The rise of the roundabouts not confined to P.E.I.

© TC MEDIA/Mitch MacDonald

Cars move through the roundabout at the intersection of Mount Edward Road and Allen Street in Charlottetown.

‘Don’t be alarmed. It’s just another piece of road’

They evoke some of the world's most impressive crossroads — the Place de l'Etoile in Paris, Manhattan's Columbus Circle — and have a remarkable capacity to calm traffic and ease accidents.
But, as the roundabout becomes increasingly common in Canada, they can also evoke a certain panic: Confused motorists have been known to go the wrong way, fail to yield or try to back up in them.
“We've observed all sorts of behaviours,” said Keith Boddy, a roundabout specialist with the Transportation Association of Canada.
“The good news is most of those incidents don't result in serious injury or other challenges because people are going slower.”
MORE: Roundabouts on P.E.I.
A typical intersection creates about 32 plausible vehicle conflicts with other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists, said Ed Miska, executive director of engineering services for B.C.'s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.
Roundabouts reduce that to eight conflicts, even if people still find innovative ways of getting them wrong.
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Frank Swantee of St. John's, N.L., was carrying a tonne of retaining wall bricks in the back of his pickup truck in August when he entered a newly built roundabout in the city.
“I saw someone backing up towards me,” he said in an interview. “The truck stopped on a dime. The bricks ... they just kept going.”
The wrapped load smashed the back window of Swantee's double cab, causing $6,000 in damage but no injuries.
Boddy estimates there are now about 400 roundabouts across the country, as Canada and the U.S. slowly catch up to a roadway design that has been widespread in the United Kingdom and France for decades.
P.E.I. has 14 roundabouts. Ten are located across the province. There are four roundabouts in the city of Charlottetown. But two more are currently under construction as part of the Cornwall bypass highway project.
The United Kingdom has them by the thousands, sometimes with colours and local flourishes that have inspired tributes by the U.K. Roundabout Appreciation Society and other admirers.
Drivers unfamiliar with roundabouts can simplify what at first looks intimidating, Boddy said.
“People need to understand that across the country when you're faced with a roundabout, just slow down, yield to the people in the circle. Those are two big keys.
“And don't be alarmed. It's just another piece of road.”
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a non-profit group dedicated to reducing losses from highway crashes in the U.S., has assessed several studies of American intersections converted from signals or stop signs to roundabouts. It estimates the number of injury crashes fell between 72 to 80 per cent, while all collisions were down by 35 to 47 per cent.
“Roundabouts are very forgiving of mistakes,” said Phil Weber, who designs them for international engineering firm GHD.