AYLMER, QUEBEC | Traffic circles are not election issues, this time

Traffic circles are not an election issue. That is good because if they were, the congestion would be even greater with the federal candidates, plus mobile film crews, demonstrating that they damn well know how to drive around one of these darn circles -- after twenty tries.

Traffic circles will be an election issue next year. Next November we elect our mayor and councillors. Traffic circles, called roundabouts only on the British Isles, are municipal concerns, not federal, and are a shared domain with the provincial Ministry of Transport.

Contrary to most of the world, where traffic circles are used effectively, we have people hostile to them here. This hostility came to a boil with the new circles on the Boulevard des Allumetières, near and at St. Joseph Boulevard in Hull, QC . The anti-circle crowd claims they are arguing for "safety."

Is it safety from the circle, or safety from drivers' ignorance? If the latter, a public education program might be more fruitful and cheaper than pulling up the asphalt, cement, and roadbed and installing traffic lights.

Stoplights are a significant cause of stop-and-start automotive pollution. They cut traffic into chunks, which move down the avenues as blocks, rather than promoting a steady stream of traffic. Why go backwards to this simplistic technology?

Because it's simplistic. Nobody gives a set of lights a second thought (bad idea), but a traffic circle does require alertness to other cars and pedestrians. We embrace telephones that download e-mail, but we can't figure out how to drive a traffic circle?

There are age and driving-experience factors. Older people (I'm one) may be less interested in new things, while inexperienced drivers may either fear the circles -- or over-estimate their ability to navigate them recklessly. Circles are simpler than the new multi-directional stoplights at many intersections Ð go around a circle a few times, and they are no more difficult than making a turn.

Caution is not always a good thing. It can be immobilizing. And their own caution can immobilize some drivers so they come to a near-stop as they enter the circle. That gets angry horns, which create more caution-alerts in the driver's frozen mind.

These people should be afraid of themselves, and of their caution, not other drivers. And they shouldn't spread this caution Ð fear Ð by getting cranked up about the "excessive" accident rate at the new circles. The accidents are due in part to them.

The circles need to be widened, need better signage, better directional stripes, and some public information, There's been zilch in public education, for pedestrians as well as drivers.

The best idea would be to put a large traffic circle at the Aylmer end of Allumettières, properly gardened, instead of a stop-light combo than kills traffic every five minutes either way. That would prove the value of traffic circles, plainly.

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Copyright © 2008 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/09.08