Is your argument that roundabouts are bad for pedestrians? If so why?
There was a multi-lane roundabout near me with traffic signals and pedestrian crossing signals and all. It was an absolute nightmare to drive through, bike through, or cross on foot. Cars pressured one another to drive aggressively, pedestrians had to wait for walk signals, cars got confused and blew through the crosswalks by accident even when pedestrians had walk signals, bikes were an afterthought... it sucked.
They recently simplified it down to a single car lane and a single bike lane with priority (unsignaled) crosswalks at every entrance. It's slightly slower to drive through, but much less stressful. It's a joy to bike through. As a pedestrian, I love it because I don't have to wait for a walk signal... I just cross, and entering traffic is obligated to yield to me.
So, in my head: single-lane roundabout > intersection > multi-lane roundabout
Optimist! ;)
Anyway even crossing on these will see cars driving over them and I've been hit by cars on these crossings. I've been in cars where the driver has ignored the red traffic light at a pedestrian crossing, in fact the same one on the way to watch a film at a cinema and the same one on the way back.
The drivers problem was inexperience, and too interested in what the other passengers were saying, they wanted to join in the conversation and not pay attention to the road, and there are a lot of people whose attention dangerously fails when driving when they have passengers, but its not illegal, but using a hands free mobile phone is. Legislators and the Police are hypocrits!
That driver who ran two red lights at a pedestrian crossing got away with it because they were son of a British Police officer, Detective iirc, even though the pedestrian had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit.
But I swear, I am able to make myself seen to drivers almost immediately at this particular roundabout. Maybe it's the design, or maybe just my neighborhood's culture. Probably both.
Not only entering traffic, also traffic leaving the roundabout.
Which means this only works for low traffic intersections, since a single a busy pedestrian crossing can dead-lock the entire roundabout in all directions.
My city has a slight modification of this: the pedestrian crossings are about 3 car lengths away from the roundabout. This means crossing the road takes slightly longer for pedestrians here, but the round about has a "buffer" of three cars that can wait for pedestrians before the round-about starts locking up.
But really, for busy roundabouts, pedestrian overpasses are the only sane choice. Ugly as hell to look at, but easily more comfortable than underpasses.
They're usually not accessible, or very expensive to do so.
Also, why should the infrastructure be vehicle-focussed like you describe? There's no reason other than people are so used to it.
If cars create problems with traffic - cars should be paying the price of solving these problems - so it should be cars that have to drive over/under. Let pedestrians stay on the street level.
This is how it should be solved (example from my city, I walk there almost daily): https://maps.app.goo.gl/BFBK6B6Q6LULQtSa6
There's a fast road for transit on the overpass, under that there's a slower crossing with zebra and bike path. No problem for pedestrians and bikes.
And you know, I'm OK with that. There are plenty of other ways to get around my city, so if you want to do it in your own personal metal box at the busiest time of the day, then you can wait 5 extra minutes.
Pedestrian overpasses would look butt ugly and way exceed the city's budget for this intersection.
This can all be easily be fixed by designing roundabouts with pedestrians in mind. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case in Australia.
> Australia: Crash reduction after roundabout installed: 74% in the casualty crash rate; 32% in property damage only; 68% in pedestrian casualty crashes per year.
> Netherlands: crash reduction at roundabouts: 73% in all pedestrian injury crashes; 89 % for pedestrian fatality; 63% for moped injuries; 30% for cycle injuries.
> Germany: a 75% decrease in average vehicle pedestrian crashes for 25 intersections converted from stop signs or traffic signals to roundabouts.
> France: less than 25% of serious injury crashes or fatalities at roundabouts; 38 fatal or serious type injuries for every 100 crashes at roundabouts vs 55 injury or fatal crashes for every 100 crashes at controlled intersections; crash frequencies 4 times higher at signalized intersections than roundabouts.
And more at:
An Overview Of Safety Effects On Pedestrians At Modern Roundabouts @ https://www.witpress.com/elibrary/wit-transactions-on-ecolog...
Australia's rules regarding roundabouts prioritise vehicle throughput rather than pedestrian safety. Our road rules give cars priority at roundabouts - pedestrians don't normally get crosswalks and must take their chances dodging through the traffic. This isn't a flaw with roundabouts, it's a flaw in how Australia has chosen to implement them.
Given the lack of crosswalks, are those roundabouts designed to be crossed by pedestrians at all?
