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I am a resident in Carmel and while I am grateful for the roundabout, our city is facing an issue regarding the future of transportation. There’s been discussion back and forth on transit in Carmel for years. The city used to have an Indy Express bus which got discontinued in 2014. Then in 2016 there were initial plans for the red line to extend into Carmel but that didn’t go through. Carmel plans on operating its own bus system soon but now it’s also being killed off by the recently elected Mayor Sue Finkham. The population of Carmel is over 100K which is large. There’s also much more mixed use development within its city center than before and that is why Carmel needs a Bus system. I want to advocate for transit in carmel, however I do not know anyone in my city which supports transit
I live VERY close to Carmel (Keystone Parkway is part of my daily drive lmao) and it used to be HELL. Keystone and 31 used to just be pure stoplights and it took me a half hour to get through Carmel (or more). Now? 10 minutes tops. The parkways and roundabouts have dispersed traffic and just made it so nice to drive through. Loved the video!
Please come visit Carmel! We'd love to have you check it out in person. We still have one traffic signal (at the original location, I believe, of the first one). I'd be happy to give you a biking tour. The roundabouts are as amazing as they say.
I prefer the use of roundabouts not only for the safety but also for the aesthetics of the area. As a former Paramedic-EMT, the majority of vehicular accidents I encountered resulted from some sort of left turn aspect. I do have some concerns with pedestrian crossings but most can be mitigated with proper design.
Thanks for sharing your experience as a paramedic! I agree on crossings, especially on poorly designed roundabouts, but it is something that can be worked on for sure. Thanks for watching! -Louis
I think that you can really supercharge a roundabout by adding cheap flashing pedestrian lights- they don’t require a power grid tie-in, as there’s many solar options available now, and it makes a very formal visual “I’m crossing now” statement to oncoming drivers. Roundabouts have a yield to pedestrians that drivers often fail to follow, so making that more explicit is a good idea to enforce legal driving behaviour.
Having lived there, it is a very nice way to design a primarily car focused suburb. One big thing I noticed is because there’s so many roundabouts, people are generally really good at using them. This can make someone not use to them uncomfortable as cars are merging and existing pretty close to each (but safely because speeds are lower). The best benefit for car drivers is just the sheer consistency in travel time. You’re never going to be stuck waiting at a traffic light for minutes so a commute to work that takes 15 minutes pretty much always takes exactly 15 minutes. Biking is very good for suburban standards but not necessarily perfect. The main issue/danger is some cars don’t yield to bikers/pedestrians at roundabouts which is dangerous and means you effectively have to assume every car won’t stop for you. They’re trying to improve that with raised crosswalks at roundabouts which is helping a lot. Overall, if you’re a suburban city with a grid network of arterial roads 0.5-1 mile apart from each other and space at intersections, you should absolutely be following Carmel’s lead. It’s not the solution to all traffic problems but it can solve a lot of them.
Roundabouts don’t necessarily mean no traffic signals, though they only need them under special circumstances. The main use case for traffic signals in American roundabouts is for median transit lines. If there’s a tram line running through the middle, there’s often either a standard traffic light (for streetcars) or railroad gates (if it’s meant to be rapid transit). There are quite a few of those in the Phoenix area.
You might look up how a tram can be seamlessly integrated in a roundabout. However you would need to travel and visit Amsterdam. And that would be irksome for most Americans, you have more aversion against things that haven't been invented in the USA. You might look up the term 'turbo roundabout', another one of those 'not invented here' moment.
I live in Carmel and absolutely love the roundabouts. They flow incredibly well, are safe, and make getting across town a breeze. I've never once seen an accident occur in the roundabouts (and even if they did, they would be very minor fender benders). Every once in a while you see someone who is clearly unfamiliar with the rules of roundabouts enter out of turn. This invariably results in a loud horn and some angry gestures, but never once have I seen a collision in the 20 or 30 times I've seen this happen. Traffic immediately starts flowing again, no problem.
