January 21, 2025 • 40 mins
Roundabouts and other innovative intersections offer a number of advantages over more traditional designs, including improved sustainability, reliability, and resilience--and astonishing benefits to traffic safety for drivers. Amanda Austin, the Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT's) lead in implementing these alternative designs, and TTI Research Engineer Marcus Brewer join us this episode to discuss them. For more information on TxDOT's work in this area, see the department's Innovative Intersections web page.
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Episode Transcript
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Allan Rutter (00:14):
Howdy everyone.
Welcome to ThinkingTransportation--conversations
about how we get ourselves andthe stuff we need from one
place to another. I'm AllanRutter with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute. WhenI was growing up, the word
"roundabout" was used in myfamily as a synonym for
meandering, either in a storyor on a journey. By the time I
(00:38):
became a teenager in the earlySeventies, roundabout was the
title of a Prog Rock tune withRick Wakeman keyboards. Today,
we'll define and discuss how"roundabout" refers to a type
of innovative intersectiondesigned to eliminate conflict
points among drivers and reducecrash frequency and severity .
(00:59):
Joining us today are AmandaAustin, transportation engineer
and roundabout and alternativeintersection design (or
RAID)--we're gonna hear aboutthat today--lead in the Texas
Department of Transportation'sDesign Division; and Marcus
Brewer, research engineer withthe Roadway Design Program in
TTI's Transportation Operationsand Roadway Safety Division.
(01:22):
Both Amanda and Marcus arelicensed professional engineers
in Texas. Welcome to you both.
Marcus Brewer (01:28):
Glad to be here.
Amanda Austin (01:29):
Glad to be here.
Thank you so much.
Allan Rutter (01:31):
So as an older person and longtime Texas
resident, I can remembertraffic circles of various
sizes in Texas cities like theone in Waco on US 77, just east
I -35 with a hell camp burgerplace on it, and a big circle
on US 84 on the southside ofLubbock. Now, I've also been in
taxis in Boston, which seems tohave almost as many rotaries as
(01:54):
Dunkin Donuts locations. Canyou either of you tell me about
what are the differencesbetween a traffic circle, a
rotary, or a roundabout? Whatis that all about?
Amanda Austin (02:06):
Very good question, Allan. I'd love to
answer this one because Iactually grew up on the East
Coast, and I've driven throughsome of those rotaries in
Boston and a few in my homestate of Maine. So a good way
to remember is that circularintersections have a lot of
different names. A modernroundabout is a circular
intersection as are trafficcircles and rotaries, but
they're definitely not the samething. Now of those, the modern
(02:29):
roundabout has the tightestdefinition, I would say,
compared to traffic circles androtaries. A rotary is,
generally speaking, a largerintersection, a larger circle,
higher speeds, a little bitmore of a free-for-all. A
couple that I drove through formy driver's test, for instance,
had a rule where it was just,there was an inside lane and
outside lane, and you weavedbetween them as you navigated
(02:52):
the circular intersection.
There's one in Portsmouth, NewHampshire, that is very large.
You could drive around thecircle at 40 plus miles an
hour, and that's typically arotary. Now, a traffic circle
is most often applied to, like,a small neighborhood traffic
calming type of a circle. Itmight just be a small circle of
concrete in the middle of aneighborhood intersection. But
I've also heard "trafficcircle" used for some larger
(03:15):
circles like rotaries as well.
Sometimes traffic circles mighthave a signal incorporated on
it. You may have to stop in themiddle of the circle, whereas
the modern roundabout has threedistinct characteristics. The
first is obviously that it'scircular and that you circulate
counterclockwise--'cause we'rein the U. S., It's opposite in
the UK--because the second isthat you yield on entry and
(03:37):
that's one of the most criticalones. Like I said, some traffic
circles you might enter when asignal tells you to into the
circle, and then you stop tolet other people enter. In a
modern roundabout, you alwaysyield on entry to the
circulating vehicles. Onceyou're in the circle, you have
the right-of-way to exit atyour appropriate exit. The
third aspect of a modernroundabout is slow speeds. And
(03:58):
that's the biggest differencewith these rotaries, is that
you have speeds under 30 milesan hour or for single -lane or
smaller roundabouts, possiblyeven under 25 miles an hour.
You cannot drive around amodern roundabout at 40 plus
miles an hour. They're just notdesigned that way. And because
of that, why we call it modernroundabout is because while
traffic circles and rotarieslike the ones you mentioned,
(04:19):
especially that one in Lubbock,they're older--they're decades
and decades ago--we've learnedthat these circular
intersections operate best withthese three components. And so
modern roundabouts arebasically started in the late
Nineties in the U.S., the earlyTwo Thousands, the last 20 to
30 years. And that's what TxDOT, Texas Department of
Transportation, is proposing.
(04:40):
And we're moving more toinstall these modern
roundabouts with thosecharacteristics.
Allan Rutter (04:46):
So that's very, very helpful , particularly for
a non-engineer like me. Now,before we talk about some of
those alternativeintersections, Marcus, can you
tell our listeners about someof the things that can go wrong
at a traditional intersection,sort of right angle of two
roads? Why would we want tothink about alternatives?
Marcus Brewer (05:05):
Sure, that's a great question. There's a few
key things. When you have justyour traditional four-leg
intersection--you mentionedright angle--it's very
important. We put up all kindsof traffic control devices,
whether it's stop signs ortraffic signals, red, yellow,
green, all kinds of things wecan do. But ultimately people
still have to obey those. Theyhave to abide by those. And you
(05:28):
have instances where peopledon't for various reasons. And
so what that does is thatallows what we call angle
crashes or right -anglecrashes. A lot of people refer
to 'em as T-bone crashes whereyou have one car run into the
side of another. And those tendto be very serious, not only in
terms of damage to thevehicles, but also in injuries
(05:49):
and maybe even fatalities. Andnot only the angle, but also
the speed because you havestraight lines on all four of
those approaches and nophysical restriction on
people's speed as theyapproach, their approach speed.
And you put those thingstogether, you have the
potential for having someserious crashes if people did
not obey the traffic controldevices that are there. And so
(06:12):
those things are not reallypossible at a modern roundabout
because you eliminate thatopportunity for the right
angle. It's just designed suchthat you really can't have
that. And then the speeds arelower again; by design, people
enter and travel through andexit a modern roundabout at
lower speeds. And so anycrashes that do occur are going
to be at smaller angles.
(06:33):
Instead of the 90 degrees, youmay have more like 15 or 20 or
25 degrees. And so they're moresideswipe , more gentle, and at
lower speed, which means damageto vehicles is less and the
chance for injury is greatlyreduced. The chance for
fatality is almost eliminated;not quite, but almost. It's
much more difficult to have afatality at those . Another key
(06:55):
point is that roundaboutsreduce what we call conflict
points within an intersection.
There's places where vehiclestraveling in different
directions meet or cometogether and merge or they
diverge or they cross paths,and there's much fewer of those
conflict points at a roundaboutthan there are at a traditional
intersection. And so all ofthose three things combine to
(07:18):
improve a lot of safety aspectand performance. And we've seen
that in roundabouts that havebeen built in Texas and across
the United States where crashesare reduced, injuries are
reduced by--reduced roughly twothirds, fatalities are reduced
by over 90%. And so the trackrecord is borne out in the
results as far as crashes areconcerned about the safety
(07:39):
performance between roundaboutsand traditional intersections.
Allan Rutter (07:43):
Now, this may be a good time to follow up on
that, Marcus . Amanda, I knowthat your program has, in
talking with other peoplewithin TxDOT , you have some
stats on TDOT's experience withsome of these alternative
intersections.
Amanda Austin (07:59):
Yes . So TxDOT has been doing alternative
intersections in differentareas across the state. Now I'm
gonna touch on something Marcussaid with the conflict points.
Modern roundabouts do have thefewest conflict points, the
slowest speeds out of all ofour intersection types,
generally speaking. But thereare also other types of
intersections that reduce thenumber of conflict points, and
(08:21):
so improve safety. When youreduce the number of
opportunities for vehicles tocross one another's path,
you're going to just get lesscrashes. So some of the other
ones that TxDOT has been doingand is continuing to look into,
they all of course haveacronyms. There's R -cuts and
DDIs and DLTs and MUTs, and allof that. But I'll spell out a
few of them. R -cut stands for"restricted crossing U-turn."
(08:44):
And what that means is, yougenerally take a four-way or a
T-intersection and the minorroad that comes into the major
road is restricted to basicallyright in, right out. When
you're on the minor road andyou're trying to exit, you can
only go right. And so you mightask yourself, well, how am I
supposed to go through or left?
You turn right and then they'redown the way a bit. There's a
(09:05):
designated U-turn location. Itsounds very simple, and I know
sometimes people don't feelcomfortable making U-turns, but
our cuts are pretty much secondto roundabouts in reducing
fatalities and serious injurycrashes. Our cuts have been
shown to reduce fatalities upto 70%; fatal and serious
injury crashes by up to 40%. Sothey're a really great option.
And the reason for that isyou're separating these key
(09:28):
decision points when you onlyhave to turn right; that's all
you can do. And then you do aU-turn and you do them
separately. So you know whenyou're trying to cross traffic,
right? We're taught in driver'sed --left, right, left. You
know, instead of having to dothat and trying to gauge the
oncoming vehicles from onedirection; in the other, you're
just making one decision at atime. R -cuts help in that way.
(09:50):
Median U-turns (or MUTs) arevery similar. You're only
allowed to turn right in, rightout. So again, you do a later
down U-turn. So MUTs and R-cutsare very similar. DDIs are
diverging diamonds, which is avery interesting one. And boy,
that's a little bit harder todescribe without pictures, but
you're basically ... they'reused at freeway interchanges.
