Look at that thing!

Who thought this makes sense?  Look at the wrecks on it in the short time of it's operation!

This is SOOOooooo in keeping with the absurd state of affairs in Springfield planning these daze.  Something is desperately wrong in the Courthouse.

bluecup:

I cant agree more.  The person who designed this hopefully is in a new line of work.  It shouldn't take a genius to know that a 2 lane roundabout won't work! 

"Multiple lane roundabouts can work."

Now that certainly is true.  They CAN work.

But they can work in the same sense that a person can be dropped off out on the ice pack in January 200 miles north of Barrow Alaska in January...be given a few Inuit survival tools and he could come walking safely into Barrow the next week.  Yup...it can happen....but not for you and me.  We would be Polar Bear Popsicles.  But I'm sure that  for any number of Inuit, it would be a walk in the park.  They would have long racial/cultural/family historys with surviving using the old ways.  Yes....given  special training white people could do it too.  But just dropping random members of the population off out there under such curcumstances wouldn't be a good idea.

Building a round-about like that in the middle of an American town (particularly in proximity to a hospital!) isn't a good idea either.  People will die needlessly in both situations. 

Seems to me that the Ancient Romans built roundabouts for them donkey drawn ox carts out in Europe before the birth of Christ.  Europeans have long experiance with the roundabout concept long before they are old enough to drive.  It's a long standing thing in the culture; like pack-ice survival is for the Inuit.  Here in Eugene, both things are alien and dangerous for the vast majority of the population here.

With it's proximity to that hospital, can you imagine being hysterically driven there after having a severed limb.  Your lifes blood squirting all over the car.  Seconds are hours and your life is draining away....then.....the "ROUND-ABOUT!".  Your driver doesn't know how to use it or someone else on the roundab-out messes up (Very understandable).   You are toast.  And stuff like this is gunna happen, time and time again.  This is completely inappropriate.  This Round-about is an ongoing horror show.

Fedup, I hesitate to guess what the commissioners point of view was while planning this mess! I dread it every time it have to drive it because of those who simply do not pay attention! (Springfield has its share of those types). I guess you are right it can control the traffic in a sense that many people now look for a alternate route. I can just imagine the people who live in plain view of this, the probably sit on the porch at rush hour just waiting to see what happens next. It is a bad joke on us!

There are serveral reasons that I feel this round about makes sense. 

1. It keeps traffic moving.  Instead of having to wait at a light for it to change, you have the opportunity to yield to the traffic coming from your left and go when it is clear
2. More traffic accidents happen at stop lights then at round abouts.  Yes, I realize that there were a few that happen at this round about when it first opened but as time goes by, less and less will occur. 
3. As the new hospital opens and business to this area increases, the round about will become more more useful in getting traffic where they need to go quicker and more effiently.  I would rather not wait at the light that they would have to put in for ever than 'tolerate' the quick and easy in and out of a round about

Come people....I know you are from Springfield where change has always been tough for residents to take but stop complaining about something that makes your life easier.  And for those who don't know the rules of a round about, here they are.  There is only two things to know:

When approaching it, yield to cars in it.

When in it, don't stop and yield to cars not in it.

Was amused to see on KMTR news today an engineer declare the round-about (and I quote) "a success".!!!!!!!

If this is sucess; I have to wonder what it would take to qualify for failure?  Perhaps a firestorm?  Nuclear holocaust?