Posted by Dansworld at 07/09/10 08:10PM        Post ID#: #460

I am and alwasy have been a strong supporter of the new highway 12 program in WW County but there are at least two aspects I continue to question; one is the design of the interchange at Burbank as shown in the UB tonight, and the other is the continued confusing description used by WSDOT to describe how to use a roundabout. As shown in the paper tonight, when coming to WW a driver will be required to trun off the highway, go off to the roundabout, go around it, then turn back to the highway to continue to WW.I hope someone made an error on the drawing instead.
As for the "how to use a roundabout" instructions, they are written as if all of them are designed the same, with 4 lanes of traffic into and out of them - but they are not all four lanes. They say you cannot change lanes in the RA but if yo are NB on Myra and want to go west on the old highway, you are instructed to be in the left lane when entering. To leave you have to be in the right or outer lane, so you must change to get out. The answer seems to be: stop or remove the lane lines so you all end up in one wide lane, thus you aren't actually changing lanes. Phooey, lanes are lanes, it just makes it confusing. I spent three years driving on all sizes of roundabouts in the UK and these ones we have created in Washington are not comparable to those. Good luck to everyone with the new road. At least the road is great-now all we have to do is wait for all the at-grade crossing crashes like at Clinton Street.

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Updated Aug. 21 2009

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