Toowoomba roundabouts?

Oh dear, here is a story about roundabouts from Bicycle Victoria.

We can see a 'likeness' here in Toowoomba, and thought you should be made aware of what up-to-date thinking was, well, 'thinking'.

Toowoomba has Clifford Gardens, a hopeless case of 'design' that the Toowoomba Police have identified as a major blackspot.

TBUG has had a supporter complain to us about it, and we followed it up with TRC, even getting engineers and a councillor out to inspect the site.

Nothing could convince them that this was a pig-in-a-poke, a poorly conceived 'resolution' to a social problem... car drivers are not really aware of other people trying to share the road with them.

No, for engineers, there is only an engineering solution that 'people' are required to comply with come-what-may and to-hell-with-the-social-costs.

Then there are the Hume Street roundabouts, where bike riders are consigned to the gutters.

And on it goes....

But 'hang on!' is there another view?

How to reduce the negative effect of single lane roundabouts on a bike route

3 June 2009.
In the past traffic engineers regarded roundabouts as a magic bullet; cheaper than signals with better motor vehicle flow and reduced motor vehicle collisions.

Bike riders hate them with good reason. They know a roundabout intersection will be the place where there will be close shaves and collisions.

Today bikes are common and in most places the numbers are growing at a startling rate. Riders are normal, everyday people, riding to school, riding to work, and saving the Treasury millions in health and transport infrastructure costs.

And they are asking: "Why are we still building all these roundabouts when the studies show that current designs are hostile to bike riders?"

TBUG riders should know that the TRC engineering department are burning candles to 'past the wick' even now as they design a series of brand new single lane roundabouts for Nelson Street, between Ruthven and West.

Where they ripped up the bitumen to make it 'safer' for buses to turn a corner in the rain, never mind the effect it has on bike riders in the dry!

Yes, Toowoomba city engineers LIKE roundabouts and are not inclined to listen to 'fresh' evidence.

Why change the habits of a lifetime, after all, just because the evidence points in another direction?

See more here:
http://www.bv.com.au/change-the-world/42527/