i had to go to Tulsa,OK recently . I had time so I drove through what is referred DDI all directions. I can see someone having a Panic attack because at one point you are driving on the left side where before you would have been on the right side. Then there is that strange feeling cross over to get back on the right side of the road.
That was a heavy traffic area and this is supposed to shorten the time going through. I can’t decide if it was a good idea or not .
There was a discussion about these not too long ago here.
There are two near me in central VA. Trust me. They are a good idea for traffic flow.
I found it only slightly weird at first (both were modified after I’d been through each intersection like 100 or more times). But not any reason to “panic” or even be confused. They get laid out pretty plainly in terms of the lines on the road. And I knew the deal as they were being built, so I already knew the logic.
Obviously that doesn’t go for everyone. After one of them was finished I saw people a couple of times having their “right side of the road” habits overriding the obvious “follow the lanes” lines. But that was only at first.
One opened on the other side of town almost 4yrs ago, you get used to it really quick but the first time I used it I was getting off the freeway turning left and you turn into the left side of the road going over the freeway. We’d been given a well done virtual demonstration of how the intersection would work before they even started changing the overpass.
I like how they work. Yes, it seems odd at first, but you get used to it fairly quickly. There’s one near the Walmart in Zions Crossroads VA and another in Haymarket VA . Both on Rt. 15 yet miles apart.
There is one that I go through two to three time a week. Seems to work well.
Whereas traffic circle near there I avoid.
Some people deal with unusual traffic patterns well, some not. About 10 years ago I was on an extended business trip in Japan and we drove on the left. It was a bit unusual at first but I got used to it quickly. I only had problems turning right. I wanted to pull into the right lane after turning and had to constantly remind myself to skip the right lane and pull left. I had no problems after a couple of weeks. Others commented for a long time how driving on the left bothered them.
Don’t have any around here that I know of anyway… so can’t comment on how well or not they work… but…
As long as you can see those lines clearly on the road, middle TN is always changing some road around or something, and even roads that have been there for decades can change where the mouth of the road is, especially when they add raised dividers and stuff, if you hadn’t been on it in a while and it is raining late at night and go to make a turn where the road used to be and now you almost hit a curb or divider, a ditch or something cause you can not see the painted lines, then it becomes an issue…Or even worse, they are doing road work and have painted new lines but you can still see parts of the old lines and now in the dark and rain, you have multiple lines on the road to choose from…
Example, I travel this road often, I remember when it was just a trail for off road vehicles… lol
It is an extremely hilly and curved road, can not see very far in front of you on a good day, I remember it just being a wide 2 lane road before making it a 4 liner, then they decided to add the grassy median strip between the road and lastly the stupid left turn lane on the other side of the road (basically)… I can remember late noght in heavy rain almost stopping cause I couldn’t see the dang road and where I was supposed to drive, heck comeing up the road on a good day with the blinding hill and curve it sorta sneaks up on ya and still makes me think, where the heck am I supposed to drive, much less in a downpour…
Google doesn’t do the 35+yo road justice… from the bottom of either picture you can not see the red light coming up and it is a 45 MPH limit road… one of the roads most do not speed on… lol
My point is, unless those painted lines are easy to see in the rain at night, they don’t do much for someone that is just passing though that has never seen one of the DDI’s before… And if you are in heavy traffic already and not your exit for another 20+ miles, you might not even see the overhead signs showing what is happening… I mean I don’t read the overhead signs most of the time, when you are in traffic and doing the speed limit, you tend to be paying close attention to the other people, watching for sudden brake lights on the road trying to avoid an accident… One eye on the road and traffic, the other eye on the cars behind you and beside you, the other eye on the kids, the other eye on the whatever, you kinda run out of eyes after a while… lol
The place where the DDI is in Tulsa get up to 60000 vehicles a day . I was there on a Sunday afternoon and it was still busy. I do think it is better than what was before it . I am just glad I don’t need to go through there very often.
One concern is long-term maintenance. Around here they’ll have lines painted on the road to show directions, then not repaint the lines when the paint is worn off.
The DDI I use has the added “convenience” of golf cart lanes.
But overall pretty good.
If there is lots of traffic to lead you through the DDI, it is easy to just follow and learn. The first DDI I experienced was at night in very light traffic. It was confusing for sure but I figured it out.
No one mentioned winter conditions yet. Here in Maine it is not uncommon to be following the tire tracks of preceding vehicles rather than the (unseen) painted lines.
Our bigger roads get their lines repainted yearly and even then, are fading (or scraped by snow plows) if it is long or late winter. Painted lines are not reliable if there is a quantity of dried salt on road, or “black ice.”
My guess is that state DOTs don’t install DDIs in the northern tier because there is usually not enough density of population to require these. We see more roundabouts and these work well enough if people simply do what the roundabout is attempting to cause–speed reduction. Usual speed limit within a roundabout is 15 mph. (Fender benders rather than dangerous T-boning.) No electrical infrastructure to maintain either.
Any thoughts from Minneapolis, Madison, Albany, etc?
