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Re: [Phys-l] Historical trivium




On Nov 20, 2010, at 7:57 PM, brian whatcott wrote:

On 11/20/2010 3:15 PM, Marty Weiss wrote:

This reminds me of a newspaper piece on the adoption of traffic
roundabouts in the US.
Traffic engineers like them because they are relatively low maintenance,
reduce serious T bone collisions in favor of minor sideswipes and
improve flow rates. When polled however, intended users show a 1/3
approval rate, and mention that America is different, or similar.
After adoption, user polls improve to about 2/3 approval rates.
/snip/
Those 2/3 don't live in New Jersey, where we call them *circles* and they lead to more accidents
/snip/
Marty

The piece in question distinguished roundabouts both from traffic
circles (which apparently can incorporate traffic lights *IN* the
circle) and another US road junction species, whose name I forget. (was
it 'rotary'?)

I don't know what piece you read, but roundabouts, rotaries, and circles are just regional names for the same nightmare! Rotary is commonly used in New England. It's called a circle in PA, DE, and NJ and probably a few others. Sometimes they engineered cut-throughs to go straight, with the circle for going on a side road. A few in other states have lights, but we don't have any of those here. I don't know where they are called roundabouts. Aren't they called a "circus" in London?

One particularly nasty circle in Philly is Oxford Circle... it's a traffic circle and it's a whole neighborhood named after the intersection which has the circle. Airport Circle in Camden/Pennsauken. NJ, was reportedly one of the first traffic circles in the country. The first major Philadelphia airport was there, called Central Airport, and believe it or not, the very first drive-in movie in the entire country was located on the circle also. I remember these things in the 1950's. It is long since a part of history, having been eliminated to build an intricate series of ramps, jug-handles, cut throughs, and assorted other confusions. All the historical attractions are long gone, giving rise to office complexes, strip-malls, etc. Those intersections where there used to be circles are still called by the name "circle". The locals know what you are talking about when you tell someone that something is located at the "Ellisburg Circle.", which hasn't been a circle for ten years.

Our standard accident report forms have diagrams of street intersections in every which form and they have a diagram of a circle for when the accident happens there. Car on the left yields to the car on the right... that's a standard question on the old driver exams. That way they can inspect where the damage is and assess fault accordingly.