Why do the roundabouts at Main/Gray and 126th/Gray have two forward lanes? Is that less safe for pedestrians?
The City Engineering Department conducts traffic studies and pedestrian safety studies in advance of designing each roundabout in Carmel. The traffic analysis of this roundabout as a single lane – or a 2×1 (which is what the City built) vs. a full 2-lane roundabout – was conducted in order to right-size the roundabout for that location.
It was done that way to have more traffic capacity at peak hour times
It was done that way to have more traffic capacity at peak hour times, which means motorists experience less backup queuing. This kind of roundabout configuration is similar to several others around the City.
We feel they are safe for pedestrians. As far as we know we have had no pedestrian safety issues with them. The pedestrian crossing distance is slightly longer but the City still maintained the center refuge island within the median and pedestrians are also still only crossing one direction of traffic at a time.
Authored by Laura Campbell, Sue Finkam, Kevin Rider, Jeff Worrell, Sue Finkam, Miles Nelson, Anthony Green and Adam Aasen.