I think Conway has a 2-lane roundabout near Hendrix College. Some drivers get on it and never return, like Charlie on the MTA.

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"Though there are other roundabouts in Arkansas, this is apparently the first one with two lanes around the central hub instead of only one."

Wrong. There are TWO 2-lane roundabouts on Harkrider in Conway. They opened about 2 months ago.

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That's funny rad...no traffic lights and no 'lectricity, less light pollution. Good job boz.

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Traffic circles are the worst idea ever. Most Arkansas drivers are already too dumb to stay in their own lanes; now we're going to challenge them with a European-style traffic circle?

Yeah, good luck with that. At least there will be booming business for the body shops.

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There's another two-lane roundabout in Conway, on Prince St. It's a couple of blocks north of UCA.

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Max and I both know that they are correctly referred to as "traffic circles." The most maddening onces in captivity can be found in Alexandria, Louisiana or "Alec" as it is known.

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Oh, man, I loved to zoom through those big circles at either end of MacArthur in Alec. Hitting them right was part of my eternal quest to shave a minute or two off the 6-hour drive time between Lake Charles and Little Rock. Those were BIG traffic circles.

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Conway has a half-dozen or so roundabouts, traffic circles, with the first one built about five years ago. Not everyone is in love with them, and some Conway motorists will tell you quickly, "I hate the things." But the roundabouts are working well. Traffic is flowing smoother in those areas, even on heavily traveled Harkrider Street through the Hendrix College campus.

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hahahahahahahaha

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Traffic Circle = Death Trap. I hate 'em! ESPECIALLY the two-laned ones.

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I trade your roundabout for the fu*ked up mess that is Block Street in Fayetteville. But you have to take our mayor as well.

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I love 'em. We've got one up in my neck of the woods on Batesville Pike. They eliminate the four-way intersection t-bone collision risk.

Institute for Highway Safety: "Most serious kinds of crashes at conventional intersections are virtually eliminated by roundabouts…Crashes that do occur tend to be minor because traffic speeds are slower." The study reviewed 24 intersections around the U.S. that have been converted from stop signs or traffic signals to modern roundabouts. At those intersections, all crashes were reduced by 39%. Serious crashes were reduced by 76%. At the time of the study, there had been no fatalities at any of the new roundabouts. So, the study estimates that fatal or incapacitating injuries will be reduced by 90% at those intersections."

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Perplexed - Yeah, I thought I was gonna die on my first roundabout attempt while leaving the Point-a-Pitre airport. We nearly got smashed by a taxi driver who zoomed into the circle out of nowhere. I floored the accelerator, but little Citreon had no pickup. It was a close call.

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I occasionally read about other innovations in traffic management. For example, if you remove the painted lines between the two lanes of traffic going the same direction on a 4- or 5-lane road, it slows traffic down 5 or 10 mph and reduces accidents. Physically, you still have the exact same amount of room, still have a guideline on the right hand shoulder and on the left side of the inside lane, and still are able to drive just as fast... but mentally you can't help but slow down. It would dramatically decrease texting, for sure.

It's good to see things evolve. I don't think anyone would argue that we have reached the epitome of how to manage traffic.

Especially anyone who has to deal with what Schickel (sp?) did to Cantrell Road with his Pleasant Ridge mall. The traffic jams the public must suffer through because he was able to screw up traffic flow in order to get multiple accesses to his mall are a direct transfer of wealth from us to him, I assume aided and abetted by city engineering.

Tens of thousands of people spend more on gasoline, waste more time, and are at a greater risk of a wreck, but that's OK because it made an old rich guy even richer.

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Drove to work this morning before it was open, and then home this afternoon (half-day, Merry Christmas!) when it was up and going. I either did it wrong or about one-third of it is still closed. I didn't make it around to Broadway and instead ended up on Riverfront and had to turn left again to get back on Broadway. I might just be programmed to do that since traffic has been diverted that way since April or May.

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It would be interesting to tally the calls for Phillips Brothers wreckers to this location for the next month or so.

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Okay, haven't met one yet, but I thought I understood the concept. Wanna make what was a left turn? Get on heading to your right and circle past the right turn street, the straight ahead street and get off at the left turn street. Or on back to the original street, but now going the other way. Is that how you do it? So where does the extra lane come in? You're not gonna be in the thing that long, are you? Or are you?
Okay, wait. You gotta get in the inside lane if you're not gonna exit at the next street so those entering from that street can have a clean shot coming into that thing, right? Then they have to merge into the inside lane unless they're taking the next street and you have to merge from the inside lane to the outside one to exit.
Is that how it works? If so, how big is the damned thing?

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Rotary is the proper New England term for them. We threw the English out in 1781, damn their bloody roundabouts terminology. Oops!
They are a right of passage in New England - 50 miles an hour into a 4 lane rotary with six different points of egress to select from. You can tell the drivers that are just learning - they seem perpetually stuck in the inner lane.

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Roland, Cantrell near that area is atrocious between 4pm-7pm. There are days when traffic will be backed-up all the way to the Kroger on Cantrell which is almost 2 miles from Pleasant Ridge shopping center. Roundabouts are easy to use and do help the flow of traffic and probably save gas because you don't have to sit at a light.

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Step 1: Yield to oncoming traffic from your left.

Step 2: Enter traffic circle to your right.

Step 3: Exit traffic circle to your right at desired destination.

I don't know why people seem to dislike the things so much. Dead simple to use, fewer accidents, no utility bills or malfunctions, and the traffic is always moving. What else do people want?

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Here's the video with the proper soundtrack, I think:

http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=M_TOreA5iSE

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My two-cents worth on roundabouts:

1. First encountered those huge ones in Alexandria, LA ("Elic," not "Alec," by the way). But those are so big that they don't provide any learning experience for the smaller ones, such as we encountered in England. (And an even smaller one in Abita Springs, LA, recently.)