Fun fact, if you live in Carmel or near roundabouts like this, you need to get your tires rotated more often. Otherwise the front right tire will wear much much quicker.
from what I know roundabouts in the US came about in the 90s as a safety feature in neighborhood roads with the goal of slowing down traffic. Sometimes I also drive thru the roundabout at 51st and i-35 and Texans just don't get it as their minds just go blank on figuring out how to navigate it- LOL. But for some fun action, check out the Milwaukee Roundabout which comes off a skyway bridge.
Those are called "traffic calming circles" and were pioneered well before the 1990s in places like Seattle. "Modern Roundabouts" did come about in the 1990s, but the first two were monstrous three-lane-around roundabouts in Summerlin, Nevada. Very quickly they were reduced to two lanes when they realized they were overbuilt.
5:04 Fun fact about Gdansk: The city is incredibly divided in terms of development patterns. While the older parts are nice and walkable (or even pedestrianised), newer suburban developments are very American in nature, with fast and wide roads, housing subdivisions, totally oversized intersections with lots of empty wasted space, madly long walking routes and sparse, centralised businesses most convenient for car drivers. I was on vacation there most recently in 2023 and really made an effort to see as much of the city as I could, and it was quite startling to see these huge contrasts.
Moved to Carmel 20 years ago. Driving was SLOW and annoying... long backups at every stoplight on major roads like Keystone and US 31. Took me about 30 minutes to drive across town. Fast forward a few years and that drive dropped to about 8 minutes - just because roundabouts replaced stop lights. They are all very well marked with a sign and pavement painting telling you which lane you should be in. I often drive in Indy and hate the stop and go backups at all the stoplights.
Everytime i drive or ride around my city and the adjacent ones (Tri-Valley Region in the SF Bay Area), i complain to myself abotu how they have too many 4way stops and signalized intersections when a roundabout woudl work better. Someone should start lobbying the cities around here, lol
I don't know why people have trouble with roundabouts. It's pretty easy. All traffic yields to traffic in the roundabout. I think people confuse roundabouts with traffic circles (think DuPont Circle in DC) which can be very intimidating when you are unfamiliar.
@@AstriaStarwyndit's probably education rather than ethnicity or nationality. When my parents were learning to drive in the states, roundabouts were incredibly rare, and zipper merging really wasn't discussed much.
Too many new roundabouts in the USA have roads join tangentially and are too big, encouraging unsafe fast traversal. There are also too many with slip lanes. Slip lanes undermine roundabouts for the same reason and for adding conflict points. See Jersey City and Hoboken for great minimal roundabouts Edit: the tangential joins are fine for highways but I've seen them too much in residential/suburb areas with many bikes and pedestrians
Only a few countries install non-tangential-entry roundabouts (primarily the Netherlands with their turbo roundabouts, and a few other European countries), the vast majority of countries use very similar design standards; in the case of America, they got theirs from Australia and the UK, both of whom use tangential entry. The idea is that tangential entry reduces the chance of path overlap (eg entering in the right lane and then drifting into the left edge of the roundabout), increases entry speed over right-angle entry, and also reduces the chance of drivers not slowing for the roundabout (by creating a curved entry which gradually slows them down). While I'm in agreement with you that right-angle entry would be better (in general), just keep in mind the history of the roundabouts in America, and also that engineers are simply following the standards set out for them. Turbo roundabouts have been used in California and Victoria, BC, but are not "standard" designs just yet. Most urban single-lane roundabouts (not just those NJ cities you listed) don't use heavy tangential entry already, the big change will be multi-lane roundabouts.
Some of the new interchanges for the new I-69 expansion in South-Central Indiana have implemented the hourglass/teardrop roundabouts. Some got double roundabouts at each end.
