[flickr dwight_ew 72157625461810084]
Flickr photoset used by permission of Dwight Williams
Despite every appearance of still being a work in progress, the much-touted roundabout on St. Joseph Boulevard finally opened to traffic this afternoon.
Ottawa is not known for doing roundabouts especially well, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists. With that in mind, if you are in Orléans and find yourself ready to brave the new intersection sans auto, the City of Ottawa has issued instructions that you might want to memorize before you try anything as complicated as actually crossing the street.
Ottawa – The City of Ottawa will be opening its first ever two-lane roundabout at the intersection of St. Joseph and Jeanne d’Arc Boulevards at 1 p.m. today.
Pedestrians are reminded to:
* Walk on the sidewalk or path
* Cross only at the designated crosswalks
* Look in the direction of the oncoming traffic and wait for an acceptable gap before entering the crosswalk
* Proceed to the splitter island (median). Before crossing the other lane of traffic, look in the direction of oncoming traffic and wait for an acceptable gap before proceeding to cross
* Never cross the circular roadway to the central island
Cyclists have two options for navigating a roundabout:
* Operate as a motor vehicle. Take control of the lane and ride in the middle, obeying the same rules as motorists or
* Dismount at crosswalk and use the sidewalks and crosswalks as a pedestrian
For more information on roundabouts, visit ottawa.ca.
4 comments
You (or I guess Dwight) should go back now that both lanes are fully open.
You can also watch the intersection live on the City’s traffic camera at http://traffic.ottawa.ca (select the “traffic cameras” layer and zoom in to select the camera there.
I made the trip covered via those photos yesterday morning, so I strongly suspect that your update on the situation’s on the mark. Looking forward to getting another look-see and sharing the results ASAP.
I now I’m going to be accused of not understanding roundabouts but I fear that this one is not going to be very effective. I lived in Britain for many years and used them frequently and found that they worked best where traffic was fairly consistent in all directions and where the roads were a single lane. Double lane roundabouts were a bit of a disaster and I fear that will happen here.
The large number of cars that used to turn from south bound Jeanne D’Arc to west bound St. Joseph was always quite large during the afternoon rush hour. I can imagine that this is going to lead to problems as they travel from the left lane of Jeanne D’Arc around to west bound St. Joseph at the same time as cars entering from west bound St. Joseph try to circle around to north bound Jeanne D’Arc.
At some point, these cars will cross paths and the volume is so high that this is going to lead to severe back ups as cars slow down to avoid each other or lead to numerous fender benders.
The photo essay makes Orleans look like disposable suburban crap. I think I’ve been there before, but I’m not really sure. What would I remember about the place? Is there any architecture at all, or just financing and engineering?