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Memphis' First Roundabout


mandrws1

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello again. Been flying a lot lately and doing yardwork with little time to participate here. Saw the roundabout discussion and figured I show a couple of pics since I live down the street from it. Was a little surprised to see from the drawings that a fountain does not appear to be included in the middle of it (unless a missed it in the drawings). There are many pipes in the construction levels which led me to believe there might be a water feature in the center, but I guess it's for irrigation/drainage with all the plants planned for the center.

First image is up close looking North-Northeast back toward Harbor Town. You can see the aforementioned pipes. The one in the middle is what made me think of the water feature. Oh well, we'll see what happens. It's coming along nicely with the sidewalks and roadways almost completed. Crews were laying sod around the roadside and sidewalks when I took this picture.

roundabout18ud.jpg

Walking up the Auction Street bridge and looking back west toward the project. Traffic has been diverted for quite some time and I'll be glad when it's finished. You can see from this distant view it's a pretty large roundabout.

roundabout37mz.jpg

So what's this going to do for traffic getting off and on the Island? In the short term, there should be little change as to the south of the roundabout, there is no development. Traffic entering the island will make the same sweeping right turn. Traffic exiting from the north will simply loop around the roundabout and go up the hill. When developers build on the land below, traffic could get interesting, especially when people living south of the roundabout want to go to Miss Cordelia's grocery and have to deal with southbound traffic leaving the island.

mudislandsouth2vl.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

The roundabout is coming along, but functionally, it's already quirky. The picture below is taken driving westbound at the bottom of the Auction Street bridge. The center of the roundabout is on the left side of the page and it's nicely landscaped. Notice however, there is a "One Way" sign...this is dubious. In the center of the picture to the right of the orange barrels is a "Wrong Way" sign. I guess the traffic department doesn't think much of our driving skills on Mud Island. The kicker, which I unfortunately have not yet photographed, is the plethora of "Yield" signs. There are yield signs at every merge point, meaning traffic in the circle is constantly yielding to each other, and there's much hand-waving ("...no, you go ahead..."). If you look closely above the orange barrels in the background, you'll see a yield sign for inner lane traffic; southbound traffic from Island Drive also has a yield sign.

It's my understanding that traffic already in the roundabout has right-of-way over traffic entering the roundabout; the signage seems to make this more difficult.

roundabout0nr.jpg

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Yeah, if you're from the US or anywhere else, people in the roundabout have right-of-way, but in Paris, people in it do, which tends to cause some very bizarre traffic problems. Also, a problem I see in the rendering is that Mud Island Drive goes from four lanes to two, which could be bad, but I don't know the amount of traffic in that area. But also, from the one side of Mud Island Drive and Auction Street, there are two lanes of traffic going into the roundabout, which also only has two lanes. It will be very hard for people in the left lane to get into the roundabout, because they will have to cross a lane of traffic. It would also be hard for people on the inside lane to get out, as they would have to cross back over. Of course, this would be prevented if people drive right, and go to the inside lane if they are not leaving the roundabout, and only go to the outside lane if they are about to leave the roundabout. But I guess we'll have to wait until people start using it.

And about the yield signs, they really should be stop signs for people entering the roundabout, but w/e.

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  • 3 weeks later...

As the one who was quoted as stating the roundabout is "functionally quirky," let me now say the roundabout yield signs have been fixed for traffic entering the roundabout from the north on Island Drive. Whereas it used to have yield signs for traffic both in the circle and entering from the north, now only the entering traffic must yield. The roundabout now works well.

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