04-06-2020 Council work Session Packet

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Michael Grochala March 31, 2020 Page 2 S:\Community Development\Projects\Government Agencies\Anoka County 2019 CSAH 34 (Birch Street)\Staff Reports\20200406 WS Birch Street Recon\a1, CSAH 34 Ped Crossing0_20200401.docx Crossing One Direction at a Time As mentioned, at a standard intersection a pedestrian must cross at least two lanes of traffic with any crossing. At a roundabout, a pedestrian is only required to cross one lane at a time and can wait at the pedestrian refuge before finalizing the crossing across the other lane. The refuge island breaks up the maneuver thus allowing the pedestrian to gain a good sense of when the approaching vehicle will yield to their movement. Shorter Crossing Distance Crossing at a standard intersection is longer than at a roundabout. A standard intersection usually includes crossing a minimum of 24 feet at one crossing, and often includes a right or left turn lane making the crossing closer to 48 feet at one crossing. Because a roundabout can handle the same amount of traffic with single approach lanes, the pedestrian crossing at a roundabout is 12-16 feet per crossing. This limits the amount of time that they can have interaction with a vehicle. Driver Multi-Stage Recognition At roundabouts, the pedestrian crossing is pulled back from the yield line, where a driver waits to enter the roundabout. This is different from a standard intersection where the crossing is at the same location as the stop location. At the roundabout, the driver is able to focus on the pedestrian crossing movement before trying to find a gap in traffic. The standard intersection requires the driver to not only look for pedestrians crossing in front of them, but in every other direction. The driver at a standard intersection also needs to ensure that the other drivers at the intersection are also not going to conflict with their movement.