Device has folks going in circles

Dear Mahatma: After reading your column last week, I couldn’t help but think of the Kingston Trio’s song about “poor old Charlie” riding on the whatever line. He was the man who never returned! My wife and I were on a roundabout in Conway. After several hours we finally achieved some sort of embarrassing exit and barely made it to the next gas station.

— John

Dear John: Ha! That was funny. We, too, have driven around more than once on a complicated roundabout in Conway. Practice makes perfect.

Could be worse. We were in Washington, D.C., aka Center of the Universe, last year. We were driving, and the Fabulous Babe was navigating as we drove amuck through several of what seemed like the biggest and most confusing traffic circles known to man. During afternoon rush hour. Although, to be fair, rush hour in Washington seemed to us to start about noon and last eight hours.

Thank heaven and techies for navigation systems and the way they instantly reroute the bewildered.

Dear Mahatma: Generally, I am a fan of roundabouts to keep traffic moving. My gripe about the roundabouts around here has to do with the landscaping. It’s so tall that a driver can’t see the other cars in the roundabout until they are right on top of you, making it difficult to see the gaps, which defeats the purpose.

— Mike

Dear Mike: Perhaps you have stumbled on the ageold conflict between form and function.

The city of Little Rock has 21 traffic circles, as reported here last week. We asked Spencer Watson, a city spokes fellow, if there were more in the planning stages. He quotes the traffic gurus in the following manner.

There aren’t any publicly funded roundabouts in the plans, but they will be evaluated as an alternative whenever major intersection reconstruction is on the table. Given their utility as replacements for stop-controlled or signalized intersections, we’re likely to see roundabouts proposed in new residential and commercial developments. As time goes by, of course.

Speaking of last week’s column, we were surprised this thing reached all the way to Portland, Ore., from where an email dinged. It was from Scott Batson, a traffic engineer for the Portland Bureau of Transportation. He’d read our column, accessed via a Google alert he uses as part of his volunteer work with the Transportation Research Board’s roundabout committee, for which he tracks fatal crashes in roundabouts.

Batson addressed last week’s question — to signal when entering a roundabout, or not to signal?

He said a roundabout is a single intersection, just like one that uses stop signs or signals to control traffic. A driver would signal at such an intersection, and so should also signal when approaching an intersection controlled by a roundabout.

Our answer last week was similar but less authoritative: Can’t hurt.

He also reinforced the need and requirement to signal when exiting a traffic circle.

By the way, Portland has more than 60 roundabouts of varying sizes.