A US city made one change to their roundabout system that cut out '5,000 cars' worth of carbon dioxide' emissions.
Indiana's Carmel has the most roundabouts of any city in the US – a whopping 142 of them.
Mayor James Brainard also reckons that the city will have just one set of traffic lights by 2025, CBS reports. His aim is to reduce pollution and improve traffic circulation.
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Brainard said: "We don't have to pave over paradise. We can keep our roads more narrow, and that's better for the environment. It's better for pedestrians."
Former city engineer Michael McBride added: "We're talking about human lives being saved by roundabout intersections.
"Once the world embraces that, roundabouts will be everywhere."
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McBride also claimed that Carmel's roundabout system removes the equivalent of '5,000 cars' worth of carbon dioxide'.
The roundabout system, as you might expect, has taken some getting used to, as Corey Hill, a call centre director from nearby Avon said he often gets stuck behind confused out-of-towners.
He previously told The New York Times: “I hate them.”
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However, in defence, engineer McBride, who oversaw the project, said: “You can spit out fact-based data, but at the end of the day most of the general population is scared of things that are new and different.”
McBride claims that the current US roadway system 'doesn’t put a lot of faith in the driver to make choices'.
“They’re used to being told what to do at every turn,” he added.
Bill Greenman, operations manager at a restaurant downtown, also thought: "If you’re having a wonderful day, you’ll probably just ignore them.
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"If you’re having a bad day in traffic, you’ll probably blame it on roundabouts."
Jessica Cicchino, vice president of research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said: "As traffic fatalities continue to rise in the US, we really need to use all the tools in our toolbox, and roundabouts are one of those tools that we've seen be effective."
While Ken Sides, chairman of the roundabout committee at the Institute of Transportation Engineers, added: “Just imagine a post-Sandy, post-Katrina or post-Andrew world where recovery funds were put to work building resilient, sustainable modern roundabouts instead of rebuilding fragile, polluting signalized intersections,”
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“We need to do everything we can about carbon emissions and the climate change issue,” Mayor Brainard reiterated.
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Topics: US News, Technology, Travel, Cars, Climate Change
Anish Vij