When you think about it, left turns across two lanes of traffic going in opposite directions are kind of crazy. Only an admixture of luck, skill, and a collective social agreement to, as a general rule, avoid crashing into each other keeps you alive. In fact, left turns increase the potential for an accident and also waste fuel. So traffic engineers have come up with a new street design, called “superstreets” that get rid of left turns from side streets onto major roads. And a new study says they are both faster, and safer.
The design uses dividers to force most turns to be right hand turns. Want to go in the opposite direction? Use the U-turns located just down the road from the intersection. You can also make lefts from a limited turn lane, but it only goes over one lane of traffic.
Superstreets have been around since the 60′s, first pionereered in Michigan, where they are called “The Michigan Left.” Why they are getting attention now is the North Carolina State University study, the first of its kind, finds that superstreets reduce travel time by 20%. See, the U-turns are actually faster because drivers aren’t stuck at the light trying to wait for traffic to clear enough to turn. Not only that, but the superstreets studied had 46% fewer reported car collisions and 63% fewer collisions that ended in personal injury.
City planners should take note and think about adding superstreets to their designs.
No Left Turn: ‘Superstreet’ Traffic Design Improves Travel Time, Safety [NCSU.edu via Autoblog]
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it reminds me of when i was stationed in germany. f you miss your turn in germany you have to go about 4 miles untill you can correct your mistake.
all the while with the gps going “please make a u turn… please make a u turn..”
If you miss your turn in America you just back up to correct your mistake. Last week a car in the fast lane made complete stop beside an exit ramp. Then waited for traffic to slow enough in adjacent lanes to make a 90 degree cut across traffic to the exit.
I saw something better while working in Germany. It was an experimental stretch of road that had electronic speed ‘advice’. The signs would help put you at a speed such that by the time you get to a controlled intersection the light is ALWAYS green. So when you got to the intersection there was no cross traffic. Sometime it had you over the limit, and sometimes under, it never failed in the hundreds of times I used that road.
I do wonder how that worked out and if it was implemented elsewhere. I really liked it.
It would be very complicated to implement in the US. German drivers are better at obeying signs than Americans.
I do that now, have lights timing down to a t. I slow down and maintain distance to make sure when I am at the light it is green. it DOES save gas and wear and tear of stop and go.
LOL, wouldn’t work in america. People don’t read signs.
So am I to understand that having to seek out and navigate U-turns all over the place is all that much safer than left turns? Have they actually run the numbers to show this? Or have they just latched onto a “hot” idea that will confuse and annoy drivers?
YES! This is exactly what I need outside my workplace. The only way to leave the office park where I work (and go in the direction of home) is to turn left on a four-lane street. I could make a left turn just like the one described above, but for some stupid reason there’s a “no u-turn” sign there.
As a pedestrian these scare the shit out of me.
First, where do I cross? Second, when I do cross I am dealing with traffic that is not dependable and numerous extra loops and roads to walk over. Third, this separates the perfectly quaint community on the left from the commerce center on the right … meaning I have to drive if I want to buy my groceries, even if they are in walkable distance.
Finally, the study refers to saving lives and time and safety for cars.. It doesn’t even look at the effect of this on pedestrians. That, if anything, is a serious oversight.
Ugh.
I don’t get these complaints… these sorts of streets are actually MUCH easier to cross because ou have the island in the middle and only have to cross one direction of traffic at a time.
I don’t do unprotected left-turns. I despise people that sit with their thumb up their ass waiting 10 minutes blocking 20 cars behind them with their left blinker stupidly on to do so. You can go down and make a U-turn in 30 seconds which is what I do. I hate it when they launch like a spazz out into the suicide middle lane, too, because when I’m driving along I never know if they’re going to wait, or just Hail Mary and gun it out in front of me.
I also hate the morons sitting in the right hand bus lane waiting to go straight through the intersection instead of turning right.
As for pedestrians, I’m sure they’d set up little fenced walkover bridges, like how CA does over freeways and such.
My partner is deathly afraid of bridges. She has had full-blown panic attacks trying to cross a pedestrian bridge over a busy thoroughfare in Boston. The bridges you speak of, would be absolutely impassable to her.
And she doesn’t drive, either.