And Marcus, if you wanna chimein on a better way, I don't
(10:12):
think I've ever had to describeDDIs before without a visual
aid, but basically when you'recoming off of, like, a freeway
ramp, you can turn left orright and you cross the vehicle
paths across the bridge, and sothey're on opposite sides and
it basically makes left turnseasier.
Marcus Brewer (10:32):
Yep . A lot of times I think of a DDI by a
separate name that sometimespeople give it, which is
"double crossover." And soessentially, if you're a driver
going through the interchange,you cross directions of traffic
twice and you are driving onthe left side of the road for a
very short period of time. Butwhat that does is, it allows
the left turns to get onto theramp much easier. You're down
(10:55):
to two signals and the signaloperation is much simpler.
There's only two phases in eachdirection. You don't have left
turns and throughs and rightsand all the things that take up
a lot of time, but you alsothen reduce the opportunity for
some crashes as well. And soyou drive on the left side for
a little bit. But if you'recontinuing through, then you
cross back over to the rightside and you keep going. And
when designed properly andsigned and everything as it
(11:17):
should be, it's very smooth andyou can go through without
really knowing that you did ittill you're through. And what
ends up happening is that youcan put a lot more vehicles
through a DDI in a shorterperiod of time than you can
with a lot of traditionalintersection designs as well.
Amanda Austin (11:31):
And I will say to the common driver, even
transportation engineers, ifyou're driving through one, you
likely won't even notice ituntil you're through it. I have
driven through one--this is myjob--and I drove through one in
Florida without realizing it.
And it was after I got throughthat--you know, my husband was
driving--I was like, "we justwent through a diverging
diamond!" , you know,"what just happened?" It was so
(11:52):
cool. I was very excited. Butagain, it's something that you
won't notice until you getthrough, but it moves traffic
much more smoothly. It reducesconflict points, and so it
increases safety.
Marcus Brewer (12:02):
And we've seen that here in College Station,
even with the DDI that's on FM60, over 2818 near the airport;
we were having crash problemsthere: T-bone crashes. People
coming in, you know , it's onthe edge of town, high-speed
approach from the west ... andthose crashes have been
eliminated. You can't do thoseanymore. And the traffic
backups that used to occurdon't anymore as well. And it's
(12:23):
been a success. So even locallyhere in the College Station
area, we've seen someimprovements using these types
of alternative intersections.
Amanda Austin (12:32):
So those are just a few of the ones that
we're working on on the ground,and we're looking to put in
even more of them wherever wecan.
Allan Rutter (12:40):
So maybe one way of thinking about this
distinction between arestricted U-turn and a median
U-turn is maybe the scale ofthe U-turn. The median may be a
little wider in terms of howmuch space you've got, but one
of the things that kind ofmeans is that some are more
experienced within Texas onthese things being distributed
around the state. Marcus,what's been the experience or
(13:03):
history in other states? AndAmanda , feel free to chime in
on considering and implementingthese kinds of alternative
intersections. Where else havepeople been doing this and
what's been their experience?
Marcus Brewer (13:16):
That's a great question, Allan. As with a lot
of things, different states dodifferent programs and
initiatives at different timesand different speeds.
Definitely North Carolina hasbeen at the forefront, I would
say, of implementing thesetypes of innovative or
alternative intersections. Andthey've done so with great
success. They have done quite anumber of, not only
(13:36):
roundabouts, but definitelygetting into the DDIs, into the
R-cuts or the median U-turns.
Another state is Michigan; andif you ask them, MUT might
stand for "Michigan U-turn"instead of median U-turn,
because they were kind of atthe forefront of that even
before a lot of the alternativeintersection type of movement
really started to take holdwith some of these other
(13:57):
designs. And they've been using'em for a long time and doing
it well. Kansas is anotherstate I'm familiar with--not as
high population as the othertwo that I mentioned--but they
have been more proactive atbuilding in particular
roundabouts on their statehighway system, not just around
urbanized areas and populationcenters, even on their rural
intersections, to try toaccommodate some of these. And
(14:18):
that's one thing, I think, tokeep in mind is that all of
these intersections we'retalking about have as one of
their focuses, the intent tobetter accommodate left turns,
both in terms of safety and interms of operations. Because
those left turns take moretime, they involve more
potential conflicts, lots ofthings go into that. And if we
can make that easier oneverybody, then the system
(14:40):
works better and people can getfrom place to place more
efficiently and more safely.
And so some of these otherstates have kind of taken the
lead on that and developed someguidance that they've followed,
and other states then kind offollow suit after we see the
track record and they continueto improve the system in Texas
and elsewhere as a result.
Allan Rutter (15:00):
So Amanda, as you guys have been standing up this
RAID--roundabout andalternative intersection
design, RAID --as you guys havebeen doing this, what are some
of the other ways you've beendescribing or advocating for
the consideration of these withyour colleagues within TxDOT?
What's the sales pitch for the... here's why, even though
(15:23):
this isn't a traditional thingin terms of multiple years,
here's why you should thinkabout this.
Amanda Austin (15:29):
Very good question, and I have several
different sales pitches ofvarious links. Naturally, I
will say briefly, just to tieback to what Marcus said about
other states, RAID--the acronymactually comes from Georgia;
DOT Georgia sent the head oftheir RAID department to us in
Texas. We requested that theywould come, and they came and
gave a presentation at aroundabout summit that we held
(15:51):
a couple years ago in May withrepresentatives from most of
our districts. And they gave anexcellent presentation on how
they started doing roundabouts.
So I always like to give ashout-out to Georgia DOT,
because that presentation had areally big impact on our
program, and we decided to nameit RAID after that. Although I
will say that, from a PRstandpoint, RAID is often seen
(16:12):
more as a bug spray. So weended up naming our program the
Innovative IntersectionsProgram. And so we have a
TxDOT.gov website forinnovative intersections. So
that's a little bit moreinformation on the RAID
acronym. But as for a salespitch, the short and sweet one
is knowing the stats for thesealternative intersections and
roundabouts in particular. Youknow, Marcus mentioned 'em
(16:34):
earlier, but I just, I alwayslike to restate them because
they're so powerful.
Roundabouts reduce fatalitiesby 90%, nine outta 10. We don't
have anything short of a fullygrade separated interchange
where there are no conflictpoints. We don't have anything
else in our toolbox with thatsafety record. It's just, it's
astonishing. We work in smallpercentages most of the time.
(16:54):
We try to make our lane widthscorrect, we try to do good
shoulder widths, you know,approve a little here, a little
there. But a roundabout in onefell swoop pretty much
eliminates fatalities. And thefew fatalities that do happen
are usually single vehicleunder the influence at night.
It's very, very rare thatthere's a multi-vehicle
incident with a fatality at aroundabout. And so the shortest
(17:15):
pitch I have is if we'reserious about eliminating
roadway fatalities, you know,in Texas, that's our Vision
Zero. Some states call it Roadto Zero, but we all agree that
zero fatalities is what weshould be shooting for--no
fatalities acceptable on ourroadways. And so if we're
serious about Vision Zero,we're serious about ending
roadway fatalities, we've gotto get serious about
roundabouts. A third of ourfatalities on our roadway are
(17:38):
due to intersections, andthey're primarily because of
those troublesome left turnsthat Marcus talked about.
That's where the severe T-bonecollisions come in. And so if
we know that a third of ourfatalities are intersections
and roundabouts reducefatalities by 90% or R-cuts by
70%, we really need to belooking at these at every one
of our intersections, everysingle one. We've gotta take a
(17:59):
look at those. The way that wedo that now is within our
project development process.
You know, when we havecorridors that we're improving
or we have troublesomeintersections, we just
established an intersectionevaluation process where we are
asking anytime that wereconstruct an intersection,
we're gonna look at all of ouroptions. That's something that
TxDOT is doing now that'spretty new for us. We stood
(18:21):
that up in June, so about sixmonths ago . And districts are
learning how to do that. Sothat's what my RAID team does,
is we support our districtswith resources, with training,
with, you know, subject matterexperts to look at all these
different types ofintersections, figure out
what's gonna work best, where,and then implement them.
Sometimes our districts needhelp with public involvement. A
(18:42):
lot of times theseintersections are completely
foreign to people, you know. Adiverging diamond, they may
never have seen one, or theymight have some preconceived
notions about roundabouts,especially if they've driven
through one of these trafficcircles we were talking about.
And so we provide support tohelp educate stakeholders,
educate the public on just howpowerful these are. To go back
(19:03):
to my elevator speech or why Iadvocate for these, the safety
stats are really, reallypowerful. But there's a lot
more that roundabouts can do aswell. One of the simplest ones
that people often don't thinkabout is that they're one of
the most resilientintersections that we have.
Resilience is a very big dealhere in Texas with all of the
natural disasters that we getof all varieties. But typically
(19:23):
any natural disaster is gonnaknock out the power. When the
power goes out, our signalsstop working, and when the
signals stop working, trafficbacks up. But roundabouts don't
have signals, so they just,they keep working. Florida in
particular, they're installinga lot of roundabouts, they're
promoting it from the DOT leveldown to the local level. And
it's primarily because of theresilience of them and the
(19:44):
operations improvements aswell. Because roundabouts, you
yield on entry, you don't haveto stop. If there's an opening,
you go, so the next time you'resitting at a red light for two,
three minutes or you knowyou're approaching the light
turns yellow and you stop andyou know you've got the full
cycle to wait through and, youknow, you're looking at the
intersection and, say, all theother legs have flushed out,
(20:06):
nobody's going through theintersection, you're just
waiting for your light to turngreen. Just think to yourself,
if that was a roundabout, Icould have driven through it by
now. So there's a lot ofdifferent benefits to
roundabouts. They can bedesigned to accommodate bikes
and peds really well. They canbe designed to accommodate
trucks. They're very flexible,they're very site specific. So
if you couldn't tell, I'm verypassionate about it, I get very
(20:26):
excited about them. I justthink they're the bee's knees.