@@TransitTangents I live in a college town in Indiana that has a couple of roundabouts that are on my commute but are also on the main route from the highway to the college. I like them because I grew up just south of Carmel and learned to drive on roundabouts from day 1. However, I can immediately tell when it is move-in week at the beginning/end of each semester because I will have several near-crashes in the roundabout from out-of-towners moving students in. I really like them, but a funny anecdote.
I think that you can really supercharge a roundabout by adding cheap flashing pedestrian lights- they don’t require a power grid tie-in, as there’s many solar options available now, and it makes a very formal visual “I’m crossing now” statement to oncoming drivers. Roundabouts have a yield to pedestrians that drivers often fail to follow, so making that more explicit is a good idea to enforce legal driving behaviour.
It also tends to slow down traffic, with all those traffic lights, and it isn't necessary in some places that are kind of remote. I mean I find it more annoying to have to do the stop. Go stop go. I actually feel like my anxiety is so much worse. Like if I could just keep going with like rarely stopping. Even if it was slower I would prefer it. But that's just me and not everyone shares my anxiety. We have a A parkway that's adding a lane and I just kind of shake my head. Because I know that the specific parkway where I'm at live at the problem has been from the beginning. They had way too many traffic lights. Like if I can see a traffic light and then another traffic light and then another traffic light within my visual distance. That means that there's probably a traffic light for for less than a mile/ kilometer each distance. And then people ask why is there traffic built up? It's because there's too many traffic lights added lanes solve nothing.
carmel indiana walk score: 26. roundabouts are good improvements for vehicle safety and great for micro-modal support, but they are generally not a great solution for urban settings, especially not at the sheer quantity that they exist in carmel. there are plenty of acceptable ways to craft streets to be safer for cars but also significantly enhance pedestrian walkability without the use of roundabouts in urban areas
As someone who drives through Carmel almost daily…..carmelites have not figured out how to properly use a traffic circle. They either treat yield signs as a stop sign and sit when they could have just driven through, or they don’t yield and expect that a car in the circle will stop and let them in. There are also many points where you have to enter the circle on the inner lane to make the 3rd exit but where your going requires you to be on the outer lane leaving the circle making you make improper lane changes within the circle. The circles are great, I don’t mind using them, but the constant circles are daunting for people who aren’t from the suburbs north of Indianapolis who only visit infrequently , and many drivers using them aren’t using them properly really taking away from the benefit of a traffic circle.
I live just to the south of Carmel on the north side of Indianapolis and I never cycle up north. Much better urban environment to the south through Indy's original 'urban' street grid. Carmel's roundabouts might help with car traffic, but they don't help cycling much & Carmel is generally too spread out to make cycling practical unless you're out for pleasure. But even in that case, it's much more boring.
Carmel has no bus routes. which is a disappointment because they can absolutely connect with Indianapolis' bus route, IndyGo. I don't know if roundabouts slow city buses but there's been momentum to get a few routes connected especially as so many people go between Indy and Carmel for work and home.
@@michaelhohe2168 Roundabouts definitely aren't the issue. Carmel fire department has a long ladder truck and I see plenty of semi trucks navigating even the smaller roundabouts without much issue.
@TransitTangents I see the school buses navigate the roundabouts every weekday with ease. I'm sure with some testing of different models for transit buses, it'll be just as easy.
@@TransitTangents i neverment that buses couldn' t use them i am just saying thatunless at lest for the really big ones you might put a bus lane thur the middel so the overall traveltime isn't lengthened at all which will make las people ride.
What many people do not understand is that roundabouts have a capacity limit. They max out efficiency at 1000 total vehicles per hour. Roundabouts are great for low volume roads, but are bad for high volume urban roads. The reason this works well on Carmel's road is that the state has major arterials through the center, southside, eastside, westside of the city that carry all the major traffic (I-465, I-69, US 31, US 421, and IN 431). This reduces traffic on the local roads within Carmel, which makes the roundabouts more effective. The city does not have to deal with the majority of the commuter traffic. Thus, the city of Carmel can retain that urbanized setting.