So you might as well dig a kilometer-deep moat along the route of the thoroughfare, line the walls with razorblades, and fill the bottom with molten lava, two hundred meters deep. Because that’d be neither more nor less impassable to her, or anyone like her.
Isn’t that how UPS cut down on fuel costs for their delivery trucks?
Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament!
UPS has been doing this for a while.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=3005890&page=1
Although it’s not quite the same as the super street, I live in Michigan and dealt with Michigan turns quite a bit when I drove (and sometimes now when I take public transit and walk). At first they’re hard to figure out if no one has ever explained them to you in driving school or elsewhere, but once you get used to them they’re no big deal.
As for circles vs Michigan lefts, I’ve been on buses going through both of these and buses seem to have a harder time in circles due to the quick turning movements involved, and they seem to handle Michigan lefts just fine.
As for pedestrians, the Michigan lefts are not a big deal either. It’s treated just like a normal road crossing a boulevard – because that’s what it is.
Gotta love that Michigan left! Despite my language as I wait for traffic to clear and let me complete my u turn, the system really does make things easier.
Interesting. Since the vast, vast majority of the people will be turning ‘right’ after making the U-turn, why not make a ‘right-turn-only’ lane instead of forcing them back into traffic only to hit the brakes to turn. There is enough room already, just needs to have the lines painted such.
Michiganian here….ask anyone around here and they’ll tell you they suck! I hate having to take a Michigan left. It just makes things to complicated.
This is ridiculous.
What about 18-wheelers? I’d think they don’t do U-turns very well.
Will waste gas unless the median has shorter breakthroughs. I hate driving 5 miles just to turn around.
This would piss me off mightily, but if they reduce travel time by eliminating that standing still line waiting to turn, I guess I’d adjust.
We have been doing this for years and years. It’s called a Michigan Left.
A traffic circle would accomplish the same thing, wouldn’t it? Replace the U-turn with a circle. In many cases, replace the original intersection with a circle. That’s how it’s done in other parts of the world.
No. No. They have this in Grand Rapids. You can only turn right and to turn left you have to 1) pass your intersection, wait at a light 2) perform a Uturn, wait at another light to turn right.
how this “saves gas” is beyond me.
Michigan “U”ies is what they’re called. And yes, they work.
No matter how intelligent the design, the people using the roads are stupid typically and the inherent real danger.
All of your U-Turns are left turns.
This reminds me of my first visit to Jersey. My grandfather gave me directions to his new house and told me to “use the Jughandle” to get there. He then had to explain to me what a Jughandle was. Jughandles, a toll every time you get on/off the road and not be able to pump your own gas is such fun memories for me on this first trip. Kinda miss Grandpa.
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but the few roundabouts I’ve seen in Toronto are so dumbed down they defeat the whole purpose. Following the assumption that Torontonians won’t adapt properly (and that may be correct!), the “feeder” streets all have STOP signs (instead of yield) where they meet the circle, making the whole thing just a waste of time. I’ve even driven one so-called roundabout with a stop sign WITHIN the circle.
If it’s not going to be a proper roundabout, what’s the point?
I’m honestly not convinced that a simple overpass/underpass for the side street would not be a superior choice.
Besides … the work of fifteen minutes, produced an even better setup. It’s pedestrian friendly, and doesn’t need as much space for the main road. And it works equally well for highways, too. Best of all, it’s SIMPLE, and immediately intuitive. Anyone over the age of ten should be able to understand it, from a mile away, with even halfway-adequate signage.
(Direct URL, in case the image doesn’t show up below: http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c313/GMPax/intersection.jpg )
Obviously these traffic engineers drive Geo Metros and never a full-size car.
This would be hell for me! My car is a JDM full-size luxury car with a turning radius worse (22.5 feet) than a Bentley (19.7 feet) or Rolls (22.0 feet) or a Mercedes S-class (19 feet). As a result, U-turns are something I generally avoid. If I must do one, they usually end up being J-turns, which isn’t fuel-efficient nor tyre-efficient. Nor are J-turns exactly safe/normal driving techniques.
Bring over the roundabouts that we have in Europe — those actually work! I know American drivers are to dimwitted to figure them out but put enough of them in and they’ll eventually figure it out.
Just so y’all know, everyone here in Michigan is totally smug about the Michigan left & secretly believes that every other state is full of idiots for not adopting this 40 years ago.