Allan Rutter (20:29):
After hearing you talk about that, Amanda, it's
like I want to go out andspread the roundabout gossip
. But you mentionedtrucks, so let's talk about
that a little bit. One of thethings we've been helping
TxDOT's district out in Odessadeal with increased truck
traffic, particularly the factthat you have almost urban
levels of traffic and entriesand exits, lots of curb cuts to
(20:53):
go to industrial sites, butthey're on roadways that are
designed for rural purposes,and that has some real issues
with it. And so as we thoughtabout, hey, you know, maybe
this would be a goodopportunity, particularly for
some T-bone intersections,where one road ends into
another roundabouts mightreduce some of those conflict
points. And particularly fortrucks which have acceleration
(21:16):
problems, maybe there might besome alternatives there. What
are some of the things thatroadway designers need to
consider to build a roundaboutso that it accommodates trucks,
even larger trucks, oversizedand overweight ? I'll start
with you Marcus, but I knowAmanda has some things you can
contribute to that too.
Marcus Brewer (21:34):
Sure, thanks.
Yeah, there are some key thingsto consider because it is a bit
of a balancing act becausethat's one of the things as we
talked about already that makesroundabouts work so well, is
the lower speed. And to do thatyou typically have a smaller
footprint, your circle issmaller, your circulating
roadway is smaller to helpencourage that. But when you're
(21:56):
working with trucks, whenyou're specifically focusing on
getting trucks through anintersection and or when it is
in a rural area, that tends tobe higher speed, there's a
different balance to manage theneeds of the users there. And
so in many cases that circle ismade a bit larger, the speed is
a little bit higher, but stillnot great, what I call a really
(22:17):
high speed, probably in the 35mile per hour range, maybe 40 ,
which is still quite a slowdownfrom your typical rural
highway, but not bad. But youalso then tend to make wider
lanes for those trucks,particularly if it's
oversized/overweight on theapproach and within the
(22:37):
circulating roadway. But alsoin order to not overcorrect and
not provide a wide openenvironment, if you will for
passenger vehicles, you don'twiden the lane completely. But
what you can do is addsomething called a truck apron
in the middle to where there'sstill a bit of a curb there.
But a truck traveling at thoselower speeds and the larger
vehicle can mount that curb,can get up on that curb and use
(23:00):
that extra space to travelaround the circle and still
provide kind of a widerfootprint or a bigger turning
path for those larger vehiclesto make it through. And that
can be accomplished. And we'veseen it--again, North
Carolina--we've seen it inKansas. Kansas has a roundabout
that's specifically designedfor that near a large
distribution center wheretrucks, 18-wheelers are the
(23:22):
primary design vehicle, if youwill. It's very heavy on
trucks. And similar to what youmentioned Allan, out in the
Odessa District and some of theenergy exploration where those
larger vehicles make up a veryhigh proportion of the traffic
stream. There's also some otherthings that can be done if you
know that you have a heavyright-turn movement. For
example, you can make a bypasslane that goes around the
(23:45):
intersection completely forright turns only that takes
those vehicles out of thecircle and can improve that.
And that can still be done onappropriate speed. It's not a
high-speed right-turn lane, butit, it helps to facilitate that
travel around. And so there's afew other things that can be
done. I've even seen examplesof roundabouts that are on
(24:06):
routes that are commonly usedfor oversize/overweight. You
can put extra things in thecenter, you know, maybe you
have barricades that you cantemporarily remove and they can
drive straight through becauseyou've shut down that
intersection basically for thatoversized vehicle to use. And
so there aren't any conflictingvehicles at that moment when it
goes through, and you can makesome adjustments. So there are
(24:27):
a fair number of tools in thetoolbox for the designer to
use, but those things do haveto be considered early on in
the design process so that theneeds of the intended users can
be included in the designthat's ultimately put on the
ground.
Amanda Austin (24:42):
Very good points, Marcus . And something
you touched on (24:43):
good design has to balance the needs of
multiple different users,right? So you know, a good
roundabout, it's a very, verydelicate and fine line between
right-sizing it, making itsmall enough to reduce those
speeds, like you said, butlarge enough to accommodate
trucks. And so one of the onesthat I had the privilege of
working on was up in WashingtonState. They had a truck route,
(25:05):
they were building a new route,new road. We don't see brand
new roads very often anymore,but it was a brand new route to
bypass a small little town thatwas completely inundated by a
local rock quarry. The name ofthe town was called Granite
Falls, so that gives you asense of what that was there.
But they had these, we callthem dum-and-pups, which is the
dump truck with a big trailerway out behind it. And they
would have those going throughtheir little town about three
(25:26):
every minutes. So the state andthe county got together,
decided to build an alternateroute, and they decided they
wanted to put three roundaboutson that route. And the very
first one that you come to whenyou're, you know, headed
towards the quarry is a T-intersection. It's a
single-lane roundabout and it'snot that big. We actually
measured the circulating speedsafter it was installed and they
were about 20 to 22 miles anhour. So it's actually pretty
(25:48):
slow. But it was designed toaccommodate these
dump-and-pups. But we also hadto accommodate
oversize/overweight. There wasa 112-foot-long lowboy truck
that had to be accommodated.
And when we ran it through thedesign we made sure, again,
those truck aprons that Marcusmentioned were appropriately
sized. We had truck aprons bothon the outside of the
roundabout and the inside ofthe roundabout and we did a
(26:09):
test run. And when the low boycame through the road hadn't
been finished yet, so he had topull a U-turn. And so this
112-foot-long permit-only loadtruck pulled a U-turn through
this roundabout--besides it'sabout 150 feet in diameter--and
it made it without driving overany of the curbs. Didn't end up
in the center island, it didn'tdrive off the road, it made it.
(26:30):
And so I often hear like, "oh,you know, roundabouts can't
accommodate trucks, there's noway, you know, it's this tight
little circle." It's like, wellhow many other intersections
that you know of canaccommodate a U-turn by
112-foot-long truck? So whendesigned well, they can. And
one other thing I wanted totouch on is the truck aprons.
Like you mentioned, a lot ofdrivers, we don't really use
truck aprons very much else inour roadway designs. They're
(26:52):
pretty rare. And so oftentimesdrivers, even truck drivers we
find are not familiar with whatthese are. So if you're ever
driving through a roundaboutand you see a raised concrete
area, but it's maybe onlyraised a few inches, it's a
different color. It's got likea stamped concrete that is a
truck apron . So if you see atruck driving over it, they're
supposed to, it's designed forthat. It's usually a thicker
concrete, reinforced concrete.
(27:13):
And so that touches on one areathat I think is really
important to accommodatingtrucks is, design is the first
step. But the second is, yougotta do good outreach. That's
something we're working on as aprogram is outreaching to the
freight industry as a whole andmaking sure they understand
what these features are. Butalso, you know, I see outreach
as, it's often a two-waystreet. I've had some
conversations with the TexasTrucking Association and when I
(27:35):
go out and talk with them, Ialways want to hear back what
their concerns are. You know,in talking with the specialized
carriers and riggingassociation, we had a really
good conversation with them.
They kind of laughed because alow boy for them is, like,
entry level . They only go upfrom there, you know, they're
the ones hauling the windturbines and the really, really
big loads. And that's where youget into like what Marcus
(27:56):
talked about. You know, youmight have to provide a way for
them to just drive straightthrough the roundabout, but
when those loads come through,they're pretty much shutting
down the road anyways. Buthaving those conversations and
making sure we understand whattheir trucks are, so we're
always improving our designs,but then also helping to
educate their drivers on, youknow, the truck aprons, the
best way to navigateroundabouts, especially if you
have a multi-lane roundabout. Ithink that's a really important
(28:18):
aspect as well to make surethat they can get through there
as best as they can.
Allan Rutter (28:23):
Amanda, I can testify to your advocacy and
your outreach. I first heardyou talk about the program at
the Texas Freight AdvisoryCommittee meeting earlier this
year where you were doing thattargeted outreach. "Let's talk
to freight folks about whatthis looks like, how to make
sure that you're accommodatingtheir interest." And that's
where I learned how effectiveAmanda is as a communicator.
(28:46):
And two , here's the reallygreat example of doing some
outreach. Now, one of thethings you guys have talked
about is what a roundabout doesto decrease speed. I've gotta
admit that I've had to help mybride of more than 40 years
become a roundabout fan. Welive north of Frisco. And I
think Frisco, Texas, has moreroundabouts than almost any
(29:07):
other city in the country. AndI think I've got her to
understand that the speeddifferential is one of the
design purposes. But one of thethings that our neighbors, they
tend to approach some of theseroundabouts as Formula-1 road
features, not necessarilysomething to be slowing down
for. So talk a little bit abouthow signage, both advisory
(29:29):
speeds and how to tell peoplewhat to do once they see the
lanes, how to communicate todrivers to come into a
roundabout and use it to makethe most of its design purpose.
