A small follow-up to my post a couple of months ago about Taiwan’s first turbo roundabout in Taichung. A couple months ago it was updated with street view for part of it so now we can get a better look at it. Admittedly I’ve been too lazy to make my way out to that area in person.
As mentioned before there are street lights at the crossing meaning you will have to wait to enter the turbo roundabout.
On this entrance to the roundabout there are turn arrows on both lanes but after passing the street light the inner lane switches to a straight arrow to actually enter to the intersection. I feel like this will end up confusing people here. Honestly probably the only reason they did this is because they used a right turn green arrow light instead of a regular green light because they are so dang terrified of drivers turning left on the dang roundabout so to make sure you can legally proceed through the light they drew a right turn arrow on the ground…
On another entrance it’s different. For redeveloped land and a brand new roundabout I think asking for something consistent across the whole design shouldn’t be difficult. So far it looks like 3 of the 4 entrances are different designs.
Vast amounts of empty space all around the roundabout and random empty lane on the inside of the traffic lane? I guess you can park inside the roundabout?
Along with the large amount of wasted space is plenty of space that should be filled with sidewalk extensions to reduce crossing distance for pedestrians. Also because of traffic lights pedestrians have to wait for the crossing light to change before they can cross.
Street light put right up to the asphalt on the exit. Has a pedestrian traffic sign that should be universally understood. Because it’s Taiwan they also have a huge sign with a bunch of writing on it to explain what the sign already explains and creating more visual noise for no reason. Probably could’ve also moved this street light back or not even have one in this spot to create an even more open view of the exit and pedestrians.
All the exits from the roundabout have a stop road marking rather than a yield. The stop line is also quite close to the pedestrian crossing. There’s is also no physical separation or barriers in the middle.
Inside is basically a park. However, there is no crossing to get there. Also…are they really asking people to cross two lanes of traffic like that
Also nearby leading up to this intersection there are many isolated median islands. Impossible to cross from one side to the other. So to get to the other median island you have to cross the street 3 times. There’s a dedicated left turn phase. A crossing to allow people to cross to the next island would be fine, especially if they got rid of all the empty space.
Also tons of wasted space here that could be more of the median island.
Satellite view (before road markings were painted)