Essay on Traffic Lights and Roundabouts: What’s the Benefit?
Roundabouts, also known as traffic circles, are a modern way to replace traffic lights. They are populating more and more throughout the world and becoming a norm in today’s society. Because of the many positive effects roundabouts have, they have generated a great amount of people wanting them in their communities. When these communities are determining whether or not they want to construct a roundabout, they need to consider the factors which include the cost, location, and safety.
Money is a dominant issue in when considering roundabout construction, while the expenditure of roundabouts can vary from each roundabout. In Iowa, the proposal was incipiently estimated for $853,305 but the result price escalated to $1.5 million (Source D). Roundabouts cost an abundant amount of money to build and take a lot of time. When choosing to build a roundabout, engineers need to realize how much it will take to build a roundabout.
Many times when building one, communities underestimate the outlay. Traffic lights do not seize as much to build, but once they are assembled, they abduct a substantial amount of funds to keep them working. When a city is acknowledging composing a roundabout or a traffic light, they need to cease and determine how considerable they are willing to spend. According to source E, the government compensates for the majority to build roundabouts. The building process can go two ways. In one direction it can be built with more than enough money and have the amount of time and space to do so. Yet in the other direction, it could pull the short end of the straw and get not enough money or time. This then leads into other complications such as, not able to pay the workers, the streets are closed down for longer than they have to, etc. This is a major problem because it could lead to projects being shut down midway through. Along with cost being a colossal consideration being able to have the right location and space is another one.
Roundabouts are built all around the world, not just in America. In Jordan, a desert inhabited third world country, has started building roundabouts. In this case study, they found that roundabout are best placed in urban or suburban areas (source a). This is the case because traffic is most condensed in more urban areas because there are more people per square foot while in rural areas the people are more spread out. Forthmore this is shown in source E, when a man took the same path to work everyday and had many traffic delays but once they installed the roundabout. It helped decrease those traffic delays. When figuring out the best place to place a roundabout, the community needs place roundabouts where they will help the flow of traffic and not hurt it. This relates back to the cost. In one area of the world a roundabout might be $500,00 while in another area the construction might cost $1 million dollars. This demonstrates that engineers need to ensure the roundabout is being built in the most appropriate place. They need to step back not just look at this roundabout but many. They need to see what financially they could do with that particular intersection and what’s the best option for it.
Safety at roundabouts means people both in and out of the car are being protected. The engineers need to take into account, what harm a roundabout can do to a person. It can injure and could be murderous and take someone’s life.. The people outside the car, pedestrians, are the ones most susceptible to that injury or death. In source f, pedestrians often complain about how difficult it is to cross a roundabout safely, because drivers tend to forget about pedestrians, and are focused on getting through the intersection quickly since they yield to the traffic in the circle. Drivers need to focus more about the mother and the baby crossing the street than how fast they can get to work. Pedestrians have the right of way in a traffic light, do they not get the same luxury of the right of way in a roundabout? To ensure it’s safe, they have to think about accidents. From the info graph in source C it points out that accidents are less likely to occur in roundabouts at about 37%.
Also death decrease by 90%. Which shows roundabouts lead to less accident than a traffic circle because the driver isn’t worried about if they are going to make a light or speed through a red light and then hit somebody. On the other hand, in source f, roundabouts can be very confusing. Many drivers are intimidated when coming up to a roundabout which could lead to accidents because they do not know what they are doing and who has the right of way so they just go and cause accidents. There is also the safety of the car. According to source f, roundabouts have less wear and tear on tires and breaks and also fuel efficiency increases. Which illustrates, roundabout are a better choice to save the planet than traffic circles.
Roundabouts and traffic circles are both viable options. They both have assets and liabilities when choosing one option. Though to ensure they are the best option. Engineers have to keep in mind these 3 components or it could lead to lives injured or lost.