Marcus Brewer (29:41):
I think it's important to stress to drivers
who may not be familiar withroundabouts that, while
everyone does indeed have toslow down when you approach a
roundabout, not necessarilyeverybody has to stop. Amanda
mentioned it earlier abouthaving to stop for a red signal
when nobody's there. Theslowing down is necessary, but
not having to stop, you cankeep going through. And it
(30:03):
really does help in theefficiency. And while it may
seem counterintuitive, theslowing down part, just like
not being able to drive in astraight line, if you're going
straight through, the fact isit really does work better. And
the more you drive throughthem, the more familiar you
become with it and youunderstand it, at least on some
level, even if maybe it'sdifficult to put into words,
the familiarity definitelyhelps. But if you're talking
(30:25):
about rolling out a roundabouton a new location or you know,
a new group of drivers that maynot be familiar with them ,
it's really important to stressthat. Yes, there are some
different things you need toknow. The yielding is
important. We see a lot oftimes people as it turns out,
don't necessarily encounter alot of yield signs elsewhere
other than on freeway ramps.
And so they may not be asfamiliar with that as we think
(30:46):
they are, but it's there for apurpose and it really does
work. And then again, thesafety benefits are just
tremendous. And sounderstanding, you know, you
pull up, you yield, you lookleft, if no one's there, you
can keep going. You don't haveto wait for a signal. And then
you pick where you want to exitthe roundabout and you keep
going. And it really does workphenomenally well. It does
(31:08):
require the driver to maybe paya little more attention rather
than "is the light red orgreen?" But in the long run, it
really does work not only forthe individual driver, but for
the system as well.
Amanda Austin (31:19):
And I try to reassure drivers too, it can be
overwhelming if you're notfamiliar with roundabouts just
because it's new. But, say,you're at the local grocery
store and when you pull outtathe grocery store, you have to
make a left. You've gotta dothat complicated head movement,
right? You're looking in bothdirections. You know, cars are
going pretty high speed. That'sactually a more difficult
maneuver than driving through aroundabout because when you
(31:41):
pull up to a roundabout, youonly look left, you don't have
to look right. Cars are onlycoming at you from one
direction, and they're goingrelatively slow. So like Marcus
said, you look left whenthere's an opening, you go and
then you proceed to your exit.
It really is that simple. Itdoes get a little bit more
complicated at multilaneroundabouts. The key to that, I
tell drivers, is pick your laneahead of time. According to the
signage, there should always bedestination signs , giving you
(32:04):
a clue as to which lane to bein. A general rule of thumb is
that it's really not that muchdifferent from a traditional
signalized intersection. If youwanna turn right, you know,
forget there's a circle infront of you. If the road
you're going to is to yourright, you should probably be
in the right lane. If the roadyou wanna end up at is to your
left, you probably need to bein the left lane. If you're
going straight through, you'reproceeding, you know, on the
(32:26):
same road, you can probably getin either lane. A general rule
of thumb--there are someexceptions--there are some
roundabouts with two leftturn-lanes. So you could
technically turn left from theright lane, but those are rare.
But look at the signage,proceed slowly. If the signs
are coming up to you, slowdown, you know, digest the
sign, get in the correct lane,and then follow that lane
through the roundabout. Goodroundabout design, you should
(32:47):
never have to change lanes inthe roundabout. Now, those old
school rotaries and trafficcircles, you might, but the
modern roundabouts we'reputting in, you choose your
lane ahead of time, you followit all the way through. The
other thing I tell people isdon't panic if you get to the
yield line and you need asecond to decide if you have an
opening. You know, don't honkat the person in front of you
if you're used to roundaboutsand they're moving too slow.
(33:08):
I've seen people do some crazymistakes in roundabouts. I've
seen people drive the wrongway, turn left into a
roundabout and drive the wrongway around . And of all those
videos I've seen, I haven'tseen a collision because
everybody's going so slow, theycan stop. They can accommodate
the person who doesn't knowwhat they're doing. So just,
you know, take a deep breath,let people figure it out,
you'll figure it out, andyou'll get through it. It might
make you nervous, but it'sgonna be okay.
Allan Rutter (33:31):
It's both reassuring and it kind of
speaks to maybe the finalquestion, what's likely to
happen, at least in Texas, inthe future? What are the
prospects for these innovativeintersections, Amanda, are we
gonna see more of them? What'sbeen the experience that you've
had with your colleagues withinthe districts around the state?
(33:51):
And for our listeners, Texashas 25 districts, we're a
big-ass state, so there's lotsof us. What's been your
experience in how people haveresponded, and what's likely to
happen in terms of are we gonnasee more of this?
Amanda Austin (34:05):
That's a great question. You know, when we
started this program, we didn'treally know what the response
would be , but I've been reallypleasantly surprised. I would
say that there are a lot ofpeople out there within TxDOT,
within our local agencypartners, cities, and counties
that have wanted to do or havebeen trying to do roundabouts,
alternative intersections foryears and are just really
(34:25):
excited that TDOT is on boardand supporting these. And so
I've had people come outta thewoodwork, to be honest, asking
for our support, asking forhelp, just really excited to
get these off the ground. So Ithink they're here to stay and
I think we're gonna see a lotmore of them. Now. I will say,
when it comes to the pace ofchange, a lot of people don't
realize that roadway projectstake many, many years. If you
(34:47):
think of a roundabout today, itcould be 5 to 10 years before
you see it on the ground.
Oftentimes within our projectdevelopment process,
particularly at TxDOT, roadwayprojects--you might spend a
couple years planning it. Youspend a couple more years
designing it, possiblypurchasing right-of-way if you
need a little additional space.
So you're looking at anywherefrom two to five years in the
planning and design stage, thenyou gotta find funding for it.
(35:10):
So, you know, we're oftenlooking at projects four or
five years down the road. Ithink the pace is going to pick
up, it's going to accelerate,but it could be a few more
years before we really see thefruit of this program on the
ground. So I'm still veryexcited. Pretty much every
district I've talked to, everypart of the state, I'm excited
to see several projects, bothin our Pharr District, in our
Lubbock District movingforward, roundabouts and R
(35:32):
-cuts. They're excited to havetools in their toolbox to
reduce fatalities. And so Ithink that while we have a long
ways to go, I think we arealready making good progress
and excited to see how muchfurther they can go. I will say
we started a database, you canaccess it through our TxDOT
.gov innovative intersectionswebsite. We started counting...
we have over 900 of theseinnovative intersections across
(35:55):
the state of Texas right now,and over 650 of them are modern
roundabouts. So you know, we'vebeen doing these for a while ,
but now we have a big push toreally make sure we consider
them everywhere, on everyintersection we reconstruct. So
I hope to keep building thatdatabase as quickly as we can.
Allan Rutter (36:12):
Well, that is really cool to know. And it's
also great to know, a part ofhaving a program is, you
measure what you're alreadydoing. That's an important
thing. Now both of you guys areclearly motivated to make a
positive difference in trafficsafety. Tell me, tell our
listeners maybe, what are someof the reasons you're eager to
show up for work every day?
Amanda Austin (36:31):
I'll say, I think this has been my most
favorite job I've ever had. I'mobviously very excited about
roundabouts, but more so I'mvery excited to be able to make
a difference in my world oftransportation engineering. I'm
very inspired by the Road toZero or Vision Zero, or
eliminating roadway fatalities.
Every time I hear about a crashon the news, I immediately
(36:51):
think, what can we dodifferent? And so I am inspired
and motivated and convictedreally from an engineer's
perspective to do everything inmy power to save lives on our
roadways. So I'm motivatedevery day to build this
program, to improve ourintersections. And honestly,
I'm very grateful to theleadership that we have at
(37:12):
TxDOT that supports theseefforts, and they've given me
space and flexibility andresources to pursue these tools
that really reduce fatalities.
And so I am excited because Ihave these opportunities, and
we're always trying to think ofnew ideas, new innovations, and
the way that we do our designto save lives. And I've never
had another job quite like it,and it's pretty exciting.
Marcus Brewer (37:33):
I would echo some of those points in that
it's great to be able to applythings that we know into making
people's lives better, in thiscase on the roadway, so that
they can get from place toplace more safely. They can do
so more efficiently, spend lesstime getting from place to
place and actually more timedoing what they wanna do. And
(37:54):
roundabouts are a great exampleof that. And other intersection
types as well to be able toapply things that we've learned
not only about roadway designand operations, but about what
we've learned on how peopledrive and how vehicles can
perform and really help people.
And that's what I really enjoybeing able to do, is helping to
(38:14):
improve those things. Androundabouts are one more tool
in the toolbox that lets us dothat. And you know, a lot of
the things that maybe theaverage driver drives through
on a given day, they're notgonna notice all of the efforts
that the research went into toput that on the ground. But
that also kinda means we'redoing our job, 'cause that
means it works and people areable to just go about their
business. And if we're doingthat, then we are in fact
(38:37):
helping not only people of thestate of Texas, but drivers in
general as a profession. Andit's really exciting to be able
to do that.
Allan Rutter (38:46):
Well, that is great. And clearly both of you,
those answers indicate a senseof purpose and the means by
which to make a positivedifference. Hopefully this
explanation of what innovativeintersections will do for our
listeners is help themunderstand and why this is
being done in their interest.
Thanks to both of you forjoining us today, and I really
(39:09):
appreciate you being part ofour podcast.
Amanda Austin (39:12):
Thanks so much for having us.
Allan Rutter (39:15):
During our conversation, Amanda told us
that in Texas, almost one-thirdof traffic fatalities occur at
intersections, and roundaboutscan reduce intersection
fatalities and injuries by 90%.
Given the number of 2023traffic fatalities in Texas,
this means that almost 1,500Texans lost their lives in
(39:36):
intersection crashes.
Thoughtful planning forinnovative designs can begin to
reduce that number ofintersection fatalities, one
intersection at a time. Thanksfor listening. If you liked
what you heard or learnedsomething, please take just a
minute to give us a review,subscribe, and share this
episode. I invite you to joinus next time for another
(39:59):
conversation about gettingourselves and the stuff we need
from point A to point B.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A & M
Transportation Institute, amember of The Texas A&M
University System. The show isedited and produced by Chris
Pourteau. I'm your host, AllanRutter. Thanks again for
joining us. We'll see you nexttime .