> I wasn't able to access the paper you referenced unfortunately.
Here's an alternative: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271423184_An_overvi...
The paper references the following source which I'm not able to access: https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2717863
I have recently tried navigating the world, temporarily, with a mobility imparement, and boy does it change your perspective on things.
Why do I, as a pedestrian, have to go down and then back up, why is the guy sitting in a box with 200 horsepower not the one going up and down? Also car underpasses do not become a public toilet the way pedestrian ones do
Why are able bodied men waiting in a queue for an elevator?
Why does a train station in the middle of a spacious suburb have no elevator, no ramp, and no way to get out if your can't use stairs?
As an American it’s often surprising to me how many countries lack any analog to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
There is a clear difference between how quickly infrastructure for cars gets fixed, and how a simple ramp could be not installed at a train station for decades.
The only issue is when the roundabout is huge, and the alternative huge crossing would suck even more. Just make the roads smaller in general and pedestrians will be fine.
It of course cannot happen in car-oriented suburbs, where you a driver can't even expect pedestrians to exist.
While I have not visited the US extensively, I was very surprised when in California at how respectful drivers were with pedestrians, not just stopping for them, but stopping a few meters before the crossings.
Krakow was good as well, but not to that extent. In France, overall the rural part is pretty respectful, and the bigger the city, the worst it is (in Paris and Marseille, it's not great).
The absolute worst city I've been to in that regard was Naples, were motorists will not stop at crossings unless you actively step in their way.
So yeah, a lot of answers are going to vary drastically depending on what's the driving culture there. Universally motorists will stop at lights, because of that harsh possible consequences of running a light (getting T-boned), but stopping for pedestrians at crossings vary widly.
The law was changed to say that if someone is waiting in front of the crossing you have to stop(with fines for not doing so) and the behaviour has changed to what it is now - you are right, most Polish drivers will stop for you if you even look like you want to cross - but it wasn't like this not long ago.
It also caused a massive uproar across drivers, as if the sky was going to fall down if they have to stop for pedestrians - and yet, it's all fine.
So you know, maybe in US it also isn't a lost cause, maybe it could change for the better.
This can surely be remedied by having the crossings being raised, acting as speed bumps for the cars and providing a better crossing experience for the pedestrian (or cyclist).
I'm not entirely convinced that the lack of lights would inherently mean that roundabouts are less safe for pedestrians than a signalled intersection - roundabouts remove the concept of running a red, since a car by design has to slow down to navigate the roundabout.
Finally, as a pedestrian, I can cross a roundabout whenever I want to, no beg buttons or waiting for green required.
Do you have any statistics on their claimed lower safety?
And for large/busy roundabouts, cars will be in constant motion meaning there won't be gaps in the traffic flow for pedestrians to cross. If you try to cross [1] on foot at a busy period, it's not a particularly fun experience.
Of course, I'm not sure any road layout could make such a junction easy to cross, given the amount of traffic and number of lanes involved.
[1] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.6428928,-0.2553056,17z?ucb...
This particular roundabout has a signalled pedestrian crossing on the southern side. Cars will get a red light (and pedestrians a “green man”) allowing them to cross safely.
But you’re right that there are too many UK A-roads and roundabouts that are a nightmare for pedestrians, lacking safe crossing.
I do so almost every day. Pretty much every roundabout has marked crossings with islands between the lanes, drivers slow down on entry so easily yield to a pedestrian trying to cross, and the crossing is about a car length out of the roundabout so on exit drivers have the space to both be out of the roundabout and yield to pedestrians.
Then again I’m in a country where drivers are generally respectful of pedestrians, especially on marked crossings most drivers will actively stop if they see a pedestrian getting close to a crossing.
This seems to not generally be the case in the UK, or at least in any of the large and small cities in England that I’ve spent time in. Except for zebra crossings (which are few and far between at crossings compared to most of Western/Central Europe or even the US/Canada) drivers seem to rarely stop proactively, if ever.
Coming from Germany, that difference in rules was always noticeable when going on a vacation to the UK.
It takes a long time for cultural change to happen, though. We have multiple generations of entitled motorists on the road at this point. And a carbrained prime minister.
For on near us it’s even worse as even though there’s an island to aid crossing the road signs are place in position that limits pedestrians view of the traffic leaving the roundabout
Fortunately they built a light controlled crossing a 100m further on
The worst is when introduction of it means I have to cross multiple crossings instead of one.