From: TONY Redington [mailto:tonyrvt99@GMAIL.COM]

Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2016 10:43 AM

To: ROUNDABOUTS@LISTSERV.KSU.EDU

Subject: Re: STOPLIGHTS: THE HIDDEN COSTS -- Ageism

Good Day:

Just some thoughts on seniors and roundabouts.  First, with over half senior driver fatalities at intersections (versus less than a quarter for non-seniors) it is no surprise the the only major non-insurance group to strongly support new roundabouts and signal to roundabout conversions is AARP.  Second, learned first hand through a door-to-door survey in 1996 there are a very small percentage--perhaps 1-2% of seniors and non-seniors that are truly roundabout phobic and some are in the older age category.  Third, two laners present more formidable challenge to the older versus the younger driver which is why they should be kept small, low speed.

Third, my Mom was a roundabout supporter for my home town in Keene, NH and traversed the first one in Montpelier, VT by car and later by foot when she moved back to Vermont.  She was a conservative New Hampshire (moderate today) Republican, a radio professional and later in life a French teacher.  Never in my life did I ever see her wear a T-shirt except once in support of the group fighting the Keene Bypass Expansion, a T-shirt with the words "cheaper, cleaner, quicker, safer" and a map on the back showing four roundabouts replacing a spaghetti of ramps and overpass "trumpet" for the expansion.  The roundabouts won, of course, and when she died there were two items laid to rest with her--the photos of her son and three grandsons and that Concerned Cheshire Citizens T-shirt.

We revere today the contributions of  Eugene Henard, William Phelps Eno and Frank Blackmore for their contributions to the science and innovation in traffic engineering representing the first and second generation of roundabout practice and engineering.  Wonder if the traffic signal engineers have any such icons in their history?

        Tony

On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 7:32 AM, McCulloch, Mark <mccullochm@wcroads.org<mailto:mccullochm@wcroads.org>> wrote:

I too have a lot of respect for Ken. I  believe his passion and love for his work is awesome. I have reached out to him a few times to seek his opinion becuase I value his thoughts.After<http://thoughts.After> reading my message yesterday I misinterpreted some of his statements, especially the 'thouthless' comment. So for that I offer Ken my sincere apology to our Listserv readers. I learned something from this experience. It makes me happy to know I was right about the fact we are all on the same team. :)

Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Droid

On Dec 3, 2016 11:06 PM, "Balskus, Joseph" <balskusj@CDMSMITH.COM<mailto:balskusj@CDMSMITH.COM>> wrote:

Ken, you know I love all that you do for the listserv and I have loads of admiration for your expertise and wisdom. However I have to disagree with you on this one, respectfully of course!

On three of the last four roundabouts I have been involved with in CT and MA, the over 65 demographic were far and away the most resistant to the roundabout proposals. While this is purely anecdotal and clearly in violation of any kind of required statistical sampling requirements, it isn’t ageism, is just based on experiences I have had here 1500 miles up the eastern seaboard.

I think the differences in opinions on roundabouts between the over 65 population in beautiful Clearwater Beach and New England can be explained. Those older folks in Clearwater Beach are rested, on vacation or retired, and they are not cranky like us New Englanders!

Joseph C. Balskus, P.E., PTOE | Principal | CDM Smith

111 Founders Plaza | Suite 1600 | East Hartford, CT 06108 | T: 860.808.2299<tel:860.808.2299> | F:860.290.7845<tel:860.290.7845>

C: 203-482-0956<tel:203-482-0956> | balskusj@cdmsmith.com<mailto:balskusj@cdmsmith.com><mailto:balskusj@cdmsmith.com<mailto:balskusj@cdmsmith.com>>

www.cdmsmith.com<http://www.cdmsmith.com>

From: Roundabout Research [mailto:ROUNDABOUTS@LISTSERV.KSU.EDU<mailto:ROUNDABOUTS@LISTSERV.KSU.EDU>] On Behalf Of Ken Sides

Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2016 8:39 PM

To: ROUNDABOUTS@LISTSERV.KSU.EDU<mailto:ROUNDABOUTS@LISTSERV.KSU.EDU>

Subject: STOPLIGHTS: THE HIDDEN COSTS -- Ageism

Clearwater Beach, FL, has a proportion of population 65 and older 2.5x the national average, and experienced installation of the first high-profile modern roundabout in the US back at the Millennium: a 2-lane, 6-legged ellipseabout with spectacular central island fountain.   Because of it's central location, the beach population has no option but to traverse the roundabout several times every day.

A few months later, the Clearwater Beach Association--which represents both residents and businesses on the Beach--asked for a second roundabout to be built on their island, and backed up their request with a donation of $3,000. I sometimes ask conference audiences of traffic engineers how many have had residents accompany intersection requests with a generous cash donation, and never a single hand is raised.  So this is unusual. It's called "buy-in," in this case, literally.

On opening day the Beach residents, many oldster among them, showed up in force--not with pitchforks but with  chairs, drinks in cooler chests, a BBQ grill, hamburgers and hot dogs--and threw a street party to celebrate their second beach roundabout.  When I ask audiences who's had residents throw a street party for a new signalized intersection, again:  no hands.  So this is unusual, too.

For the holidays, the older beach residents like to adorn this roundabout with big red bows and plant poinsettias around the inner truck apron.  Planner speak for this is "taking ownership."

I've spent many hours watching countless older drivers traverse the two roundabouts on Clearwater Beach and not observed older users experience any problems.

But what I have seen is professional engineers declare older persons resist modern roundabouts because they can't accept change, and older drivers have a harder time learning how to drive roundabouts.

I've never seen any study finding that older persons are any less open to modern roundabouts, and I never seen any study finding that older persons are less able or quick to master driving them--and I've never heard any of those engineers cite any study to back up their declarations.  I think they are just thoughtlessly repeating what they've heard.  And once the notion settles into their mindset, if they witness an example of an older driver hesitating at the YIELD, why, that just confirms their prejudice.  Psychologists call this confirmation bias and it is unbecoming of an engineer.

The term for a negative stereotype based on age is ageism.

I even once read where an engineer discouraged putting a roundabout where there was a concentration of older population, justifying the decision with the reasons mentioned above.  This level of thinking is particularly unfortunate because conventional intersections present a much greater challenge to the very capabilities that decline with age, such as: dynamic acuity, static acuity, depth perception, focus in the face of complexity, and the absolute requirement to make correct split-second decisions every time on pain of death;  whereas modern roundabouts provide older persons exactly what they need.

AASHTO says:  "Drivers often commit errors when they have to perform several highly complex tasks at the time under extreme time pressure" and "Speed reduces the visual field, restricts the peripheral vision, and limits the time available to receive and process information.

Roundabouts are older-friendly because they provide more time to perceive and evaluate situations, more time to make decisions, more time to take action, reduced demands to accurately judge gaps in fast oncoming traffic, less complicated situations to interpret, and reduced demands to quickly perform wide visual scans of rapidly changing situations.  The need to make left turns in front of oncoming traffic--the classic older-driver crash--is eliminated.

In addition, older bodies are more frail, suffer much more from injuries, take longer to heal, are less likely to ever recover, are more likely to experience a permanent and severe loss of quality of life, and more readily die of their injuries, so the great reduction in injury severity at modern roundabouts is especially important to oldsters.

So for an engineer to deny, based on ageist prejudice, an older population the very substantial safety benefits modern roundabouts provide to them is really not professional...or excusable.

-Ken

Ken Sides, PE, PTOE, CNU-a