The people who design roads...

[Digger242j]

...obviously don't take the size of possible traffic into account.

Of general interest to those in the industry, and perhaps it'll save somebody some heartache someday.

I've been working on a new home site for a number of years now; several hundred acres of brownfield, in the city, being turned into an upscale residential neighborhood. Initially, access was from one direction only, but the design has always been to provided access from both ends of the property. In the most recent phase of site development, the road was finally completed, and part of that included one of the only roundabouts in this part of the state. This is not, and never was expected to be a "through" route to anywhere, but rather part of the residential neighborhood street grid. As such, the pavement is generally only about 25 feet wide.

There's a cobblestone border around the center island of the roundabout, which has been landscaped with ground cover and shrubbery. There's a wedge curb at the edge of the blacktop, and a second curb that defines the landscaped area. The islands are paved with cobblestones as well, also with that low, wedge curb.

Here's a Google Earth shot of the roundabout during the construction phase. The yellow line is just about the length of a 53' trailer.

 

[Digger242j]

Since the streets to the far end of the site (shown above in their grey stone base color), were opened, probably once every couple of weeks, an 18 wheeler driver has unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate that roundabout, generally to turn around and go the opposite direction.

For the record, we've taken lots of deliveries from trucks with 40' trailers, and they don't seem to have any problems. It's the longer trailers that have difficulty.

Below, a picture of one such attempt, and the resulting damage to the landscaping. (Actually, the tracks over the manhole were from a previous occasion. The rubber marks on the curb, and the ruts just inside it, were from this occasion.

 

[Digger242j]

Those ruts were there most of the summer. A few weeks ago, a landscaping crew spent the day fixing everything up, palnting new ground cover and placing new bark mulch.

The very next morning, somebody ran it over again.

Anyway, the powers-that-be decided it'd be a good idea to place a few large rocks around the perimeter of the landscaping, to keep the trucks off of it. My take on that solution was that it wouldn't really keep the trucks off of it--It's just get one hung up and the whole intersection would be blocked for four hours while they got a wrecker out to get things back in order. Somebody placed the rocks this past Monday morning.

The next two pictures show what happened today. You can see one of the rocks in the first picture. Another one is out of sight, having been dragged all the way onto the blacktop on the far side of the island.





I was wrong about the truck getting hung up, as apparently this driver had enough determination to keep his foot in it and not get stuck. Of course, I'm not sure the company is going to appreciate the effort all that much.





Now, my personal opinion is that if you're going to get behind the wheel, you need to be a little more aware of what's going on, HOWEVER, the frequency with which this happens indicates to me that the engineers really gave no consideration to the fact that this intersection would NEED to be negotiated by large trucks at some point, and that it's a physical impossibility to get around that island with a long trailer.

 

[Truck 505]

I'll match your roundabout and raise you a roundabout with an island at the end.

I have yet to get around the roundabout in my lowboy without getting up in the grass and have never even attempted the island.

The engineer that designed this doesn't have a clue.

 

[Digger242j]

That one's a beauty all right! :rolle

The engineer that designed this doesn't have a clue.

Maybe they went to the same school? :beatsme

 

[CM1995]

We have several round a bouts in some of the upscale neighborhoods around here, hate them. The solution some have come up with is move the inner curb by the landscaping towards the landscape and have a 10-12' cobblestone border for the occasional 53' trailer, usually moving vans. It amazes me that engineers do not take into account that people will actually be moving into a subdivision of new homes.

 

[willie59]

Anyway, the powers-that-be decided it'd be a good idea to place a few large rocks around the perimeter of the landscaping, to keep the trucks off of it.

It appears the design engineer is not aware of the American Grade Stake Killers Assn. If you stick anything in it's path...a truck can run over it.

 

[Digger242j]

The solution some have come up with is move the inner curb by the landscaping towards the landscape and have a 10-12' cobblestone border for the occasional 53' trailer, usually moving vans.

Now, see, that's exactly the solution I'd suggest, but for now, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the powers-that-be specify BIGGER rocks.

And it turns out I was right, but posted before I got the complete info. The guy did get hung up. The one builder's telehandler operator lifted the trailer off the rock that had gotten dragged into the road. He's been told not to do that again. Also, the damage to the trailer included an air bag and two air lines, not just the tire and rim I'd pictured.

