I need to watch the road carefully when negotiating that roundabout, the barriers block out short cars for me.

The new set of lights at the end of the flyover, near the BBP entrance, will be online on the 25th as that’s when the work on that strech of road finishes, kinda sorta, according to the airport management. They’ll still do things but at night, they say.

Pontius Pilate said :

If you drive into Canberra from Queanbeyan via past the airport, the first roundabout you hit after the new crossover bridge has the following graffiti sprayed on the concrete walls in the middle.

“No more traffic lights you dumb bums.”

Now that’s a far more passionate way to make a statement then doing so online! Crude but effective.

Heh, i saw that one too. I let out a silent cheer the first time I drove by it.

If you drive into Canberra from Queanbeyan via past the airport, the first roundabout you hit after the new crossover bridge has the following graffiti sprayed on the concrete walls in the middle.

“No more traffic lights you dumb bums.”

Now that’s a far more passionate way to make a statement then doing so online! Crude but effective.

Saw someone this afternoon who failed to give way to a vehicle exiting from the right hand lane of the big roundie north of Woden Town Centre. Fortunately the exiting driver was awake and nothing more than an application of the brakes was required.

Aargh!! Where is the edit. Its Canberra Ave and Wentworth Ave where I almost had the head on.

Roundabouts!! Gotta love them. The big one at Kingston on Canberra Ave/Williams Dr wsas one I almost had a head on crash. No idea how that lady was going the wrong way on that roundabout.

What about the one on Gundaroo Dr at Crace? The ability to merge after exiting that roundabout is an accident waiting to happen once traffic levels increase when Crace is developed.

The one on Parkes Way is an interesting design and potentially confusing. I just take it easy and look, look and look and look again regardless of which lane I am in while turning right into Civic.

One area where traffic lights has helped is at the Moorsehead Dr/Monaro Hwy/Pialigo Rd intersection. Flow through that intersection is better than it has been, but that could also be due to the extra lanes. Just don’t talk to me about the idiots that turn right from Monaro onto Pialigo and sit in the middle of the intersection of a morning. Those coming from Fairbairn Ave (Moorsehead) heading south don’t get a chance to get through when they get the few seconds of green lights.

arescarti42 – I think you’re correct, the roundabout is badly designed. Traffic coming from the (South-)East direction should not be instructed to turn right from the left lane.

However, traffic coming from the North are OK to turn right from the left lane because it is only a 3-way roundabout – the “South” entrance to it is missing… think of the right turn from the North entrance as replacing a “South exit.”

http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/14013/roundaboutrulesadvertisement.pdf

Personally, I don’t see too many drivers having issue with the roundabout, but still agree it should be different.

In that situation, since the truck is already in the roundabout, the car has to give way to it. (Yes, you need to look out not just for traffic to the right of you as you enter the roundabout, but traffic “ahead” of you already in the roundabout).

I mean this point.

http://maps.google.com.au/?ie=UTF8&ll=-35.287246,149.133573&spn=0.000933,0.001727&t=h&z=19

caf said :

There’s nothing wrong with the roundabout you describe in your original post, though. If you fail to give way to people already on the roundabout then you will always be “cutting people off”.

I agree that you must always give way to people on the roundabout, however I still think the original roundabout mentioned is poorly thought out. It allows people to turn right from the left lane, when traffic in the right lane may be traveling straight ahead. If this didn’t cause problems, then why would road builders bother putting turn markings at multi-lane roundabouts at all?

Consider the case where a truck enters the mentioned roundabout from a standing start on Parkes Way, turning right onto Coranderrk street. Moments later, a car travelling on Coranderrk street enters the roundabout to turn right onto Pakres Way. This could potentially result in a situation where at the point linked below, the car is trying to go straight ahead from the right lane, and the truck is trying to go round the roundabout from the left lane. No one has done anything illegal, it is the fault of the roundabout.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=canberra&ie=UTF8&ll=-35.287226,149.133511&spn=0.000933,0.001727&t=h&z=19&iwloc=addr

View Larger Map

Roundabouts work well when traffic flows from each direction are roughly equal. They break down badly when enough traffic is arriving from one direction to block other entrances without enough interruptions to allow vehicles to flow.

The classic example of this is the roundabout at the intersection of Athllon/Isabella Drives and Drakeford Drive where they have had to install traffic lights on Athllon drive to give those heading south on Drakeford drive a chance to make it into the roundabout.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-35.424378,149.078486&spn=0.014146,0.01884&t=h&z=16

Roundabouts are also used to patch up bad planning like the two pissant little roundabouts on Sulwood drive behind Wanniassa and the whole of Gungahlin.

The best roundabout in Canberra used to be the one on Johnson Drive where it meets Ashley Drive where the roundabout rules cleanly applied but looked like a triangle.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-35.432579,149.106939&spn=0.014144,0.01884&t=h&z=16

It worked well with good traffic flows and a nice efficient line for the vehicle to follow however this must have confused Joe Public too much as it wasn’t round so has been replaced with a circle.

Even South Queanbeyan residents can deal with an intersection with 3 stop signs
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-35.368996,149.22251&spn=0.003539,0.00471&t=h&z=18
but us poor Canberrans can’t deal with 3 give way signs.

