Wednesday, July 31, 2013

WI Republicans, Citing 'Local Control,' Prefer Dangerous Intersection Design

After blowing up local control and home rule when it comes to employee residency, regional transit connections, worker contracts, Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter rail, municipal budgets and water rights near a Northern mining site, Wisconsin Republicans are rediscovering the principle to get rid of...wait for it...roundabout intersection designs.
The Horror Revealed

Aerial view of a roundabout.
(Aerial view of a roundabout, as shown by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.)

And, like crop circles, they are already here. By the hundreds! Can we dig them up? Is there a jobs program in it? Can WEDC get involved?

Though experts agree that roundabouts reduce accidents and their severity when compared with straight-through intersections with 90-degree turns that your great-grandparents preferred in the old-timey, data-free past.

WisDOT has even posted some of the stupid science about the performance of roundabouts that right-wing Republican legislators are rightfully turning away from:
  • 52 percent reduction in fatal and injury crashes
  • 9 percent reduction for all crashes
The fury from the right lane of state politics had been building since radio talker Mark Belling and New Berlin GOP State Senator Mary Lazich first had trouble negotiating roundabouts' mysteries.

Why not get rid of drivers' licenses, stop signs and traffic signals, and just say in Wisconsin you have the Tea Party-verified, God-given right to drive where and how you want?

It's way too complicated, as you can see from these frightening graphics posted by that center of anti-car European propagandizing - - Arizona:
Right Hand Turns
Left Hand Turns
Drivers making right hand turns need to get in the right hand lane and use turn signal following pavement markings and signage.
Drivers making left hand turns need to get in the left hand lane and use turn signal following pavement markings and signage.
Going Straight Ahead

Drivers going straight ahead should use the same lane that they entered in.

6 comments:

Rev. paleotectonics said...

You can't really blame the 'Baggers - they don't have the itsyest bitsyest hope of figuring out how to drive them. Self preservation.

Plus, how dare you use studies to argue the facts? That's cheating, and elitist, and satanic.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Impressively sarcastic edit to the post, James.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Although frankly, I am not surprised that Belling couldn't figure them out.

Gary Wilson said...

I'm a fan of roundabouts and regularly drove them in France. Here's arguably the most famous in the world in Paris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliGIPQ_KHc

I've driven it and it's challenging but functional.

gw - Chicago

boarderthom said...

This reminds me of the psychological studies that show that 5% of the population can not accept change; it doesn't matter if it is good change or bad change, they just can't accept change. Beware of people who can't accept change.

Anonymous said...

They're just mad that they can't find Big Ben or Parliament.