Driving through Carmel is horrible! Just horrible! People avoid Carmel. It sounds like you made up this whole video without ever experiencing Carmel, Indiana and used Carmel's doctored statistics. No traffic engineer would have done what they've done. They've reduced their road network throughput greatly. It was forced through by somebody that has no concept of traffic engineering. A US roundabout is a very specific traffic circle of single lane with operating speed between 10 mph - 15 mph using yield merge traffic metering. If the traffic circle is not of that specification it is not included in roundabout statistics. Multi-lane traffic circles are historically dangerous and modern multi-lane traffic circles are dangerous much more so than a traffic light controlled intersections. Traffic circles behave as traffic calming device in that they discourage through traffic causing it to seek other routes. Any drop in road crashes is likely due to less traffic volume typical of other traffic calming devices. A roundabout is always detrimental to traffic flow on the primary road versus a traffic light. That is highway design doctrine. Roundabouts can work better than a traffic light in very specific situation where both roads have about the same volume with a predominance of left turning traffic. They are slower over an all way stop intersection for high speed roads with speed limits above 40 mph when there is seldom more than a couple cars waiting. It faster and easier for a quick stop and go verses going through a slow roundabout for high speed roads. In Carmel the main highway was turned into grade separated highway with left turning vehicles on the above secondary road using roundabouts to deliver it onto the main road in an acceleration only lane instead of the clover leaf pattern that has both decelerating and accelerating vehicles in the same lane. This places the dangerous maneuvers on the secondary roads instead of the main road or Interstate. It allowed the Indiana Department of Transpiration to separate the main highway from the madness of Carmel. Replacing traffic light controlled intersection with roundabouts will cause people to seek other places to live. They make traffic slow and going through them is nauseating. A lot of people move into an area because it is easy to get around. If retrofits take place where they have to loop around six times to get someplace they will want to move someplace else. Carmel Indiana took over the Monon Trail-Trail bicycle parkway and turned into non Rail-Trail putting in non characteristic twists for no reason, just to destroy Rail-Traill. Carmel has lots a places to park bicycles. It did have a speed limit of 15 mph on Monon banning normal bicycle speeds. I ride the Monon Rail-Trail bicycle parkway in Indianapolis every other day with a round trip distance of 17.33 miles with a typical average speed of 17.0 mph with a typical top cruising speed of about 22 mph. The activity would be illegal on the Monon in Carmel. It might be possible to detour around the Monon in Carmel to run at normal bicycle speeds on the side roads. I haven't bothered to find out. That would be my plan if I bike up in Carmel. Carmel use to be an attractive place to live twenty years ago. Although the 15 mph speed limit on the Monon was a slap in the face. It's nowhere Ville now.
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I am a resident in Carmel and while I am grateful for the roundabout, our city is facing an issue regarding the future of transportation.
There’s been discussion back and forth on transit in Carmel for years. The city used to have an Indy Express bus which got discontinued in 2014. Then in 2016 there were initial plans for the red line to extend into Carmel but that didn’t go through. Carmel plans on operating its own bus system soon but now it’s also being killed off by the recently elected Mayor Sue Finkham.
The population of Carmel is over 100K which is large. There’s also much more mixed use development within its city center than before and that is why Carmel needs a Bus system.
I want to advocate for transit in carmel, however I do not know anyone in my city which supports transit
Thanks for sharing your experience! We'll have to look more into the transit side. Maybe a topic for a future episode. Thanks for watching!
I live VERY close to Carmel (Keystone Parkway is part of my daily drive lmao) and it used to be HELL. Keystone and 31 used to just be pure stoplights and it took me a half hour to get through Carmel (or more). Now? 10 minutes tops. The parkways and roundabouts have dispersed traffic and just made it so nice to drive through. Loved the video!
Please come visit Carmel! We'd love to have you check it out in person. We still have one traffic signal (at the original location, I believe, of the first one). I'd be happy to give you a biking tour. The roundabouts are as amazing as they say.