Howdy everyone.
Welcome to ThinkingTransportation--conversations
about how we get ourselves andthe stuff we need from one
place to another. I'm AllanRutter with the Texas A&M
Transportation Institute. WhenI was growing up, the word
"roundabout" was used in myfamily as a synonym for
meandering, either in a storyor on a journey. By the time I
(00:38):
became a teenager in the earlySeventies, roundabout was the
title of a Prog Rock tune withRick Wakeman keyboards. Today,
we'll define and discuss how"roundabout" refers to a type
of innovative intersectiondesigned to eliminate conflict
points among drivers and reducecrash frequency and severity .
(00:59):
Joining us today are AmandaAustin, transportation engineer
and roundabout and alternativeintersection design (or
RAID)--we're gonna hear aboutthat today--lead in the Texas
Department of Transportation'sDesign Division; and Marcus
Brewer, research engineer withthe Roadway Design Program in
TTI's Transportation Operationsand Roadway Safety Division.
(01:22):
Both Amanda and Marcus arelicensed professional engineers
in Texas. Welcome to you both.
Marcus Brewer (01:28):
Glad to be here.
Amanda Austin (01:29):
Glad to be here.
Thank you so much.
Allan Rutter (01:31):
So as an older person and longtime Texas
resident, I can remembertraffic circles of various
sizes in Texas cities like theone in Waco on US 77, just east
I -35 with a hell camp burgerplace on it, and a big circle
on US 84 on the southside ofLubbock. Now, I've also been in
taxis in Boston, which seems tohave almost as many rotaries as
(01:54):
Dunkin Donuts locations. Canyou either of you tell me about
what are the differencesbetween a traffic circle, a
rotary, or a roundabout? Whatis that all about?
Amanda Austin (02:06):
Very good question, Allan. I'd love to
answer this one because Iactually grew up on the East
Coast, and I've driven throughsome of those rotaries in
Boston and a few in my homestate of Maine. So a good way
to remember is that circularintersections have a lot of
different names. A modernroundabout is a circular
intersection as are trafficcircles and rotaries, but
they're definitely not the samething. Now of those, the modern
(02:29):
roundabout has the tightestdefinition, I would say,
compared to traffic circles androtaries. A rotary is,
generally speaking, a largerintersection, a larger circle,
higher speeds, a little bitmore of a free-for-all. A
couple that I drove through formy driver's test, for instance,
had a rule where it was just,there was an inside lane and
outside lane, and you weavedbetween them as you navigated
(02:52):
the circular intersection.
There's one in Portsmouth, NewHampshire, that is very large.
You could drive around thecircle at 40 plus miles an
hour, and that's typically arotary. Now, a traffic circle
is most often applied to, like,a small neighborhood traffic
calming type of a circle. Itmight just be a small circle of
concrete in the middle of aneighborhood intersection. But
I've also heard "trafficcircle" used for some larger
(03:15):
circles like rotaries as well.
Sometimes traffic circles mighthave a signal incorporated on
it. You may have to stop in themiddle of the circle, whereas
the modern roundabout has threedistinct characteristics. The
first is obviously that it'scircular and that you circulate
counterclockwise--'cause we'rein the U. S., It's opposite in
the UK--because the second isthat you yield on entry and
(03:37):
that's one of the most criticalones. Like I said, some traffic
circles you might enter when asignal tells you to into the
circle, and then you stop tolet other people enter. In a
modern roundabout, you alwaysyield on entry to the
circulating vehicles. Onceyou're in the circle, you have
the right-of-way to exit atyour appropriate exit. The
third aspect of a modernroundabout is slow speeds. And
(03:58):
that's the biggest differencewith these rotaries, is that
you have speeds under 30 milesan hour or for single -lane or
smaller roundabouts, possiblyeven under 25 miles an hour.
You cannot drive around amodern roundabout at 40 plus
miles an hour. They're just notdesigned that way. And because
of that, why we call it modernroundabout is because while
traffic circles and rotarieslike the ones you mentioned,
(04:19):
especially that one in Lubbock,they're older--they're decades
and decades ago--we've learnedthat these circular
intersections operate best withthese three components. And so
modern roundabouts arebasically started in the late
Nineties in the U.S., the earlyTwo Thousands, the last 20 to
30 years. And that's what TxDOT, Texas Department of
Transportation, is proposing.
(04:40):
And we're moving more toinstall these modern
roundabouts with thosecharacteristics.
Allan Rutter (04:46):
So that's very, very helpful , particularly for
a non-engineer like me. Now,before we talk about some of
those alternativeintersections, Marcus, can you
tell our listeners about someof the things that can go wrong
at a traditional intersection,sort of right angle of two
roads? Why would we want tothink about alternatives?
Marcus Brewer (05:05):
Sure, that's a great question. There's a few
key things. When you have justyour traditional four-leg
intersection--you mentionedright angle--it's very
important. We put up all kindsof traffic control devices,
whether it's stop signs ortraffic signals, red, yellow,
green, all kinds of things wecan do. But ultimately people
still have to obey those. Theyhave to abide by those. And you
(05:28):
have instances where peopledon't for various reasons. And
so what that does is thatallows what we call angle
crashes or right -anglecrashes. A lot of people refer
to 'em as T-bone crashes whereyou have one car run into the
side of another. And those tendto be very serious, not only in
terms of damage to thevehicles, but also in injuries
(05:49):
and maybe even fatalities. Andnot only the angle, but also
the speed because you havestraight lines on all four of
those approaches and nophysical restriction on
people's speed as theyapproach, their approach speed.
And you put those thingstogether, you have the
potential for having someserious crashes if people did
not obey the traffic controldevices that are there. And so
(06:12):
those things are not reallypossible at a modern roundabout
because you eliminate thatopportunity for the right
angle. It's just designed suchthat you really can't have
that. And then the speeds arelower again; by design, people
enter and travel through andexit a modern roundabout at
lower speeds. And so anycrashes that do occur are going
to be at smaller angles.
(06:33):
Instead of the 90 degrees, youmay have more like 15 or 20 or
25 degrees. And so they're moresideswipe , more gentle, and at
lower speed, which means damageto vehicles is less and the
chance for injury is greatlyreduced. The chance for
fatality is almost eliminated;not quite, but almost. It's
much more difficult to have afatality at those . Another key
(06:55):
point is that roundaboutsreduce what we call conflict
points within an intersection.
There's places where vehiclestraveling in different
directions meet or cometogether and merge or they
diverge or they cross paths,and there's much fewer of those
conflict points at a roundaboutthan there are at a traditional
intersection. And so all ofthose three things combine to
(07:18):
improve a lot of safety aspectand performance. And we've seen
that in roundabouts that havebeen built in Texas and across
the United States where crashesare reduced, injuries are
reduced by--reduced roughly twothirds, fatalities are reduced
by over 90%. And so the trackrecord is borne out in the
results as far as crashes areconcerned about the safety
(07:39):
performance between roundaboutsand traditional intersections.
Allan Rutter (07:43):
Now, this may be a good time to follow up on
that, Marcus . Amanda, I knowthat your program has, in
talking with other peoplewithin TxDOT , you have some
stats on TDOT's experience withsome of these alternative
intersections.
Amanda Austin (07:59):
Yes . So TxDOT has been doing alternative
intersections in differentareas across the state. Now I'm
gonna touch on something Marcussaid with the conflict points.
Modern roundabouts do have thefewest conflict points, the
slowest speeds out of all ofour intersection types,
generally speaking. But thereare also other types of
intersections that reduce thenumber of conflict points, and
(08:21):
so improve safety. When youreduce the number of
opportunities for vehicles tocross one another's path,
you're going to just get lesscrashes. So some of the other
ones that TxDOT has been doingand is continuing to look into,
they all of course haveacronyms. There's R -cuts and
DDIs and DLTs and MUTs, and allof that. But I'll spell out a
few of them. R -cut stands for"restricted crossing U-turn."
(08:44):
And what that means is, yougenerally take a four-way or a
T-intersection and the minorroad that comes into the major
road is restricted to basicallyright in, right out. When
you're on the minor road andyou're trying to exit, you can
only go right. And so you mightask yourself, well, how am I
supposed to go through or left?
You turn right and then they'redown the way a bit. There's a
(09:05):
designated U-turn location. Itsounds very simple, and I know
sometimes people don't feelcomfortable making U-turns, but
our cuts are pretty much secondto roundabouts in reducing
fatalities and serious injurycrashes. Our cuts have been
shown to reduce fatalities upto 70%; fatal and serious
injury crashes by up to 40%. Sothey're a really great option.
And the reason for that isyou're separating these key
(09:28):
decision points when you onlyhave to turn right; that's all
you can do. And then you do aU-turn and you do them
separately. So you know whenyou're trying to cross traffic,
right? We're taught in driver'sed --left, right, left. You
know, instead of having to dothat and trying to gauge the
oncoming vehicles from onedirection; in the other, you're
just making one decision at atime. R -cuts help in that way.
(09:50):
Median U-turns (or MUTs) arevery similar. You're only
allowed to turn right in, rightout. So again, you do a later
down U-turn. So MUTs and R-cutsare very similar. DDIs are
diverging diamonds, which is avery interesting one. And boy,
that's a little bit harder todescribe without pictures, but
you're basically ... they'reused at freeway interchanges.
