Pedestrians and the traffic circles

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My wife and I have both noticed some near accidents between pedestrians and cars in the traffic circles in the Kentlands. We started talking about this and both realized that we weren't sure who had the right of way. We checked and learned that in this situation the cars have the right of way. Pedestrians must yield due to the crossings not being legal "crosswalks." So walkers beware! I wonder if others are also not sure about this, and I worry that the confusion could create problems. Maybe a sign could help here??

Thought this board might want to know.

-- Tom Golden (golden@webhealing.com), March 05, 2000

Answers

The traffic circles are a nice concept but I think they may need some rethinking, especially near the Gardens senior living complex. It's hard for many of us, especially the elderly, to make it quickly enough across the street there. I suspect it's intimidating to many of those residents. Another problem as the shopping area builds up is that it's hard for traffic to cross Kentlands Blvd. from one side to the other around the exit by O'Donnell's and Zany Brainy on the other side, also hard to turn left from the O'Donnell's side. The good news is that Gaithersburg has a very open-minded traffic department - not sure what their exact name is, but I believe Ollie Mumpower is the person in charge. If we get serious about changes on Kentlands Blvd., we should approach the city.

-- Elly Shaw-Belblidia (mirinor@aol.com), March 05, 2000.

Although I imagine it might be a pain in the neck for all of us at times, I wonder if it would make more sense if Kentlands Blvd was changed so that it was not a "Thru Street".

If you think about it, one of the issues with the current retail section is the whole "anchor and critical mass" thing. If the shopping ares were combined by walk-ways, and Kentlands Blvd was somehow blocked in the middle so it was not used by people blowing through from one side to the other, it might be a much nicer place to walk around and shop.

Of course, I am not a planner, and this may be a ridiculous traffic set up, but it just seems like an idea worth considering.

JP

-- joe paiva (joepaiva@aol.com), March 18, 2000.


I hope pedestrians are using the paved crosswalks when crossing Kentlands Blvd. near the circles. There you deal with one direction of traffic flow at a time. The wide median allows a waiting place, if necessary, before crossing the rest of Kentlands Blvd. Crossing at the circle or within its roadways doesn't seem like a good idea.

-- Nish Karakashian (nkmamd@erols.com), March 18, 2000.

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