Thursday, January 13, 2011

Let's eliminate left turns


Researchers at NC State have evaluated "super streets." Here is a story about their work. These streets eliminate left turns from local streets and result in much faster and safer auto traffic.

The researchers are not exploring pedestrian and cycling safety effects, but eliminating left turns in some urban intersections may be worth exploring, especially in cities with weak crosswalk protection laws. (Though for cycling safety we should eliminate right turns as the most common driver-cyclist crash is where the driver turns right in front of a cyclist.) Many roads already have limited left turns or time-restricted turning for traffic flow reasons.

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