There’s nothing wrong with the roundabout you describe in your original post, though. If you fail to give way to people already on the roundabout then you will always be “cutting people off”.

Looks like I am just being picky, although it is somewhat comforting to see there are lots of other picky people out there.

That extra lane on the Anzac Parade roundabout is another I meant to mention that doesn’t really make much sense. Looking at the intersection from above, it seems like it is there more to make the roundabout symmetrical than than anything else.

I love Canberra’s roundabouts. I find it really sad, particularly along Pialligo Avenue near the airport that they’re replacing so many with traffic lights (HATE). I just sometimes wonder if confusion, congestion and traffic accidents could be avoided if they were designed with a little more common sense.

as I have mentioned in previous posts, I love roundabouts, canberra is in a traffic light building frenze at the moment and it is an awful blight when roundabouts can look very nice when well kept and not left to be swamps with swans nesting in them.

pug206gti said :

Top of Anzac Parade – going north, turning onto Limestone. Where most of the traffic here turns left

Well, many very important drivers decide that they are to good to wait in the left lanes to turn left so they enter the roundabout in the right lane, do a complete 360 around the roundabout and force the less important drivers to give way to them as they exit. This is the type of self centred driving style that is so common in Canberra. I’m sure that speed cameras will eventually fix the problem though!!!!

You are just being picky

Roundabouts in general are far, far better than traffic lights. They force traffic from all directions to slow down before entering the intersection… unlike traffic lights where most drivers are comfortable with sailing through at the speed limit if they have a green light.

An ill thought out round about though can cause more havoc than a set of traffic light though. My pet peeve in the ACT is the round about at the intersection of the Federal Highway and Antill Street in Watson… the first roundabout you pass through in the ACT after crossing into the ACT from NSW via the Federal.

I have come across the aftermath of far more crashes at this intersection than any other, at least two dozen in the past 5 years. I have stopped to help out 5 people who have slid off the round about. The scars of many more accidents are visible… copious amounts of skid marks, chunks taken out of the gutters, signs frequently knocked down, the vegetation on the western side of the roundabout is completely gone due to drivers mounting the curb with their vehicles. The problem here is it is simply too sharp a corner for people to take after they’ve been sitting on 100-110km/h for the last 3 hours from sydney. You’ll all know how easy it is to misjudge your speed after you’ve been crusing any highway for hours… I have no doubt that this is what causes the majority of the crashes at this intersection… people trying to negotiate it too fast after misjudging their speed.

After over a year of campaigning to ACT Roads, then eventually to Stanhope and Hargreaves directly, I finally managed to convince them to install the reduce speed signs and recommended speed signs that are on the approach to this round about now. The speed camera leading up to it was their own idea… albiet IMHO, not a good solution. The camera forces drivers to slow only to 80, when the roundabout can safely be negotiated at 40-50km/h in good conditions.

The issue could be easily fixed with flashing lights or electronic signs telling people to slow down, as other cities all over the country use to warn drivers where a speed to safely negotiate it may not be immediately obvious. The road leading up to it could be re-engineered to make drivers feel like they’re going faster. Lane markings placed closer together… lanes narrowed… but doing things like this will cost money instead of moking money hey 🙂

Top of ANZAC pde used to be three lanes and work well. Then they built those traffic lights and took away a lane and did that stupid last minute merge, and it has never really worked ever since.

pug206gti: I too have wondered what that extra outside lane is doing there.

I’ll add the following:

Top of Anzac Parade – going north, turning onto Limestone. Where most of the traffic here turns left, the two left lanes merge to one, then have to give way on the roundabout which makes for slow peak travel. A slip lane like that on Kings Ave, and merging the two right lanes (hardly anyone turns right) would make sense. Perhaps once that side is upgraded this year something might change. Also, on that note, the roadworkers have left the bollards at the top of Anzac Parade, so it’s quite a visual hazard in a lower car to see if you need to give way to cars on the roundabout.

Bottom of Anzac Parade – I’ve nearly been wiped out at least once by someone turning right from Parkes way onto Anzac Parade. The Parkes Way westbound lane markings show you can only turn right from the right lane, yet there is an extra outside lane to the west of the pond. Someone turning right from the left lane would be at fault if they ran into someone going straight ahead in the right lane.

I like most of the roundabouts. The problems with them are mostly SFU errors.

I don’t like that one, or the Kingston/Fyshwick one. I think the fact that they aren’t symetrical puts me off – some exits seem too close to each other. I don’t like the Russell/Kings Ave one either, but that is more the speed of the traffic, and the general congestion.

Maybe I will release a new map of Canberra – how to get from North to South without going near any of the major roundabouts!

So what do you do on a single lane roundabout? You’re always cutting in front of people then.

I use the one you mentioned every day…it’s never been an issue.

The rule there is quite simple: you don’t enter the roundabout when other vehicles are turning right from Coranderrk St. If there is someone in the left lane from Coranderrk St, you may choose to rely on whether they are indicating left or right.

If you are referring to turning right from Parkes Way in the left lane and possibly cutting off someone going straight from the right lane, if you look at the markings the right lane is a right turn only.

I think by the end of this week I’m going to be an expert on Canberra roundabouts! 🙂