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posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday April 22 2015, @02:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the some-people-go-both-ways dept.

Emily Badger writes in the Washington Post that a study shows that one-way streets are bad for everyone but speeding cars with an analysis done on the entire city of Louisville, comparing Census tracts with multi-lane one-way streets to those without them. The basic pattern holds city-wide: They found that the risk of a crash is twice as high for people riding through neighborhoods with one-way streets. What is more interesting though is that crime is higher and property values are lower in census tracts with one way streets..

First, they took advantage of a kind of natural experiment: In 2011, Louisville converted two one-way streets near downtown, each a little more than a mile long, back to two-way traffic. In data that they gathered over the following three years, Gilderbloom and William Riggs found that traffic collisions dropped steeply—by 36 percent on one street and 60 percent on the other—after the conversion, even as the number of cars traveling these roads increased. Crime dropped too, by about a quarter, as crime in the rest of the city was rising. Property values rose, as did business revenue and pedestrian traffic, relative to before the change and to a pair of nearby comparison streets. The city, as a result, now stands to collect higher property tax revenues along these streets, and to spend less sending first-responders to accidents there.

Some of the findings are obvious: Traffic tends to move faster on a wide one-way road than on a comparable two-way city street, and slower traffic means fewer accidents. What's more interesting is that crime flourishes on neglected high-speed, one-way, getaway roads and that two-way streets may be less conducive to certain crimes because they bring slower traffic and, as a result, more cyclists and pedestrians, that also creates more "eyes on the street"—which, again, deters crime. "What we’re doing when we put one-way streets there is we’re over-engineering automobility," says William Riggs, "at the expense of people who want a more livable environment."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by CoolHand on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:10PM

    by CoolHand (438) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:10PM (#173918) Journal

    Its about the same reaction and result with roundabout intersections. What the F is this shi.... "crash".

    Dude.... just.. NO...
    roundabouts are awesome... they installed several on roads around here that used to back up for a mile or two during rush. Now, no line.. just slow down, cruise around it and go. Better for gas mileage, and wear and tear, environment (no electricity to run them), plus sanity. I've yet to see an accident in one of these roundabouts, and if it does happen it will be low speed... Don't you dis my roundabouts, man... :)

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  • (Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:21PM

    by Marand (1081) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:21PM (#173921) Journal

    Dude.... just.. NO...
    roundabouts are awesome... they installed several on roads around here that used to back up for a mile or two during rush. Now, no line.. just slow down, cruise around it and go. Better for gas mileage, and wear and tear, environment (no electricity to run them), plus sanity. I've yet to see an accident in one of these roundabouts, and if it does happen it will be low speed... Don't you dis my roundabouts, man... :)

    Also underappreciated is the jughandle [wikipedia.org] turn. People freak out when they first encounter it because it's not common, but in my experience it's far safer than most normal left-turn lanes, and may also be better for traffic flow. The biggest negative to it is you have to go past your destination until you find the next turn, but it's not too bad unless they're placed far apart. Much better than the suicide lane turns in one place I've lived before; I used to see head-on collisions every week or two thanks to those.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:45PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 22 2015, @12:45PM (#173931)

      People freak out when they first encounter it because it's not common

      That's the problem. I'm sitting here at my desk, thinking calmly, in no hurry, patiently, no stress, and I still can't completely visualize how this "jughandle" thing works. Oh yeah just say the end result, turn right to turn left, but I would totally WTF the first time I drive up to one having never heard of one before or never driven one before.

      This must burn an enormous amount of valuable real estate. Cantcha just put in a left turn lane and stoplight signal like a normal road?

      Same problem with roundabouts. The first couple dozen times thru one, pure WTF time.

      I suppose this is more fun for older people than kids who learned how to drive in them. The DOT has been heavily pushing them for a decade now so I suspect its hard to learn to drive now without driving thru a roundabout, but there was a time when there were none at all in my state. I don't think I drove thru my first roundabout until I had at least a decade of driving experience and thought I had already seen it all. Holy shit was that exciting, surprised I didn't kill anyone. I didn't know what it was, how it worked, or that it was there, I just kinda improvised on the fly and hoped to avoid an accident.

      I hope to never drive thru a jughandle.

      It would be fun to put weird stuff like that in computer driving games. GTA:III but all roundabouts and jughandles, WTF time.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:22PM

        by Marand (1081) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:22PM (#173945) Journal

        That's the problem. I'm sitting here at my desk, thinking calmly, in no hurry, patiently, no stress, and I still can't completely visualize how this "jughandle" thing works. Oh yeah just say the end result, turn right to turn left, but I would totally WTF the first time I drive up to one having never heard of one before or never driven one before.

        Best way I can think to explain the idea to someone that hasn't seen one is that it's basically like a highway exit. If you want to make a left turn, you instead take the appropriate "exit" on the right and it puts you at a 4-way intersection on a road perpendicular to the one you started on. From there you either go straight (if you wanted a left turn) or turn left (if you wanted to make a U-turn).

        For what it's worth, I think the learning curve of it is actually smoother than that of a roundabout, because it's similar to taking a right exit ramp off a highway. If you've ever taken an interstate exit and then used that road to get back on the interstate in the reverse direction, you more or less grok the idea of using a jughandle turn.

        This must burn an enormous amount of valuable real estate. Cantcha just put in a left turn lane and stoplight signal like a normal road?

