This is a great, well edited but simple video of a well designed roundabout and of all the locals residents admitting that all their strong doubts about the project were entirely unfounded. The location is Glens Falls, NY. While this is primarily a project to benefit motorized traffic, there are still a great deal of pedestrian amenities like bump-outs and streetscaping not clearly shown in this video, around the roundabout and down the main street. It would be curious to see what people's reactions would have been if the video interviewed a whole bunch of locals after a (pedestrian zone, woonerf / shared space / play street, bike lane, traffic calming, shared use path, etc. - choose one) was installed that was never intended to solve a traffic flow problem. That would be much more interesting, indeed.
Also, I wonder if that being from up state New York has anything to do with people willing to admit that they were wrong. If you threw in a little "Jersey Attitude," would it change people's opinions of the end results?
If your curious to see what the intersection looked like prior to the change, this Google aerial image shows what it once looked like. Then to compare, you can go to the Streetsview and see what it looks like today while you take a virtual drive through the roundabout. The transformation is incredible and exceptionally well done (bike lanes?)!
2 comments:
The intersection of Main Street, Broadway, and Diamond Spring Road in Denville would be ideal for a treatment like this.
I'd also be interested if circles could help traffic flow at the Morristown Green (maybe a giant squared-off one, or a small one at each corner)
C-T,
I've had the same idea for the Morristown Green! If you ever notice traffic is either "on" or "off" on the Green. When it's "on" you need all three traffic lanes but when its "off" you need none. If you could just spread out the traffic flow so its always a constant flow, you could eliminate one or even two lanes on all four sides. Then you could easily add a bike lane and widen the sidewalks.
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