Fairwell to the roundabouts
22 April 2004
The San Francisco DPT has decided to remove the traffic circles in the Haight, which it installed on a trial basis last year. It's a shame, but this had to happen. Though the benefits of traffic circles are well known, these particular circles failed because they were poorly implemented. They were too small, too transparent -- fundamentally missing the point by actually encouraging vehicle traffic to flow through the intersections too fast. Why couldn't we have installed something more like the fine traffic circles in Portland and elsewhere?