2. Found English roundabouts confusing at first, compounded by driving on the left-hand side of the road. And found them madenning when the signage didn't help a whole lot.

3. But within a couple of days I learned the "trick": Get in, merge into the INSIDE lane; then I had the right-of way and could go around as many times as necessary until I figured out which exit was the one I wanted. Next time around, I just merged to the outside lane and exited at the proper time.

4. Much better than sitting at a traffic light or stop sign holding up traffic while trying to figure out which road I wanted!

5. Yeah, they take some getting used to; but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages once drivers learn. And anyone who can't learn proper use of a roundabout shouldn't be licensed to drive in the first place.

IMHO

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P.S.: Didn't mean to tell a lie. Totally forgot Lee Circle in New Orleans. I think I learned on Lee Circle before I experienced Alexandria, but not absolutely certain. But it was a LONG time ago, and my memory isn't quite that long any more.

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In Levy? They're asking for trouble.

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There is a rotary in Boston right before the tunnel to the airport that has 6 roads coming together from different directions. It is a right-of-passage for those new to New England. It is probably the only way to handle that intersection.

Conway had a lot of issues on the lesser traveled rotaries by people unsure of what to do. I can get from 64 and E. German Lane to the Tyler crossing at the train tracks without stopping by using Siebermorgan and four rotaries, one by the middle school and then the two on Harkrider and then the one at Tyler and Front. I was concerned about the log trucks on Harkrider and they seem to be able to handle it without the over-extended logs knocking the window out on my truck.

There are two additional rotaries in Conway-Western at Prince and one on Ferris on the west side of UCA. The real test will be when we have a bunch of out-of-towners show up at the same time-graduation at UCA or that End of the World celebration which ties up a lot of major roads.

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Max, there is also a fairly new 2-lane roundabout in west LR at Kirk Road and Systems Drive north of Chenal Parkway, near what is either the mausoleum for Ronald Rayguns or Fellowship Baptist Church, can't tell which. Once all the regular users of that area got the hang of it traffic flowed better.

But you sure can tell who's a newbie! For them it's more heart pounding than bungee jumping.

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Skypilot,

I'm with you. I encountered my first one in England also, Norwich, actually. My first day of driving on the left, my first day of driving a right-hand drive car with a stick. I hadn't even learned to look right for the on-coming traffic crossing the street to the car hire agency.

I managed to get off the circus on the third or fourth circuit, I was too busy trying to move to the outer lane in time to make my turn without hitting someone. My major thought about them was relief at finally exiting.

Later, I did experience the one at the Arch de Triomphe in Paris, but I was on a motorcycle and I probably circled at least twice to take in the views. The awe overcame the terror or perhaps the 500 Triumph was easy to maneuver than the Wolseley 18-22 I rented.

Later, at UVA I became very familiar with the traffic circles in D.C., but I never liked them. I always found the configuration of streets using traffic circles made it confusing to navigate without constant reference to a map.

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@dott, should you come back for a late check:

Reading your post reminded me of one circle (or two, actually) I encountered in England. It/they just about threw me.

I made it through the first one OK, more or less, without any major problem, only to be confronted, about 100 yards later, with a second. That's the only "double circle" I've ever seen.


As I thought about it, it seemed to me the ONLY way to handle the conjunction of that many highways without major delays, navigation problems, expense of real estate, etc., etc., etc.

Didn't love 'em at first, but came to appreciate them for common-sense traffic handling. Especially appreciate no stop-and-wait. . . . Well, of course, if traffic is really heavy, there may be a delay getting in, but at least no ARBITRARY stop-and-wait as there are with signs at grade intersections.

IMHO

On a related note: My major gripe about transportation in Englad is that there are three departments involved: highway, signage, maps. And it seems that there is absolutely no communication among those departments.

Trying to coordinate actual highways with the signs and the maps was a continual headache never completely resolved, and mostly solved--to the extent it ever was--with simple trial and error; mostly repeated error.

And the most confusing/amusing traffic direction I ever got in England: "Go straight through the roundabout."

I finally figured out what he meant, but it sounded like an oxymoron to my American ears!

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True, Skypilot.

My first morning in England/London at the Hampstead Heath College bed and breakfast, I went down to breakfast, having already experienced what the British put up with daily for hot water. I was served oatmeal, bacon that looked as if it had been cooked by boiling, baked beans, and Earl Grey tea.

A fellow sailor, postulated that it was their breakfast habits that screwed up their speech and directions i.e. kippers. However, he also believed that most of our fellow countrymen would be entertained just listening to the day to day speech of the British in London. After encountering a Cockney in his "daisy roots" spouting rhyming slang, I'm inclined to agree. We soon learned about fish and chips and eggs and chips shops so we didn't starve. However, other than that and cottage pie, I can not think of a single English dish that you wanted to bring a recipe home to cook.

It was a treat to speak English everywhere again after a year in Italy, Spain and France, but directions and a lot of little things were slightly askew in Queen Elizabeth's realm. One was the traffic signs, but after my jaunt to Norwich to buy some parts for my sports car, I stuck to public transport and let the bus, trains and hovercraft drivers deal with English and Scottish directions and road markings.

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there are several kinds of circular intersections. ksu.edu has a good web site for those interested in the difference between a traffic circle, rotary and roundabout. Size and traffic control are the major differences. Modern roundabouts are the slow and safe kind that moves traffic more efficiently than a comparable signal. iihs.org has safety facts. fhwa.dot.gov also has a new video up explaining how they work.

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PERPLEXED & RADICAL: once you get the hang of it, you'll love them, I promise.

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The paint stripe around the central island is supposed to be yellow, not white. That would help deter wrong-way traffic.

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