I prefer the use of roundabouts not only for the safety but also for the aesthetics of the area.
As a former Paramedic-EMT, the majority of vehicular accidents I encountered resulted from some sort of left turn aspect. I do have some concerns with pedestrian crossings but most can be mitigated with proper design.
Thanks for sharing your experience as a paramedic! I agree on crossings, especially on poorly designed roundabouts, but it is something that can be worked on for sure. Thanks for watching! -Louis
I think that you can really supercharge a roundabout by adding cheap flashing pedestrian lights- they don’t require a power grid tie-in, as there’s many solar options available now, and it makes a very formal visual “I’m crossing now” statement to oncoming drivers. Roundabouts have a yield to pedestrians that drivers often fail to follow, so making that more explicit is a good idea to enforce legal driving behaviour.
Having lived there, it is a very nice way to design a primarily car focused suburb. One big thing I noticed is because there’s so many roundabouts, people are generally really good at using them. This can make someone not use to them uncomfortable as cars are merging and existing pretty close to each (but safely because speeds are lower).
The best benefit for car drivers is just the sheer consistency in travel time. You’re never going to be stuck waiting at a traffic light for minutes so a commute to work that takes 15 minutes pretty much always takes exactly 15 minutes.
Biking is very good for suburban standards but not necessarily perfect. The main issue/danger is some cars don’t yield to bikers/pedestrians at roundabouts which is dangerous and means you effectively have to assume every car won’t stop for you. They’re trying to improve that with raised crosswalks at roundabouts which is helping a lot.
Overall, if you’re a suburban city with a grid network of arterial roads 0.5-1 mile apart from each other and space at intersections, you should absolutely be following Carmel’s lead. It’s not the solution to all traffic problems but it can solve a lot of them.
Hey Transit Tangents!!
Just wanted to say I’m so excited TH-cam is recommending such an awesome channel! Excited to join the journey! 😁🙌🏾
Glad you're here!
Another great roundabout example in Austin are the 3 on Rio Grande St. Good example of neighborhood roundabouts providing speed calming.
I like that you talked about road guy Rob, streetcraft.
Road Guy Rob provides more of a PBS experience is the exception is livestream.
We love watching Streetcraft and Road Guy Rob! We actually did an interview with Noah from Streetcraft in a very early episode!
Roundabouts don’t necessarily mean no traffic signals, though they only need them under special circumstances. The main use case for traffic signals in American roundabouts is for median transit lines. If there’s a tram line running through the middle, there’s often either a standard traffic light (for streetcars) or railroad gates (if it’s meant to be rapid transit). There are quite a few of those in the Phoenix area.
Good point! Thanks for watching.
You might look up how a tram can be seamlessly integrated in a roundabout. However you would need to travel and visit Amsterdam. And that would be irksome for most Americans, you have more aversion against things that haven't been invented in the USA. You might look up the term 'turbo roundabout', another one of those 'not invented here' moment.
Carmel sure does love their roundabouts. They even put them in the sewer system. Two "teardrops" in close proximity are called "dog bones", BTW.
Is the sewer system comment a joke or do the pipes really go in a circle lol? Not a plumber, but I feel like that would lead to issues haha...
I live in Carmel and absolutely love the roundabouts. They flow incredibly well, are safe, and make getting across town a breeze. I've never once seen an accident occur in the roundabouts (and even if they did, they would be very minor fender benders). Every once in a while you see someone who is clearly unfamiliar with the rules of roundabouts enter out of turn. This invariably results in a loud horn and some angry gestures, but never once have I seen a collision in the 20 or 30 times I've seen this happen. Traffic immediately starts flowing again, no problem.
Makes sense! Hopefully they increase in popularity elsewhere! Seems like a win win. Thanks for watching.