        Most of them are fairly tight, so it's not wasting too much space. Usually the extra space has road signs and the like and wouldn't be used for much any way. Also, one advantage to the jughandle (vs. a turn lane) is it makes U-turns safe and unambiguous.

        In New Jersey, the only place I've really seen them, they're used primarily on state roads and other high-traffic roads. Streets in less populated areas get your standard turn lane instead.

        Same problem with roundabouts. The first couple dozen times thru one, pure WTF time.

        Not all roundabouts are equal, and some can be more confusing than others, so that could also factor in to the WTF on your part. A good one has clear markings on the pavement to direct traffic flow, leaving little room for confusion. Inner lane marked to show through traffic, outer lane with arrows indicating to use it to exit the roundabout. Usually with clear signage to indicate where each "exit" goes. A piss-poor roundabout is just a round chunk of land in the middle of the road that makes you drive in circles and lacks clear indications of what the fuck is going on. I've seen both kinds.

        Just like with computers, it's the documentation that counts. Roundabouts or jughandles without good signage and arrows are like code without comments. Some areas are better about that than others.

        It would be fun to put weird stuff like that in computer driving games. GTA:III but all roundabouts and jughandles, WTF time.

        Roundabouts could actually be cool in something like that. The jughandles less so because they usually are accompanied by medians that prevent traffic from crossing over outside of the designated places. I guess if they used low medians that you could cross over it might work, but anything actually restrictive would likely have a bad effect on the gameplay.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by wisnoskij on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:35PM

          by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:35PM (#173954)

          Not all roundabouts are equal

          This. You have got to google image search roundabouts, it is really crazy. There are some roundabouts that are like inside other roundabouts and other roundabouts connected in series.
          http://i570.photobucket.com/albums/ss143/K0rN_b4LL/magic_roundabout.jpg [photobucket.com]

          • (Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:22PM

            by quacking duck (1395) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:22PM (#174006)

            It's multilayered, but not really that complicated. 10 seconds look and I figured out the rules even though there's markings not seen in our own, single-circle roundabouts.

            First time or two actually entering it might be hairy, especially if rain obscured the arrows and other markings, but at such low speeds it's far safer than figuring out which lanes are for the interchange ramp I want to get onto while driving 100 km/h, while the GPS is calling out the road name instead of the highway/ramp number. Hell we nearly got into an accident once because an idiot slammed on his brakes in front of us after missing the lone interchange offramp.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:38PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:38PM (#173958)

          A piss-poor roundabout is just a round chunk of land in the middle of the road

          It looks like a boulevard with a park like median thats only 20 feet long. Or it looks like you are totally lost and somehow are at the end of the road at a t-intersection.

          Also half the time a drivers first meeting with roundabout technology is in the dark. And in my case it was snowing although thats no big deal. And its almost universally "just passing thru" somewhere new. Super stressful the first time.

          The ones I don't like try to build a tree filled mountain in the middle so its all blind corners creating even more stress. And bonus points if its rural-ish therefore no streetlights so you can't really see WTF is going on.

          • (Score: 2) by gnuman on Wednesday April 22 2015, @06:03PM

            by gnuman (5013) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @06:03PM (#174068)

            The ones I don't like try to build a tree filled mountain in the middle so its all blind corners creating even more stress. And bonus points if its rural-ish therefore no streetlights so you can't really see WTF is going on.

            That so you don't do stupid ass things, like try to go wrong way. The "mountain" is there for a reason - you do not need to see past it anyway. You get onto the roundabout, slowly (like 20-30km/h) and cruise slowly around until you get off. It's very simple. You don't need to see past the next intersection to the right.

            A round about is not for road speeds. It is an intersection and you only yield to traffic on the round about and go right. That's all. And use your bloody turn signals when getting off the roundabout, not getting on.

      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:06PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:06PM (#174054) Journal

        First encountered them on a stretch of desolate road in NJ one night after I started to drive. The road was sparsely lit and the signs pointing to the jughandle were not obvious and barely visible. So here I was driving for a few miles trying to figure out how the hell I was supposed to make a left because every intersection had a well lit NO LEFT sign. Meanwhile the left turn signs pointing to the jug handle were off to the side and not illuminated. Finally my girlfriend said she noticed a sign off in the grass by an intersection that read left turn. I saw the sign at the next intersection looped around and made a left.

        If you aren't used to them, and it is night time then good luck.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Daiv on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:58PM

    by Daiv (3940) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @01:58PM (#173967)

    Even though I've *been* in an accident in a roundabout, I fully endorse them whenever possible. I rear ended a guy while doing about 10 mph, because he slammed on his brakes because an old couple in front of him dead stopped in the roundabout, slamming on their brakes in the middle lane. I came round, eyeballing a guy I thought wasn't going to yield, looked up just as his brake-lights came on and *bam.* No big deal. New hood on my car. It still completely eliminated the traffic backups that I had dealt with for the prior decade.

    I mentally picture roundabouts at all my regular traffic backup locations on my way to and home from work. I wish there were more so more people could just get used to them.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday April 23 2015, @03:30AM

      by Reziac (2489) on Thursday April 23 2015, @03:30AM (#174193) Homepage

      And I saw two collisions in 30 seconds on a roundabout, with no one going above a crawl. Why? Because the street was solid ice, and on an icy road, the more you have to turn, the more chance of losing control.

      The reason roundabouts came into existence wasn't because they're all-around better for the flow of traffic. It's because in Europe, hardly anyone pays attention to traffic signs and signals, so traffic has to be physically forced to behave.

      Some places are starting to remove them (notably Nairobi).

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