 

[Steve Frazier]

It's not just roads that aren't designed properly. I used to drive for a grocery chain and delivered to the stores. One store got a major renovation and they put all these fancy curbed islands around in the parking lot. Well, apparently the architect had no knowledge of trailer trucks and their requirements because after the curbs were poured we couldn't get to the loading dock. They had to rip them out and redesign the parking lot.

 

[Tiny]

Overland Park Kansas has been putting these up every time any road work is more than repaving . The company I work for now a days has job off of renner rd . Some goof of infinite wisdom decided that he would have a round a bout free for all . Getting cranes and loads in and out of there has been less than fun .

To top things off the skinny two lanes you have to work with are constantly shut down to one lane as a contractor thought manlifts needed one lane . just two ways into the job also (marked in red)

 

[Tiny]

The circles can be built so they work correctly . There is one close that works but it takes up some real estate

 

[Tiny]

Coming out of the last round a bout in Overland park

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8v2q-t0OUg&feature=youtu.be

 

[Truck 505]

At least you have round a bout's with two lanes. That didn't look all that bad but I still don't understand what theses engineer's infatuation is with round a bout's.

 

[Oxbow]

At least you have round a bout's with two lanes. That didn't look all that bad but I still don't understand what theses engineer's infatuation is with round a bout's.

Besides trendy aesthetics, I believe they are supposed to provide smoother and faster traffic flow due to the elimination of stop signs and lights. We are getting them more frequently here as well, and few of them are built large enough to comfortably accomodate semis.

 

[Truck 505]

Here are some more round a bouts that I get to deal with.
In the first pic, I am not not really sure why they needed to put one in the middle of a corn field.
In the first three pics, it would have been better if the would have at least made the in and out's straight instead of curved, but still, why did they even put them in at all.
Fourth pic. Does anyone see a reason to put a round a bout here. I didn't and still don't, but guess what, there is one there now.

You can not tell me that it is cheaper to put in a round a bout then to install a stop sign or stop light. O how I miss the good old day's of common sense.

 

[jumbo]

Here are some more round a bouts that I get to deal with.
In the first pic, I am not not really sure why they needed to put one in the middle of a corn field.
In the first three pics, it would have been better if the would have at least made the in and out's straight instead of curved, but still, why did they even put them in at all.
Fourth pic. Does anyone see a reason to put a round a bout here. I didn't and still don't, but guess what, there is one there now.

You can not tell me that it is cheaper to put in a round a bout then to install a stop sign or stop light. O how I miss the good old day's of common sense.

Ok, this is second hand, but, it makes some sense…

Wondering about roundabouts vs. stop signs: In Washington, they are going to roundabouts over stop signs where there are numerous accidents with either major injuries or multiple fatalities over the years. WSDOT’s thought pattern is that roundabouts do not remove the accident problem, but, they reduce the severity of the accidents within a roundabout i.e.: fender-bender vs. fatality. Now if only the idiots were killed or maimed, I would be all for returning to stop signs. Unfortunately, usually it is the innocent who get hurt.

The subject came up last winter while several log trucks (myself included) were waiting for a cat to knock the top two feet of snow off the road so we could get up it to snag a load for the morning. It came from another log trucker who had a conversation with the State Patrol and WSDOT. I do not know if this is the actual reason, but as I said earlier, it does made sense.

 

[Digger242j]

Funny that this just came up again.

I walked past that island on Monday afternoon, and noticed that it hadn't been disturbed since the last time it was fixed up. I thought to myself, "Hmm, maybe more rocks was the solution..."

Here's the scene, Tuesday morning:

 

[Spitzair]

They installed a "lovely" new roundabout not far from where I work and thankfully they made it reasonably level and flat across the top. Occasionally you see tracks going straight across the top of the darn thing. What's wrong with a good ol' 4 way stop?

 

[RonG]

I ran across this with a lowbed several years ago and my choice was rewiring the lowbed was easier than my other options but at least I had a choice.The brain cells get cranking in situations like that and you reason that if you could unload first maybe you would do less damage to things but unfortunately I was on the wrong street anyway so that was out because I had a tracked machine onboard.If you had a rubber tired machine you might be able to pick up the lowbed empty and jog it out of harms way but in any situation like that we never want to hang around too long for the exposure that might go with it.The freight trailers have more ground clearance but moving vans are pretty low too.You would think that the town engineers would pick up on these things before it ever got that far but probably they are the ones that designed it in the first place.Good thread.Ron G