And Marcus, if you wanna chimein on a better way, I don't
(10:12):
think I've ever had to describeDDIs before without a visual
aid, but basically when you'recoming off of, like, a freeway
ramp, you can turn left orright and you cross the vehicle
paths across the bridge, and sothey're on opposite sides and
it basically makes left turnseasier.
Marcus Brewer (10:32):
Yep . A lot of times I think of a DDI by a
separate name that sometimespeople give it, which is
"double crossover." And soessentially, if you're a driver
going through the interchange,you cross directions of traffic
twice and you are driving onthe left side of the road for a
very short period of time. Butwhat that does is, it allows
the left turns to get onto theramp much easier. You're down
(10:55):
to two signals and the signaloperation is much simpler.
There's only two phases in eachdirection. You don't have left
turns and throughs and rightsand all the things that take up
a lot of time, but you alsothen reduce the opportunity for
some crashes as well. And soyou drive on the left side for
a little bit. But if you'recontinuing through, then you
cross back over to the rightside and you keep going. And
when designed properly andsigned and everything as it
(11:17):
should be, it's very smooth andyou can go through without
really knowing that you did ittill you're through. And what
ends up happening is that youcan put a lot more vehicles
through a DDI in a shorterperiod of time than you can
with a lot of traditionalintersection designs as well.
Amanda Austin (11:31):
And I will say to the common driver, even
transportation engineers, ifyou're driving through one, you
likely won't even notice ituntil you're through it. I have
driven through one--this is myjob--and I drove through one in
Florida without realizing it.
And it was after I got throughthat--you know, my husband was
driving--I was like, "we justwent through a diverging
diamond!"
(11:52):
cool. I was very excited. Butagain, it's something that you
won't notice until you getthrough, but it moves traffic
much more smoothly. It reducesconflict points, and so it
increases safety.
Marcus Brewer (12:02):
And we've seen that here in College Station,
even with the DDI that's on FM60, over 2818 near the airport;
we were having crash problemsthere: T-bone crashes. People
coming in, you know , it's onthe edge of town, high-speed
approach from the west ... andthose crashes have been
eliminated. You can't do thoseanymore. And the traffic
backups that used to occurdon't anymore as well. And it's
(12:23):
been a success. So even locallyhere in the College Station
area, we've seen someimprovements using these types
of alternative intersections.
Amanda Austin (12:32):
So those are just a few of the ones that
we're working on on the ground,and we're looking to put in
even more of them wherever wecan.
Allan Rutter (12:40):
So maybe one way of thinking about this
distinction between arestricted U-turn and a median
U-turn is maybe the scale ofthe U-turn. The median may be a
little wider in terms of howmuch space you've got, but one
of the things that kind ofmeans is that some are more
experienced within Texas onthese things being distributed
around the state. Marcus,what's been the experience or
(13:03):
history in other states? AndAmanda , feel free to chime in
on considering and implementingthese kinds of alternative
intersections. Where else havepeople been doing this and
what's been their experience?
Marcus Brewer (13:16):
That's a great question, Allan. As with a lot
of things, different states dodifferent programs and
initiatives at different timesand different speeds.
Definitely North Carolina hasbeen at the forefront, I would
say, of implementing thesetypes of innovative or
alternative intersections. Andthey've done so with great
success. They have done quite anumber of, not only
(13:36):
roundabouts, but definitelygetting into the DDIs, into the
R-cuts or the median U-turns.
Another state is Michigan; andif you ask them, MUT might
stand for "Michigan U-turn"instead of median U-turn,
because they were kind of atthe forefront of that even
before a lot of the alternativeintersection type of movement
really started to take holdwith some of these other
(13:57):
designs. And they've been using'em for a long time and doing
it well. Kansas is anotherstate I'm familiar with--not as
high population as the othertwo that I mentioned--but they
have been more proactive atbuilding in particular
roundabouts on their statehighway system, not just around
urbanized areas and populationcenters, even on their rural
intersections, to try toaccommodate some of these. And
(14:18):
that's one thing, I think, tokeep in mind is that all of
these intersections we'retalking about have as one of
their focuses, the intent tobetter accommodate left turns,
both in terms of safety and interms of operations. Because
those left turns take moretime, they involve more
potential conflicts, lots ofthings go into that. And if we
can make that easier oneverybody, then the system
(14:40):
works better and people can getfrom place to place more
efficiently and more safely.
And so some of these otherstates have kind of taken the
lead on that and developed someguidance that they've followed,
and other states then kind offollow suit after we see the
track record and they continueto improve the system in Texas
and elsewhere as a result.
Allan Rutter (15:00):
So Amanda, as you guys have been standing up this
RAID--roundabout andalternative intersection
design, RAID --as you guys havebeen doing this, what are some
of the other ways you've beendescribing or advocating for
the consideration of these withyour colleagues within TxDOT?
What's the sales pitch for the... here's why, even though
(15:23):
this isn't a traditional thingin terms of multiple years,
here's why you should thinkabout this.
Amanda Austin (15:29):
Very good question, and I have several
different sales pitches ofvarious links. Naturally, I
will say briefly, just to tieback to what Marcus said about
other states, RAID--the acronymactually comes from Georgia;
DOT Georgia sent the head oftheir RAID department to us in
Texas. We requested that theywould come, and they came and
gave a presentation at aroundabout summit that we held
(15:51):
a couple years ago in May withrepresentatives from most of
our districts. And they gave anexcellent presentation on how
they started doing roundabouts.
So I always like to give ashout-out to Georgia DOT,
because that presentation had areally big impact on our
program, and we decided to nameit RAID after that. Although I
will say that, from a PRstandpoint, RAID is often seen
(16:12):
more as a bug spray. So weended up naming our program the
Innovative IntersectionsProgram. And so we have a
TxDOT.gov website forinnovative intersections. So
that's a little bit moreinformation on the RAID
acronym. But as for a salespitch, the short and sweet one
is knowing the stats for thesealternative intersections and
roundabouts in particular. Youknow, Marcus mentioned 'em
(16:34):
earlier, but I just, I alwayslike to restate them because
they're so powerful.
Roundabouts reduce fatalitiesby 90%, nine outta 10. We don't
have anything short of a fullygrade separated interchange
where there are no conflictpoints. We don't have anything
else in our toolbox with thatsafety record. It's just, it's
astonishing. We work in smallpercentages most of the time.
(16:54):
We try to make our lane widthscorrect, we try to do good
shoulder widths, you know,approve a little here, a little
there. But a roundabout in onefell swoop pretty much
eliminates fatalities. And thefew fatalities that do happen
are usually single vehicleunder the influence at night.
It's very, very rare thatthere's a multi-vehicle
incident with a fatality at aroundabout. And so the shortest
(17:15):
pitch I have is if we'reserious about eliminating
roadway fatalities, you know,in Texas, that's our Vision
Zero. Some states call it Roadto Zero, but we all agree that
zero fatalities is what weshould be shooting for--no
fatalities acceptable on ourroadways. And so if we're
serious about Vision Zero,we're serious about ending
roadway fatalities, we've gotto get serious about
roundabouts. A third of ourfatalities on our roadway are
(17:38):
due to intersections, andthey're primarily because of
those troublesome left turnsthat Marcus talked about.
That's where the severe T-bonecollisions come in. And so if
we know that a third of ourfatalities are intersections
and roundabouts reducefatalities by 90% or R-cuts by
70%, we really need to belooking at these at every one
of our intersections, everysingle one. We've gotta take a
(17:59):
look at those. The way that wedo that now is within our
project development process.
You know, when we havecorridors that we're improving
or we have troublesomeintersections, we just
established an intersectionevaluation process where we are
asking anytime that wereconstruct an intersection,
we're gonna look at all of ouroptions. That's something that
TxDOT is doing now that'spretty new for us. We stood
(18:21):
that up in June, so about sixmonths ago . And districts are
learning how to do that. Sothat's what my RAID team does,
is we support our districtswith resources, with training,
with, you know, subject matterexperts to look at all these
different types ofintersections, figure out
what's gonna work best, where,and then implement them.
Sometimes our districts needhelp with public involvement. A
(18:42):
lot of times theseintersections are completely
foreign to people, you know. Adiverging diamond, they may
never have seen one, or theymight have some preconceived
notions about roundabouts,especially if they've driven
through one of these trafficcircles we were talking about.
And so we provide support tohelp educate stakeholders,
educate the public on just howpowerful these are. To go back
(19:03):
to my elevator speech or why Iadvocate for these, the safety
stats are really, reallypowerful. But there's a lot
more that roundabouts can do aswell. One of the simplest ones
that people often don't thinkabout is that they're one of
the most resilientintersections that we have.
Resilience is a very big dealhere in Texas with all of the
natural disasters that we getof all varieties. But typically
(19:23):
any natural disaster is gonnaknock out the power. When the
power goes out, our signalsstop working, and when the
signals stop working, trafficbacks up. But roundabouts don't
have signals, so they just,they keep working. Florida in
particular, they're installinga lot of roundabouts, they're
promoting it from the DOT leveldown to the local level. And
it's primarily because of theresilience of them and the
(19:44):
operations improvements aswell. Because roundabouts, you
yield on entry, you don't haveto stop. If there's an opening,
you go, so the next time you'resitting at a red light for two,
three minutes or you knowyou're approaching the light
turns yellow and you stop andyou know you've got the full
cycle to wait through and, youknow, you're looking at the
intersection and, say, all theother legs have flushed out,
(20:06):
nobody's going through theintersection, you're just
waiting for your light to turngreen. Just think to yourself,
if that was a roundabout, Icould have driven through it by
now. So there's a lot ofdifferent benefits to
roundabouts. They can bedesigned to accommodate bikes
and peds really well. They canbe designed to accommodate
trucks. They're very flexible,they're very site specific. So
if you couldn't tell, I'm verypassionate about it, I get very
(20:26):
excited about them. I justthink they're the bee's knees.
