10-17-2013, 02:54 AM
I lived in a town that had a serious bottleneck and the DOT proposed a roundabout to fix it. A stop light wasn't really an option because it would have required traffic to backup onto a bridge. The whole town was aflutter on what a big mistake the roundup was going to be. The "Letters to the editor" section of the newspaper was flooded with doomsday predictions of traffic accidents, backups, and serious end-of-the-world chaos. Video rental stores couldn't keep "National Lampoon's European Vacation" in stock as people wanted to queue up that scene where the Griswalds got onto a roundabout in London and went round and round in circles for hours. "Look! They are stuck forever on the roundabout!" Shouted one video viewer. "And they are driving on the wrong side of the road!" Shrieked another. One day I spotted a Prius with a "Roundabouts Kill" bumpersticker sandwiched between the "You can't hug your child with nuclear arms" and "Free Tibet" stickers.
The DOT tried to educate the public on roundabouts and released a public service announcement on the radio. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect that they were hoping for. Half the town criticized the message. The other half criticized them for hiring Dick Cheney to narrate it.
The nanny state ignored the public outcries and proceeded with the planned roundabout. People started stockpiling food, water, and ammunition. Churches were overflowing with confessing congregations on the Sunday before the grand opening of the roundabout. The eve before the grand opening, the DOT erected the new roundabout signage. Before the morning dawn broke, somebody had spray painted a swastika on it.
Then the day came when the roundabout opened. Some brave souls woke up two hours early to navigate the gridlock and congestion that they were sure they were going to face, but most families just retreated to their basements, held hands, and prayed. And waited. When they didn't hear the sounds of vehicles colliding and the screams of the wounded they bravely turned on their radios. Why were the radio stations featuring their normal programming? Why wasn't the emergency broadcast system activated? Why was the morning traffic report stating THERE WAS NO TRAFFIC DELAYS?!
Eventually, people came out of their basements. It took their eyes a moment to adjust to the daylight, but eventually through their squinting eyes they could see that instead of stopping traffic and mankind, the roundabout actually worked! The bottleneck was gone! Why did we spend so many years waiting waiting waiting at that intersection? Who were these mad scientists and engineers the DOT employed? We never got the answers to these questions but it was almost like... almost like.... almost like the roundabout had been used in other countries for decades successfully, and that America's sick fascination with the stoplights and expensive overpasses may not be the only solutions to the world's traffic problems.
The first time I approached the roundabout, my fingers were tingling as they clutched the steering wheel tightly. Butterflies were fluttering in my stomach. I entered the roundabout. A Prius in front of me had a scraped mark where somebody had removed a bumper sticker but couldn't get all the glue off. Hybrid cars, roundabouts, Dick Cheney shooting people in the face. What had this world come to? I didn't really have time to ponder it all, because the roundabout shaved 10 minutes of my commute.
The DOT tried to educate the public on roundabouts and released a public service announcement on the radio. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect that they were hoping for. Half the town criticized the message. The other half criticized them for hiring Dick Cheney to narrate it.
The nanny state ignored the public outcries and proceeded with the planned roundabout. People started stockpiling food, water, and ammunition. Churches were overflowing with confessing congregations on the Sunday before the grand opening of the roundabout. The eve before the grand opening, the DOT erected the new roundabout signage. Before the morning dawn broke, somebody had spray painted a swastika on it.
Then the day came when the roundabout opened. Some brave souls woke up two hours early to navigate the gridlock and congestion that they were sure they were going to face, but most families just retreated to their basements, held hands, and prayed. And waited. When they didn't hear the sounds of vehicles colliding and the screams of the wounded they bravely turned on their radios. Why were the radio stations featuring their normal programming? Why wasn't the emergency broadcast system activated? Why was the morning traffic report stating THERE WAS NO TRAFFIC DELAYS?!
Eventually, people came out of their basements. It took their eyes a moment to adjust to the daylight, but eventually through their squinting eyes they could see that instead of stopping traffic and mankind, the roundabout actually worked! The bottleneck was gone! Why did we spend so many years waiting waiting waiting at that intersection? Who were these mad scientists and engineers the DOT employed? We never got the answers to these questions but it was almost like... almost like.... almost like the roundabout had been used in other countries for decades successfully, and that America's sick fascination with the stoplights and expensive overpasses may not be the only solutions to the world's traffic problems.
The first time I approached the roundabout, my fingers were tingling as they clutched the steering wheel tightly. Butterflies were fluttering in my stomach. I entered the roundabout. A Prius in front of me had a scraped mark where somebody had removed a bumper sticker but couldn't get all the glue off. Hybrid cars, roundabouts, Dick Cheney shooting people in the face. What had this world come to? I didn't really have time to ponder it all, because the roundabout shaved 10 minutes of my commute.
