Streets are only half the picture though. We also need Great Intersections. An intersection, perhaps more than a street, can define a place. Let's start with this flag,
This is perhaps the best city flag in the US (next to STL, of course). It's the crossroads of America. It's this,
The flag of Indianapolis and the center of Indianapolis are the same. Great intersections create a sense of place, and this particular type of intersection, is too absent from the US. Is it a traffic circle, rotary, or roundabout? It's the same idea regardless. Roundabouts are small, rotaries are big, but you still drive in a circle. At the risk of offending traffic engineers, I will conflate the terms here.
This video appeared last summer on urbanSTL and is worth seeing again for those unfamiliar with the concept.
There are several in St. Louis: near the zoo, in Tower Grove Park, and where Halls Ferry meets Goodfellow.
Usually I think of rotaries as important for framing important civic landmarks. Perhaps Paris has one of the best examples of this,
In St. Louis, we have a few nice towers that can be similarly framed.
Roundabouts can do more than just frame landmarks. They can also render impossibly scary intersections into smooth flowing circles, and that's the message I'd like to give to the next mayor of Chicago.
In a recent trip to Chicago, I found myself constantly facing six-way intersections that made no sense at all. How can Chinatown be centered on Cermack and Archer? How can anyone possibly navigate Lincoln Avenue?
At every major intersection on Lincoln Avenue I found myself thinking, "Wow, they need a roundabout here!" People turn in all directions, even 45 degrees. So many lights, cars, and jaywalkers...
That's a lot of US cities though. Now that I'm back home in St. Louis, I see two intersections in my own neighborhood that ought to be roundabouts. Vandeventer Avenue's semi-great streetscape improvement project has left it unwalkable for months (no sidewalks), but what it really needs is two bookend roundabouts.
It might be argued that Shaw and Vandeventer already have a roundabout,
but that's not quite the case. There are still four sets of lights, and turning onto Castleman is kind of confusing. Most roundabouts are one-way, but traffic in front of the Bug Store goes in both directions.
Then there's Kingshighway and Vandeventer.
It isn't a nice intersection because Operation Brightside's field is still empty, the library is oriented towards its parking lot, car lots and gas stations don't add much, and the sidewalk is still torn up and closed. The intersection just isn't meeting its potential. It'd be a great place for a landmark roundabout.
Where else in St. Louis would you like to put a roundabout?
What kind of landmark would you put in the Halls Ferry Circle if you were a bilionaire philanthopist? Fountain? Statue? Spire?
No on Kingshighway as the traffic volume is too great. Where I would like to see rounadabouts is on Lansdowne at River des Peres and Wabash.
ReplyDeleteTraffic volume is higher on the Champs-Elysees, which has several rotaries.
ReplyDeleteGreat call on the Landsdowne spot.
I Grew up in Karachi, Pakistan and watched the evolution of roundabouts. Karachi probably had 20-30 of these left over from British colonial days and when the traffic volumes were low, they worked just fine. It was a pleasure to go around a landscaped area or fountain and see it from every angle.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as the population and traffic grew, the same roundabouts became nightmares at rush hour. They were 3 lane deep but would be filled with traffic and you just had to sit there for a while waiting for a chance to enter them, traffic backing up behind you.
Over the last 20 years, most of the roundabouts in Karachi have been converted to intersections or overpasses/underpasses. The ones with monuments are still there but have been shrunk down.
Ive been in St Louis now for 10 yrs and traffic in here is different .Drivers generally follow the rules so it might work here. Just sharing my experience. To put things in perspective, the population of Karachi is now near 18 million.
Imran
Sure, everything has a maximum capacity. Like Herbie said, roundabouts aren't supposed to carry huge traffic loads.
ReplyDeleteIf it has multiple lanes, then its a rotary that can handle a larger volume of traffic, but even then it'd be designed for a maximum capacity.
A city like Karachi has much higher traffic volumes, amd needs to try much harder to diversify it's transportation infrastructure so that no one system is overloaded.
My main point is that I'd like to see a "Complete Intersections" resolution pass through the board of aldermen. We've got a dozen or so of them in the city that need some attention.
Growing up in North St. Louis, the Halls Ferry Circle was the first real "test" of my driving ability. It took a little time & guts, but soon you learned how to get into the flow, and move into the inner lane, until you neared the street you wanted, then eased to the outer lane. At first, if you were too timid, it could add another trip around, but soon it became second nature.
ReplyDeleteThe roundabouts I saw in Rome and Paris were so busy, plus filled with motorcyclists that didn't seem to be bothered with the rules of road courtesy. I think they work fine here - plus they can be beautiful!
I love the ideas in this post!
ReplyDeleteHere in Long Beach, the traffic circle and Los Coyotes Diagonal are the only major deviations from a nice, effective grid system. Unfortunately, it's center is just a grass field in desperate need of some kind of tower or monument.
Last year, I saw wonderful examples of how traffic circles (or whatever) can be used at London's Picadilly Circus.
In St Louis, there are literally hundreds of intersections that would be perfect for roundabouts. The biggest obstacle is that of adjoining property, as roundabouts (done properly) require significant amounts of space. Be prepared to purchase properties to accommodate spacial needs. Start with Clayton & Lindbergh, and then tackle Brentwood & Eager. There is not a non-interstate intersection too heavily used to benefit from a roundabout. Carmel, Indiana has even incorporated them into intersections along Hwy 431 at 116th, 126th, Carmel Drive, 131st, 136th, etc. It works, and traffic flows wonderfully!
ReplyDelete