Allan Rutter (20:29):
After hearing you talk about that, Amanda, it's
like I want to go out andspread the roundabout gossip
that a little bit. One of thethings we've been helping
TxDOT's district out in Odessadeal with increased truck
traffic, particularly the factthat you have almost urban
levels of traffic and entriesand exits, lots of curb cuts to
(20:53):
go to industrial sites, butthey're on roadways that are
designed for rural purposes,and that has some real issues
with it. And so as we thoughtabout, hey, you know, maybe
this would be a goodopportunity, particularly for
some T-bone intersections,where one road ends into
another roundabouts mightreduce some of those conflict
points. And particularly fortrucks which have acceleration
(21:16):
problems, maybe there might besome alternatives there. What
are some of the things thatroadway designers need to
consider to build a roundaboutso that it accommodates trucks,
even larger trucks, oversizedand overweight ? I'll start
with you Marcus, but I knowAmanda has some things you can
contribute to that too.
Marcus Brewer (21:34):
Sure, thanks.
Yeah, there are some key thingsto consider because it is a bit
of a balancing act becausethat's one of the things as we
talked about already that makesroundabouts work so well, is
the lower speed. And to do thatyou typically have a smaller
footprint, your circle issmaller, your circulating
roadway is smaller to helpencourage that. But when you're
(21:56):
working with trucks, whenyou're specifically focusing on
getting trucks through anintersection and or when it is
in a rural area, that tends tobe higher speed, there's a
different balance to manage theneeds of the users there. And
so in many cases that circle ismade a bit larger, the speed is
a little bit higher, but stillnot great, what I call a really
(22:17):
high speed, probably in the 35mile per hour range, maybe 40 ,
which is still quite a slowdownfrom your typical rural
highway, but not bad. But youalso then tend to make wider
lanes for those trucks,particularly if it's
oversized/overweight on theapproach and within the
(22:37):
circulating roadway. But alsoin order to not overcorrect and
not provide a wide openenvironment, if you will for
passenger vehicles, you don'twiden the lane completely. But
what you can do is addsomething called a truck apron
in the middle to where there'sstill a bit of a curb there.
But a truck traveling at thoselower speeds and the larger
vehicle can mount that curb,can get up on that curb and use
(23:00):
that extra space to travelaround the circle and still
provide kind of a widerfootprint or a bigger turning
path for those larger vehiclesto make it through. And that
can be accomplished. And we'veseen it--again, North
Carolina--we've seen it inKansas. Kansas has a roundabout
that's specifically designedfor that near a large
distribution center wheretrucks, 18-wheelers are the
(23:22):
primary design vehicle, if youwill. It's very heavy on
trucks. And similar to what youmentioned Allan, out in the
Odessa District and some of theenergy exploration where those
larger vehicles make up a veryhigh proportion of the traffic
stream. There's also some otherthings that can be done if you
know that you have a heavyright-turn movement. For
example, you can make a bypasslane that goes around the
(23:45):
intersection completely forright turns only that takes
those vehicles out of thecircle and can improve that.
And that can still be done onappropriate speed. It's not a
high-speed right-turn lane, butit, it helps to facilitate that
travel around. And so there's afew other things that can be
done. I've even seen examplesof roundabouts that are on
(24:06):
routes that are commonly usedfor oversize/overweight. You
can put extra things in thecenter, you know, maybe you
have barricades that you cantemporarily remove and they can
drive straight through becauseyou've shut down that
intersection basically for thatoversized vehicle to use. And
so there aren't any conflictingvehicles at that moment when it
goes through, and you can makesome adjustments. So there are
(24:27):
a fair number of tools in thetoolbox for the designer to
use, but those things do haveto be considered early on in
the design process so that theneeds of the intended users can
be included in the designthat's ultimately put on the
ground.
Amanda Austin (24:42):
Very good points, Marcus . And something
you touched on (24:43):
good design has to balance the needs of
multiple different users,right? So you know, a good
roundabout, it's a very, verydelicate and fine line between
right-sizing it, making itsmall enough to reduce those
speeds, like you said, butlarge enough to accommodate
trucks. And so one of the onesthat I had the privilege of
working on was up in WashingtonState. They had a truck route,
(25:05):
they were building a new route,new road. We don't see brand
new roads very often anymore,but it was a brand new route to
bypass a small little town thatwas completely inundated by a
local rock quarry. The name ofthe town was called Granite
Falls, so that gives you asense of what that was there.
But they had these, we callthem dum-and-pups, which is the
dump truck with a big trailerway out behind it. And they
would have those going throughtheir little town about three
(25:26):
every minutes. So the state andthe county got together,
decided to build an alternateroute, and they decided they
wanted to put three roundaboutson that route. And the very
first one that you come to whenyou're, you know, headed
towards the quarry is a T-intersection. It's a
single-lane roundabout and it'snot that big. We actually
measured the circulating speedsafter it was installed and they
were about 20 to 22 miles anhour. So it's actually pretty
(25:48):
slow. But it was designed toaccommodate these
dump-and-pups. But we also hadto accommodate
oversize/overweight. There wasa 112-foot-long lowboy truck
that had to be accommodated.
And when we ran it through thedesign we made sure, again,
those truck aprons that Marcusmentioned were appropriately
sized. We had truck aprons bothon the outside of the
roundabout and the inside ofthe roundabout and we did a
(26:09):
test run. And when the low boycame through the road hadn't
been finished yet, so he had topull a U-turn. And so this
112-foot-long permit-only loadtruck pulled a U-turn through
this roundabout--besides it'sabout 150 feet in diameter--and
it made it without driving overany of the curbs. Didn't end up
in the center island, it didn'tdrive off the road, it made it.
(26:30):
And so I often hear like, "oh,you know, roundabouts can't
accommodate trucks, there's noway, you know, it's this tight
little circle." It's like, wellhow many other intersections
that you know of canaccommodate a U-turn by
112-foot-long truck? So whendesigned well, they can. And
one other thing I wanted totouch on is the truck aprons.
Like you mentioned, a lot ofdrivers, we don't really use
truck aprons very much else inour roadway designs. They're
(26:52):
pretty rare. And so oftentimesdrivers, even truck drivers we
find are not familiar with whatthese are. So if you're ever
driving through a roundaboutand you see a raised concrete
area, but it's maybe onlyraised a few inches, it's a
different color. It's got likea stamped concrete that is a
truck apron . So if you see atruck driving over it, they're
supposed to, it's designed forthat. It's usually a thicker
concrete, reinforced concrete.
(27:13):
And so that touches on one areathat I think is really
important to accommodatingtrucks is, design is the first
step. But the second is, yougotta do good outreach. That's
something we're working on as aprogram is outreaching to the
freight industry as a whole andmaking sure they understand
what these features are. Butalso, you know, I see outreach
as, it's often a two-waystreet. I've had some
conversations with the TexasTrucking Association and when I
(27:35):
go out and talk with them, Ialways want to hear back what
their concerns are. You know,in talking with the specialized
carriers and riggingassociation, we had a really
good conversation with them.
They kind of laughed because alow boy for them is, like,
entry level . They only go upfrom there, you know, they're
the ones hauling the windturbines and the really, really
big loads. And that's where youget into like what Marcus
(27:56):
talked about. You know, youmight have to provide a way for
them to just drive straightthrough the roundabout, but
when those loads come through,they're pretty much shutting
down the road anyways. Buthaving those conversations and
making sure we understand whattheir trucks are, so we're
always improving our designs,but then also helping to
educate their drivers on, youknow, the truck aprons, the
best way to navigateroundabouts, especially if you
have a multi-lane roundabout. Ithink that's a really important
(28:18):
aspect as well to make surethat they can get through there
as best as they can.
Allan Rutter (28:23):
Amanda, I can testify to your advocacy and
your outreach. I first heardyou talk about the program at
the Texas Freight AdvisoryCommittee meeting earlier this
year where you were doing thattargeted outreach. "Let's talk
to freight folks about whatthis looks like, how to make
sure that you're accommodatingtheir interest." And that's
where I learned how effectiveAmanda is as a communicator.
(28:46):
And two , here's the reallygreat example of doing some
outreach. Now, one of thethings you guys have talked
about is what a roundabout doesto decrease speed. I've gotta
admit that I've had to help mybride of more than 40 years
become a roundabout fan. Welive north of Frisco. And I
think Frisco, Texas, has moreroundabouts than almost any
(29:07):
other city in the country. AndI think I've got her to
understand that the speeddifferential is one of the
design purposes. But one of thethings that our neighbors, they
tend to approach some of theseroundabouts as Formula-1 road
features, not necessarilysomething to be slowing down
for. So talk a little bit abouthow signage, both advisory
(29:29):
speeds and how to tell peoplewhat to do once they see the
lanes, how to communicate todrivers to come into a
roundabout and use it to makethe most of its design purpose.
Marcus Brewer (29:41):
I think it's important to stress to drivers
who may not be familiar withroundabouts that, while
everyone does indeed have toslow down when you approach a
roundabout, not necessarilyeverybody has to stop. Amanda
mentioned it earlier abouthaving to stop for a red signal
when nobody's there. Theslowing down is necessary, but
not having to stop, you cankeep going through. And it
(30:03):
really does help in theefficiency. And while it may
seem counterintuitive, theslowing down part, just like
not being able to drive in astraight line, if you're going
straight through, the fact isit really does work better. And
the more you drive throughthem, the more familiar you
become with it and youunderstand it, at least on some
level, even if maybe it'sdifficult to put into words,
the familiarity definitelyhelps. But if you're talking
(30:25):
about rolling out a roundabouton a new location or you know,
a new group of drivers that maynot be familiar with them ,
it's really important to stressthat. Yes, there are some
different things you need toknow. The yielding is
important. We see a lot oftimes people as it turns out,
don't necessarily encounter alot of yield signs elsewhere
other than on freeway ramps.