Fun fact, if you live in Carmel or near roundabouts like this, you need to get your tires rotated more often. Otherwise the front right tire will wear much much quicker.
from what I know roundabouts in the US came about in the 90s as a safety feature in neighborhood roads with the goal of slowing down traffic. Sometimes I also drive thru the roundabout at 51st and i-35 and Texans just don't get it as their minds just go blank on figuring out how to navigate it- LOL. But for some fun action, check out the Milwaukee Roundabout which comes off a skyway bridge.
Those are called "traffic calming circles" and were pioneered well before the 1990s in places like Seattle. "Modern Roundabouts" did come about in the 1990s, but the first two were monstrous three-lane-around roundabouts in Summerlin, Nevada. Very quickly they were reduced to two lanes when they realized they were overbuilt.
Carmel is great but a car is needed to get anywhere outside Carmel
Exactly. I was unfortunate enough to end up in one of those suburbs and the only transit offered is an unreliable On demand service
5:04 Fun fact about Gdansk: The city is incredibly divided in terms of development patterns. While the older parts are nice and walkable (or even pedestrianised), newer suburban developments are very American in nature, with fast and wide roads, housing subdivisions, totally oversized intersections with lots of empty wasted space, madly long walking routes and sparse, centralised businesses most convenient for car drivers. I was on vacation there most recently in 2023 and really made an effort to see as much of the city as I could, and it was quite startling to see these huge contrasts.
Moved to Carmel 20 years ago. Driving was SLOW and annoying... long backups at every stoplight on major roads like Keystone and US 31. Took me about 30 minutes to drive across town. Fast forward a few years and that drive dropped to about 8 minutes - just because roundabouts replaced stop lights. They are all very well marked with a sign and pavement painting telling you which lane you should be in. I often drive in Indy and hate the stop and go backups at all the stoplights.
Love to hear it! Thanks for watching and sharing your experience.
Everytime i drive or ride around my city and the adjacent ones (Tri-Valley Region in the SF Bay Area), i complain to myself abotu how they have too many 4way stops and signalized intersections when a roundabout woudl work better.
Someone should start lobbying the cities around here, lol
It can start with a simple email to your elected reps/council people!
I don't know why people have trouble with roundabouts. It's pretty easy. All traffic yields to traffic in the roundabout. I think people confuse roundabouts with traffic circles (think DuPont Circle in DC) which can be very intimidating when you are unfamiliar.
Agreed! But people love to complain about change 😅 Once they use them they start to like the changes though! Thanks for watching!
Many American drivers have issues with seeing driving as a cooperative event instead of a competitive event. See also: Zipper merging.
@@AstriaStarwyndit's probably education rather than ethnicity or nationality. When my parents were learning to drive in the states, roundabouts were incredibly rare, and zipper merging really wasn't discussed much.
Too many new roundabouts in the USA have roads join tangentially and are too big, encouraging unsafe fast traversal. There are also too many with slip lanes. Slip lanes undermine roundabouts for the same reason and for adding conflict points.
See Jersey City and Hoboken for great minimal roundabouts
Edit: the tangential joins are fine for highways but I've seen them too much in residential/suburb areas with many bikes and pedestrians
Only a few countries install non-tangential-entry roundabouts (primarily the Netherlands with their turbo roundabouts, and a few other European countries), the vast majority of countries use very similar design standards; in the case of America, they got theirs from Australia and the UK, both of whom use tangential entry. The idea is that tangential entry reduces the chance of path overlap (eg entering in the right lane and then drifting into the left edge of the roundabout), increases entry speed over right-angle entry, and also reduces the chance of drivers not slowing for the roundabout (by creating a curved entry which gradually slows them down).
While I'm in agreement with you that right-angle entry would be better (in general), just keep in mind the history of the roundabouts in America, and also that engineers are simply following the standards set out for them. Turbo roundabouts have been used in California and Victoria, BC, but are not "standard" designs just yet. Most urban single-lane roundabouts (not just those NJ cities you listed) don't use heavy tangential entry already, the big change will be multi-lane roundabouts.
