Woden roundabout changes

There’s a “Changed Traffic Conditions Ahead” sign at the Yarra Glen entrance now, not sure about the other sides. I can’t for the life of me figure out what the change is suppoed to achieve, though. It strikes me that requiring people to change lanes in the middle of a roundabout might not be the best idea, but I’m no traffic planner.

I encountered this too last week.
On Thursday evening the entry into the roundabout was unchanged. Start in the right lane on Yamba and either stay in this lane and follow it round the roundabout or take the inside lane of the roundabout (which I normally do) and follow it round. Only to find that when trying to exit into Melrose, the inside lane could no longer do this due to the new paintwork at the exit which only allowed the outside lane to exit. I had to cross these new unbroken lines or else do a full circle of the roundabout and try again.

Then on Friday evening I thought I’d stick to the outside lane of the roundabout this time, only to find that they had changed the entry to the roundabout as described by the OP. Almost took out another car while trying to merge into out remaining single lane!

Furious that there was no signage about changed traffic conditions or merge signs or anything! Even checked the ACT Govt website, but no annoucements or news items on alterations at the roundabout (now how hard is it to post a news item on a website??)

There MUST have been some accidents there over the last few days. I wonder if you were involved in one, could to take the Government or at least the contractors to task on it??

@ Primal – I understood your post immediately, but that’s probably because I could picture my Friday afternoon skirting from the inside lane to the outside (luckily it was empty!) just so I could get onto Melrose without breaking the freshly painted median strip addition.

I can’t really understand why they would stop the inside lane from turning onto Melsrose – if anything, that’s going to greatly slow down rush-minute for those using the roundabout.

In the words of that red-headed wretch… I don’t like it.

You are not kidding. Iwent through there on Friday at peak hour and got it completely wrong.
I had to cross unbroken lines to get back in the correct lane.

I still have no idea how its meant to work. When I entered the roundabout it looked like you HAD to be in the right lane (to turn right onto Melrose) and upon exit I found that I should have been in the left lane. Arghh! Very confusing.

I know ! It was crazy on Friday afternoon, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why they wouldn’t put signs up indicating the change. Craziness.

Given the number of southbound vehicles that turn from Yarra Glen to Melrose, a flyover would be the safest option. Then the occasional vehicle heading out of Melrose to the southbound carriageway of Yamba could have a proper merging lane, rather than requiring south bound Yarra Glen to come to a stop. Such a setup may cause problems for drivers of vehicles trying to get out of Melrose onto the Northbound side of Yarra Glen in the mornings; however a set of part time traffic lights could create breaks in traffic coming from Yamba.

We could call the new interchange Glenloch MKII?

Wait… that costs money desperately needed for Stanhope’s public scrap metal/art program… lines are cheaper. As you were GovCo.

bd84 said :

Sorry your description makes little sense in words alone, even to someone who uses the roundabout semi-regularly..

Yeah, I tried to write that description ten different ways and it came out equally incomprehensible each time. If you use the roundabout to get from Yarra Glen to Melrose Drive regularly, you might have a better chance of deciphering my gibberish.

I encountered this today and was amazed there was no signage about the changes. Fortunately there weren’t many other cars about, but it is a significant change to a very heavily used roundabout so some signs are definitely in order.

Sorry your description makes little sense in words alone, even to someone who uses the roundabout semi-regularly..

It’s probably been half a week or so since I’ve used it and I did notice them preparing to change lane markings but only for cars turning right from Melrose Dr onto Yamba Dr (which hardly ever occurs anyway). It looked like they were making it manditory to turn right only from the right lane by line marking out the left hand lane in the roundabout, which I presume is to try to decrease the number of rear end accidents southbound on Yamba Dr as cars stop to give way to vehicles doing the right turn from Melrose Dr. If that is the case, the only drivers that it will change anything for will be drivers turning right from Melrose Dr and there are so very few of those, although changed road conditions should be properly marked.

On that same subject, with the number of roadworks going on at the moment, the least TAMS could be doing is making sure the contractors are properly signposting their work. I’ve come across a few locations with signs showing arrows indicating all lanes are open then finding 200m ahead that there is in fact only one lane open. An accident is waiting to happen there.

+1

Dangerous, no signage at all and by the time you realise that there are changes it’s already too late. People obeying the rules and the setup of one part of that roundabout can all of a sudden find themselves needing to break solid white lines. Even a ‘changed traffic conditions ahead’ sign would have people being slightly more cautious in that area.