Advocacy & Safety - Six-way stop

The six-way stop. Enter the greatest invention of bicycle facility planners.

Every bike-path, built alongside roads, crosses intersections. Some of these are four-way intersections. Four plus two equals six.

Now, because we have advanced to a higher degree of intelligence, we are able to negotiate the six-way stop: a four way stop with a parallel bike path (with it's own stop signs,) crossing in the pedestrian crosswalk.

Last week I took one of these as an experiment. What did I see?

(NO BULL) At the six-way stop, I saw an ambulance idling. What was on the hood? ("Bonnet," for Aussies.) Knee pads and helmet of a rollerblader, or some other unfortunate path user, who was probably inside the ambulance.

Let's boycott all six-way stops.

:beer:

I not quite sure what you mean by the configuration of this 6-way stop, would it be possible to post a little graphic to get a better idea? (Whatever the config is though, it couldn't worked that well to have already caused an accident....)

Not good with graphics yet. Just picture a regular four-way stop, then add a bike path with it's own stop signs where the path meets the street.

Very confusing, therefore very dangerous.

I'd hate to see one of these "accidents waiting to happen" in which two paths crossed at four-way stop intersection.

I wonder how many deaths it will take before planners revoke this stupid, deadly idea. In many instances of road design, it has taken a very large number of fatal car crashes before planners decided the street design was a lot more dangerous than average and needed redesigning.

Another monstrosity: the rotary. Who invented these? What possible situation could exist such that these would be an improvement?

What's a rotary?

Originally posted by Spire
What's a rotary?

A rotary is a form of traffic circle, an intersection in which traffic flows without the customary stop signs or traffic signals. These are very common in Europe. Older-style designs, with large-radius multilane turns, are very dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians. In contrast, particularly on two-lane roads, newer traffic circles, with tight-radius turns and true traffic calming, are actually not too bad for cyclists and pedestrians.

Originally posted by Spire
What's a rotary?

We call them roundabouts - I rode round (well half to three quarters of the way round) five of them this morning. I can't say they're fun, particularly as these are linked by dual carriageway (twin entrance and twin exit lanes) at the main junctions.

Roundabouts are one of the most common places for collisions particularly with cyclists, the best thing to do is to act just like a car, taking the whole of the lane and signal early and clearly.

Richard

Well, they scare the p!ss outta me. Especially the big, two lane, ones. Too much going on in too many places, and everybody is trying to change their position, either by merging, or exitting, while watching out for everyone else trying to do the same.

Maybe in places where they are common, drivers get good at negotiating them. Good... not safer.

Originally posted by roadbuzz

Maybe in places where they are common, drivers get good at negotiating them. Good... not safer.

Quite a few roundabouts here on the Gold Coast. Trust me, they never get good at negotiating them.

Originally posted by roadbuzz
Another monstrosity: the rotary. Who invented these? What possible situation could exist such that these would be an improvement?

Do you have rotaries in VA? They are very prevalent in the northeast USA and abroad but I didn't think that there were any elsewhere in the USA.

Rotaries are useful if there are several (5+) roads converging. We have an intersection in my town where there 6 or 7 roads coming together with no rotary or traffic lights, just a couple stop signs. Kind of a free-for-all but it works pretty well unless you are new to that particular intersection.