California small town's roundabout plan criticized from both left and right

[Newsjock]

Source: Sacramento Bee

An argument blisters amid the weathered storefronts of old Placerville. It boils down to this: When is a traffic circle just a circle? And when is it a conspiracy?

Voters in the town of 10,500 residents are going to the polls in November to decide on a local initiative that would ban the city from constructing anything resembling a “roundabout” or “traffic circle” or “other similar traffic features.”

... Left-leaning residents suspected a motive to exploit traffic improvements to urbanize a small town and promote other construction threatening the rural environment of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Right-leaning residents saw a plot of centralized planning being handed down by the United Nations.

... Sue Taylor, a Camino resident and part of a loose-knit, slow-growth group called Save Our County, ... sees the city’s effort to fund a nearby roundabout with “money from the federal government looking for a place to go” as part of an international planning scheme. She blasts the effort as misguided “smart-growth stuff” handed down by the United Nations under a 1992 framework known as Agenda 21. It recommends that nations develop sustainably, with urbanized living and minimal environmental footprint.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/08/16/6633656/placerville-considers-its-roundabout.html

[hr]
The United Nations? The United Nations!?!? In Placerville, California! Sheesh.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Stupid people are stupid

roundabouts decrease accidents, compared to traditional intersections.

A study of 17 higher-speed rural intersections (40 mph and higher speed limits) found that the average injury crash rate per million entering vehicles was reduced by 84 percent and fatal crashes were eliminated when the intersections were converted to roundabouts. Studies of intersections in Europe and Australia that were converted to roundabouts have reported 41-61 percent reductions in injury crashes and 45-75 percent reductions in severe injury crashes.

http://autos.aol.com/article/roundabouts-reduce-accidents/

[bluestateguy]

2. Traffic circles have never really been a California thing

nt

[Jenoch]

3. Roundabouts work well in regulating

traffic on roads that have high traffic counts in the morning and aftermoon rush hour.

[jberryhill]

5. better than 4 way stops

[bravenak]

4. I got stuck in one on my way from LA to Long Beach one time.

Ten minutes i was just going around and around...... Finally some rich kids who were laughing at me stopped and yelled ,"go ahead and escape!! We won't hit you, hahaha!"

I made it out alive thanks to the kind surfers of SOCAL.

[cantbeserious]

6. Illustrates How Effective Polarization Propaganda Has Become

eom

[FreakinDJ]

7. Smart guy

[Brother Buzz]

8. 'Agenda 21' is the new Libertarian/teabagger dog whistle

Placerville is in California's 4th congressional district - teabagger country.

[KT2000]

9. they are going in all over

I think it is probably a topic at city manger conferences. Nothing to get paranoid about.

They have their benefits and negatives too. They had to put speed bumps in ours because people were speeding straight through rather than going around the circle.
In a way they encourage aggressive drivers - people who enter the circle at higher speeds forcing drivers inside the circle to stop for them.
Pedestrians have a hard time getting through the traffic and placing crosswalks too soon after an exit is risky because drivers are concentrating on getting out and not looking for pedestrians.

They put in three here with no instructions how to use them. It was a mess for a while.

[intaglio]

10. As long as you don't end up with

the Magic Roundabout like Swindon UK