I once parked near the traffic circles on Chestnut on the Fresno State campus to watch how motorists handle them. For the most part, Fresno drivers have no idea how to drive traffic circles or when to yield the right of way. But traffic circles also cause problems for pedestrians, especially those who are blind.
Ed Eames wrote a letter to The Bee explaining his challenge with traffic circles:
"As a blind person, I am stymied by traffic circles, and my volunteer drivers are no more fond of them than I! I have been told by traffic engineers that to safely cross, I must make eye contact with drivers who will then give me the right of way. Believing that would be tantamount to buying a bridge in Brooklyn!"
You can read his entire letter by clicking here.
These are not very practical in our tule fog season and people don't even know how to do the four way stops.
Our intended consequence; we no longer shop at the College Market. Ingress and egress are too cumbersome.
I go round and round on this issue (har har); in Southern California where round-abouts have been used since at least the 1930s and people are familiar with driving in congestion, they work great. In Fresno, people just don't know how to use them, either they are too timid or selfish; both cause accidents. I am willing to give them up for blind and disabled pedestrians. Especially since a large number of Fresno drivers are just plain blind themselves.
"In Fresno, people just don't know how to use them, either they are too timid or selfish; both cause accidents."
I don't know how to take that. But I have been around (no pun intended) those roundabouts all my life in my native City Vienna Austria and in Manchester England. I went back to Europe at least every three years, and those cars that caused the biggest traffic problems had US and /or Italian license plates. And I am sure they were not all selfish Fresno drivers. And that intersection at Barstow and Chestnut was well served with a four-way stop sign. I would have bought into that circle had it enhanced the aesthetic value of the place....but it has not. It was done because it could be done.
How many pedestrians and motorists have been killed at Bartstow and Chestnut? I lived in the United kingdom for two years and cannot remember seeing a single accident at a "round about." I guess there is nothing to replace the exquisite mortality of one vehicle, full of blind passengers, broadsided by another.