Some of the new interchanges for the new I-69 expansion in South-Central Indiana have implemented the hourglass/teardrop roundabouts. Some got double roundabouts at each end.
Glad to hear it is being used in Indiana even outside of Carmel! Thanks for watching!
@@TransitTangents I live in a college town in Indiana that has a couple of roundabouts that are on my commute but are also on the main route from the highway to the college. I like them because I grew up just south of Carmel and learned to drive on roundabouts from day 1.
However, I can immediately tell when it is move-in week at the beginning/end of each semester because I will have several near-crashes in the roundabout from out-of-towners moving students in. I really like them, but a funny anecdote.
Never did I expect to get recommended a full video about roads. (That wasn't made by Tom Scott)
Thanks for clicking on it! Lol. Welcome.
I think that you can really supercharge a roundabout by adding cheap flashing pedestrian lights- they don’t require a power grid tie-in, as there’s many solar options available now, and it makes a very formal visual “I’m crossing now” statement to oncoming drivers. Roundabouts have a yield to pedestrians that drivers often fail to follow, so making that more explicit is a good idea to enforce legal driving behaviour.
And Carmel has been adding RRFB lights at bunches of roundabouts lately.
It also tends to slow down traffic, with all those traffic lights, and it isn't necessary in some places that are kind of remote.
I mean I find it more annoying to have to do the stop. Go stop go. I actually feel like my anxiety is so much worse. Like if I could just keep going with like rarely stopping. Even if it was slower I would prefer it. But that's just me and not everyone shares my anxiety.
We have a A parkway that's adding a lane and I just kind of shake my head. Because I know that the specific parkway where I'm at live at the problem has been from the beginning. They had way too many traffic lights.
Like if I can see a traffic light and then another traffic light and then another traffic light within my visual distance. That means that there's probably a traffic light for for less than a mile/ kilometer each distance. And then people ask why is there traffic built up? It's because there's too many traffic lights added lanes solve nothing.
carmel indiana walk score: 26. roundabouts are good improvements for vehicle safety and great for micro-modal support, but they are generally not a great solution for urban settings, especially not at the sheer quantity that they exist in carmel. there are plenty of acceptable ways to craft streets to be safer for cars but also significantly enhance pedestrian walkability without the use of roundabouts in urban areas
Indiana mentioned
As someone who drives through Carmel almost daily…..carmelites have not figured out how to properly use a traffic circle. They either treat yield signs as a stop sign and sit when they could have just driven through, or they don’t yield and expect that a car in the circle will stop and let them in. There are also many points where you have to enter the circle on the inner lane to make the 3rd exit but where your going requires you to be on the outer lane leaving the circle making you make improper lane changes within the circle. The circles are great, I don’t mind using them, but the constant circles are daunting for people who aren’t from the suburbs north of Indianapolis who only visit infrequently , and many drivers using them aren’t using them properly really taking away from the benefit of a traffic circle.
Fishers is gaining on its neighbor. I know I’m in my neighbor county with all the roundabouts.
Glad to hear the roundabouts are multiplying 😅
Thumbnail typo :D
Capital/Capitol gets me every time lol. -Louis
I live just to the south of Carmel on the north side of Indianapolis and I never cycle up north. Much better urban environment to the south through Indy's original 'urban' street grid. Carmel's roundabouts might help with car traffic, but they don't help cycling much & Carmel is generally too spread out to make cycling practical unless you're out for pleasure. But even in that case, it's much more boring.
Americans struggling with roundabouts reminds me of the videos of indians struggling with elevators 😅
This comment reminds me of Pedro Almeida struggling with his biases
don't many successive roudabout slow b city busses carmel probably has few or even no bus routes thur it.
Carmel has no bus routes. which is a disappointment because they can absolutely connect with Indianapolis' bus route, IndyGo. I don't know if roundabouts slow city buses but there's been momentum to get a few routes connected especially as so many people go between Indy and Carmel for work and home.