And so they may not be asfamiliar with that as we think
(30:46):
they are, but it's there for apurpose and it really does
work. And then again, thesafety benefits are just
tremendous. And sounderstanding, you know, you
pull up, you yield, you lookleft, if no one's there, you
can keep going. You don't haveto wait for a signal. And then
you pick where you want to exitthe roundabout and you keep
going. And it really does workphenomenally well. It does
(31:08):
require the driver to maybe paya little more attention rather
than "is the light red orgreen?" But in the long run, it
really does work not only forthe individual driver, but for
the system as well.
Amanda Austin (31:19):
And I try to reassure drivers too, it can be
overwhelming if you're notfamiliar with roundabouts just
because it's new. But, say,you're at the local grocery
store and when you pull outtathe grocery store, you have to
make a left. You've gotta dothat complicated head movement,
right? You're looking in bothdirections. You know, cars are
going pretty high speed. That'sactually a more difficult
maneuver than driving through aroundabout because when you
(31:41):
pull up to a roundabout, youonly look left, you don't have
to look right. Cars are onlycoming at you from one
direction, and they're goingrelatively slow. So like Marcus
said, you look left whenthere's an opening, you go and
then you proceed to your exit.
It really is that simple. Itdoes get a little bit more
complicated at multilaneroundabouts. The key to that, I
tell drivers, is pick your laneahead of time. According to the
signage, there should always bedestination signs , giving you
(32:04):
a clue as to which lane to bein. A general rule of thumb is
that it's really not that muchdifferent from a traditional
signalized intersection. If youwanna turn right, you know,
forget there's a circle infront of you. If the road
you're going to is to yourright, you should probably be
in the right lane. If the roadyou wanna end up at is to your
left, you probably need to bein the left lane. If you're
going straight through, you'reproceeding, you know, on the
(32:26):
same road, you can probably getin either lane. A general rule
of thumb--there are someexceptions--there are some
roundabouts with two leftturn-lanes. So you could
technically turn left from theright lane, but those are rare.
But look at the signage,proceed slowly. If the signs
are coming up to you, slowdown, you know, digest the
sign, get in the correct lane,and then follow that lane
through the roundabout. Goodroundabout design, you should
(32:47):
never have to change lanes inthe roundabout. Now, those old
school rotaries and trafficcircles, you might, but the
modern roundabouts we'reputting in, you choose your
lane ahead of time, you followit all the way through. The
other thing I tell people isdon't panic if you get to the
yield line and you need asecond to decide if you have an
opening. You know, don't honkat the person in front of you
if you're used to roundaboutsand they're moving too slow.
(33:08):
I've seen people do some crazymistakes in roundabouts. I've
seen people drive the wrongway, turn left into a
roundabout and drive the wrongway around . And of all those
videos I've seen, I haven'tseen a collision because
everybody's going so slow, theycan stop. They can accommodate
the person who doesn't knowwhat they're doing. So just,
you know, take a deep breath,let people figure it out,
you'll figure it out, andyou'll get through it. It might
make you nervous, but it'sgonna be okay.
Allan Rutter (33:31):
It's both reassuring and it kind of
speaks to maybe the finalquestion, what's likely to
happen, at least in Texas, inthe future? What are the
prospects for these innovativeintersections, Amanda, are we
gonna see more of them? What'sbeen the experience that you've
had with your colleagues withinthe districts around the state?
(33:51):
And for our listeners, Texashas 25 districts, we're a
big-ass state, so there's lotsof us. What's been your
experience in how people haveresponded, and what's likely to
happen in terms of are we gonnasee more of this?
Amanda Austin (34:05):
That's a great question. You know, when we
started this program, we didn'treally know what the response
would be , but I've been reallypleasantly surprised. I would
say that there are a lot ofpeople out there within TxDOT,
within our local agencypartners, cities, and counties
that have wanted to do or havebeen trying to do roundabouts,
alternative intersections foryears and are just really
(34:25):
excited that TDOT is on boardand supporting these. And so
I've had people come outta thewoodwork, to be honest, asking
for our support, asking forhelp, just really excited to
get these off the ground. So Ithink they're here to stay and
I think we're gonna see a lotmore of them. Now. I will say,
when it comes to the pace ofchange, a lot of people don't
realize that roadway projectstake many, many years. If you
(34:47):
think of a roundabout today, itcould be 5 to 10 years before
you see it on the ground.
Oftentimes within our projectdevelopment process,
particularly at TxDOT, roadwayprojects--you might spend a
couple years planning it. Youspend a couple more years
designing it, possiblypurchasing right-of-way if you
need a little additional space.
So you're looking at anywherefrom two to five years in the
planning and design stage, thenyou gotta find funding for it.
(35:10):
So, you know, we're oftenlooking at projects four or
five years down the road. Ithink the pace is going to pick
up, it's going to accelerate,but it could be a few more
years before we really see thefruit of this program on the
ground. So I'm still veryexcited. Pretty much every
district I've talked to, everypart of the state, I'm excited
to see several projects, bothin our Pharr District, in our
Lubbock District movingforward, roundabouts and R
(35:32):
-cuts. They're excited to havetools in their toolbox to
reduce fatalities. And so Ithink that while we have a long
ways to go, I think we arealready making good progress
and excited to see how muchfurther they can go. I will say
we started a database, you canaccess it through our TxDOT
.gov innovative intersectionswebsite. We started counting...
we have over 900 of theseinnovative intersections across
(35:55):
the state of Texas right now,and over 650 of them are modern
roundabouts. So you know, we'vebeen doing these for a while ,
but now we have a big push toreally make sure we consider
them everywhere, on everyintersection we reconstruct. So
I hope to keep building thatdatabase as quickly as we can.
Allan Rutter (36:12):
Well, that is really cool to know. And it's
also great to know, a part ofhaving a program is, you
measure what you're alreadydoing. That's an important
thing. Now both of you guys areclearly motivated to make a
positive difference in trafficsafety. Tell me, tell our
listeners maybe, what are someof the reasons you're eager to
show up for work every day?
Amanda Austin (36:31):
I'll say, I think this has been my most
favorite job I've ever had. I'mobviously very excited about
roundabouts, but more so I'mvery excited to be able to make
a difference in my world oftransportation engineering. I'm
very inspired by the Road toZero or Vision Zero, or
eliminating roadway fatalities.
Every time I hear about a crashon the news, I immediately
(36:51):
think, what can we dodifferent? And so I am inspired
and motivated and convictedreally from an engineer's
perspective to do everything inmy power to save lives on our
roadways. So I'm motivatedevery day to build this
program, to improve ourintersections. And honestly,
I'm very grateful to theleadership that we have at
(37:12):
TxDOT that supports theseefforts, and they've given me
space and flexibility andresources to pursue these tools
that really reduce fatalities.
And so I am excited because Ihave these opportunities, and
we're always trying to think ofnew ideas, new innovations, and
the way that we do our designto save lives. And I've never
had another job quite like it,and it's pretty exciting.
Marcus Brewer (37:33):
I would echo some of those points in that
it's great to be able to applythings that we know into making
people's lives better, in thiscase on the roadway, so that
they can get from place toplace more safely. They can do
so more efficiently, spend lesstime getting from place to
place and actually more timedoing what they wanna do. And
(37:54):
roundabouts are a great exampleof that. And other intersection
types as well to be able toapply things that we've learned
not only about roadway designand operations, but about what
we've learned on how peopledrive and how vehicles can
perform and really help people.
And that's what I really enjoybeing able to do, is helping to
(38:14):
improve those things. Androundabouts are one more tool
in the toolbox that lets us dothat. And you know, a lot of
the things that maybe theaverage driver drives through
on a given day, they're notgonna notice all of the efforts
that the research went into toput that on the ground. But
that also kinda means we'redoing our job, 'cause that
means it works and people areable to just go about their
business. And if we're doingthat, then we are in fact
(38:37):
helping not only people of thestate of Texas, but drivers in
general as a profession. Andit's really exciting to be able
to do that.
Allan Rutter (38:46):
Well, that is great. And clearly both of you,
those answers indicate a senseof purpose and the means by
which to make a positivedifference. Hopefully this
explanation of what innovativeintersections will do for our
listeners is help themunderstand and why this is
being done in their interest.
Thanks to both of you forjoining us today, and I really
(39:09):
appreciate you being part ofour podcast.
Amanda Austin (39:12):
Thanks so much for having us.
Allan Rutter (39:15):
During our conversation, Amanda told us
that in Texas, almost one-thirdof traffic fatalities occur at
intersections, and roundaboutscan reduce intersection
fatalities and injuries by 90%.
Given the number of 2023traffic fatalities in Texas,
this means that almost 1,500Texans lost their lives in
(39:36):
intersection crashes.
Thoughtful planning forinnovative designs can begin to
reduce that number ofintersection fatalities, one
intersection at a time. Thanksfor listening. If you liked
what you heard or learnedsomething, please take just a
minute to give us a review,subscribe, and share this
episode. I invite you to joinus next time for another
(39:59):
conversation about gettingourselves and the stuff we need
from point A to point B.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A & M
Transportation Institute, amember of The Texas A&M
University System. The show isedited and produced by Chris
Pourteau. I'm your host, AllanRutter. Thanks again for
joining us. We'll see you nexttime .
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