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Crash on Marshall Street
03/13/2017 2:12 PM by John M
From Matt:
Someone ran over the traffic Island at 29th and E Marshall and hit the car parked on the corner. Second time in 3 months –
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TOP PHOTO from Matt
How does one drive into a traffic circle?Oh. Phones. That’s how.
I don’t think so. It at least provides some protection to people walking from some angles.
That’s on the corner of one of our SRTS schools, and people drive so terribly here. Box trucks take the circles at 30 MPH, and people turn left into the circle, or just don’t yield all of the time. We have no crossing guard there, and I am consistently terrified by the behavior of those who drop off and pick up their kids by car there.
I talked to the city’s bike/ped coordinator and suggested adding speed humps at approaches to some (or most) of these circles. He recognizes that when there is not heavy parking lane usage, people can fly through them. (These are a legacy of a former traffic engineer).
I feel that a LOT of the newly placed roundabouts all over Richmond are poorly designed; as they do not force certain traffic to think they need to yield or slow down [not saying this is what happened here, just speaking generally].
The ones adjacent to Chimborazo and Binford need additional calming for sure, as people on bike and foot are funneled more densely to these specific locations. Definitely taking note of this for our upcoming walkabout.
Another waste of tax payers money. They are poorly designed. And Richmond drivers are poorly educated on their use. Drivers on Marshall, for the most part still think they have a right of way. A 4 way stop would have more effective and cheaper. “These are the legacy of the former traffic engineer” So he’s gone. Get rid of them before someone gets killed.
Call RPD and let them know that you would like them to enforce the rules of the road and ticket people who break those rules in Church Hill.
When people start getting tickets for driving recklessly around those traffic circles, we’ll start seeing people driving safer.
@7…Agreed Marilyn. This one is particularly useless and dangerous. I’ve approached this circle numerous times and slowed to a crawl–all the while, I was the first into the circle. Other cars approaching this circle never slowed down and approached at 25-30 MPH clearly believing they have the right of way honking their horn or flipping me off.
A 4-way stop would be much more effective. Throw some speed bumps in there near the schools and slow the traffic down.
If you will notice that the traffic circles at 29 th and marshall have no signage in the circle. At 29th and marshall the double yellow diamonds are laying in the grass in front of the elementary school. The signage for the circle at 31st and marshall is laying in the grass in front of the chimbarazo museum at 33rd and broad. Stop signs don’t work either. Stand at one of the corners on broa street that have 4-way stops. Don’ steop off the curb as you may get run over.
While I love well-designed traffic circles that have sufficient yield signs in all ingress points, these circles scare the living shit out of me. Living right off E. Marshall, I need to travel through two of them going to work each morning – I FULLY agree with others on here that people drive through at 25-30 MPH, if not more… all day, every day.
As recently as last week, I was almost hit (when already in the circle) by someone traveling West down Marshall – the driver even came to a full stop, got out of his SUV and physically threatened me after I honked at him.
Great job, RIC!
If only all of these comments were sent to City Council and the Department of Public Works. Raising these issues repeatedly among ourselves is not very productive.
I agree that around the school, stop signs and speed humps around at those circles is a great start to addressing some of our concerns.
@Neighbor,
Best comment yet.
we need the stop signs back
btw, I have repeatedly call my council person (s) and spoken at length with Tom Flynn, who was in charge of this, before, during and after the installation. I talked myself blue in the face every time they announced another circle to be built, and nothing ever came of it. I feel like Richmond is going to put up these traffic circles no matter what and no matter what us residents feel about it.
@12 agreed. @14, the cops won’t enforce stop signs much either, although I agree with you that there should be one. Sometimes I have to wait while four or five cars on Broad fly through a stop sign until I can turn onto Broad from the side street where I live (26th).
every civilized country in the world uses traffic circles efficiently.
here in the land of NASCAR, not so much.
don’t blame the messenger nor the engineer, blame distracted drivers and the smartphones that dumb them down.