@@michaelhohe2168 Roundabouts definitely aren't the issue. Carmel fire department has a long ladder truck and I see plenty of semi trucks navigating even the smaller roundabouts without much issue.
If designed well I'm sure buses can use them, but even just from reading the comments there are not really buses in Carmel...
@TransitTangents I see the school buses navigate the roundabouts every weekday with ease. I'm sure with some testing of different models for transit buses, it'll be just as easy.
@@TransitTangents i neverment that buses couldn'
t use them i am just saying thatunless at lest for the really big ones you might put a bus lane thur the middel so the overall traveltime isn't lengthened at all which will make las people ride.
What many people do not understand is that roundabouts have a capacity limit. They max out efficiency at 1000 total vehicles per hour. Roundabouts are great for low volume roads, but are bad for high volume urban roads.
The reason this works well on Carmel's road is that the state has major arterials through the center, southside, eastside, westside of the city that carry all the major traffic (I-465, I-69, US 31, US 421, and IN 431). This reduces traffic on the local roads within Carmel, which makes the roundabouts more effective. The city does not have to deal with the majority of the commuter traffic. Thus, the city of Carmel can retain that urbanized setting.
Talking about Carmel without a mention of American Fietser? A shame
Driving through Carmel is horrible! Just horrible! People avoid Carmel. It sounds like you made up this whole video without ever experiencing Carmel, Indiana and used Carmel's doctored statistics. No traffic engineer would have done what they've done. They've reduced their road network throughput greatly. It was forced through by somebody that has no concept of traffic engineering.
A US roundabout is a very specific traffic circle of single lane with operating speed between 10 mph - 15 mph using yield merge traffic metering. If the traffic circle is not of that specification it is not included in roundabout statistics. Multi-lane traffic circles are historically dangerous and modern multi-lane traffic circles are dangerous much more so than a traffic light controlled intersections.
Traffic circles behave as traffic calming device in that they discourage through traffic causing it to seek other routes. Any drop in road crashes is likely due to less traffic volume typical of other traffic calming devices. A roundabout is always detrimental to traffic flow on the primary road versus a traffic light. That is highway design doctrine.
Roundabouts can work better than a traffic light in very specific situation where both roads have about the same volume with a predominance of left turning traffic. They are slower over an all way stop intersection for high speed roads with speed limits above 40 mph when there is seldom more than a couple cars waiting. It faster and easier for a quick stop and go verses going through a slow roundabout for high speed roads.
In Carmel the main highway was turned into grade separated highway with left turning vehicles on the above secondary road using roundabouts to deliver it onto the main road in an acceleration only lane instead of the clover leaf pattern that has both decelerating and accelerating vehicles in the same lane. This places the dangerous maneuvers on the secondary roads instead of the main road or Interstate. It allowed the Indiana Department of Transpiration to separate the main highway from the madness of Carmel.
Replacing traffic light controlled intersection with roundabouts will cause people to seek other places to live. They make traffic slow and going through them is nauseating. A lot of people move into an area because it is easy to get around. If retrofits take place where they have to loop around six times to get someplace they will want to move someplace else.
Carmel Indiana took over the Monon Trail-Trail bicycle parkway and turned into non Rail-Trail putting in non characteristic twists for no reason, just to destroy Rail-Traill. Carmel has lots a places to park bicycles. It did have a speed limit of 15 mph on Monon banning normal bicycle speeds.
I ride the Monon Rail-Trail bicycle parkway in Indianapolis every other day with a round trip distance of 17.33 miles with a typical average speed of 17.0 mph with a typical top cruising speed of about 22 mph. The activity would be illegal on the Monon in Carmel. It might be possible to detour around the Monon in Carmel to run at normal bicycle speeds on the side roads. I haven't bothered to find out. That would be my plan if I bike up in Carmel.
Carmel use to be an attractive place to live twenty years ago. Although the 15 mph speed limit on the Monon was a slap in the face. It's nowhere Ville now.