View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Randy Brenzen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: What do you think of the City’s plan to build a traffic circle at Dracup and Darlington?
Excuse to vent
We have become such a vehicle-centric society, it seems nothing is more contentious than traffic-related issues. It is what tensions in the R.M. of Orkney are all about and now a new traffic circle at Darlington and Dracup has raised the ire of Yorkton residents.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time on roundabouts. They are scientifically proven to be more efficient and safer than four-way stops and traffic lights. Deal with it.
Unfortunately, in Yorkton it doesn’t matter whether you install a traffic circle, a four-way stop or a traffic light because people do not know how to use any of them. Even a traffic cop would probably just give up in futility. In fact, I have lived in a lot of places and I have never experienced such poor driving and road etiquette.
The great thing about writing about this subject is good drivers relate, idiots don’t realize they are idiots and aholes don’t care what other people think, so you can write whatever you want, but can’t really offend anybody.
In addition to the appalling use of traffic circles and four-way stops, here are my other pet peeves:
1. Parking. I cannot believe how often people park diagonally across more than one stall in a lot or on top of the lines on the street. And it’s not just the rules-don’t-apply-to-me-because-I’m-a-rich-ahole-with-a-Mercedes set who do this in Yorkton, it’s everyone.
2. Slow driving. The speed limit is 50 unless otherwise marked, people! Seriously, what the F is up with people just moseying along as if they’re the only car on the road?
3. Vehicles without proper mufflers. Honestly, there are people who do this on purpose. You’re not cool, you’re an ahole.
Ah, it feels good to get that off my chest.
I will say one thing for Yorkton drivers, though. They are generally very nice to pedestrians. I don’t know how many times I’ve been trying to cross a street, not at a corner or crosswalk, and drivers have stopped for me.
-Thom Barker
Slick as can be
Roundabouts — one would think they were some alien creation installed solely to frustrate and annoy drivers.
At least that is the impression one generally got attending a recent public meeting in the city on roadway work including Dracup Avenue, which includes a planned roundabout on the intersection with Darlington Street.
The general feedback at the City-held meeting was less than favourable toward the idea of a roundabout as the best way to deal with traffic flowing through the intersection.
In my mind though the roundabout on King Street and Gladstone Avenue works pretty slick.
Although to be honest I could find a boatload of people with decidedly opposite views on how well that intersection works.
But when you meet a naysayer on the local roundabout take a moment to delve a bit deeper into the reason for their disgruntlement and you often find laments about people who clearly throw a wrench into traffic flowing through because they are not obeying the rather simple rules of using one.
The issue is less the roundabout and more the driving habits of far too many Yorkton drivers.
As the lone roundabout people were not initially familiar with using one, and frankly many are still tentative in its use.
A second one will face the same issue.
Of course in Yorkton to be fair many drivers still seem baffled by the handy two-way-turn-lanes on the west end of Broadway Street, and often even the rules of a four-way stop allude many drivers.
That is the core issue, a misunderstanding of how to properly use a traffic control feature which should alleviate problems, not cause them. If people would get a better grasp of using a roundabout they might actually come to recognize how slick they are.
-Calvin Daniels
Reality TV potential
Roundabouts.
The bane of the Yorkton driver.
But are they really that bad? The answer: not really.
The only people who truly hate them are those that really have no clue what they’re doing when they approach them, and, if you pay attention to Yorkton drivers, that’s the majority of them.
We have a total of one roundabout in Yorkton (two if you count the one by the cenotaph, but you shouldn’t as it’s not really one), and it’s as basic as it could be. You drive up, slow down, turn right if no one is coming and then exit as you see fit. Simple. Easy (or at least is should be).
I’m actually all for roundabouts. Put as many as you can in the city! Replace all the four way stops with them if you must. After all, most people in this city don’t know how to properly use those, either.
Roundabouts have proven to be an effective way to keep traffic moving all throughout the world, and everywhere else it seems as if the people have figured out how to use them.
Heck, the city of Milton Keynes, UK, has a total of 300 actual roundabouts and they haven’t gone crazy yet!
On a side note, I’d love to see a reality television show putting Yorkton drivers in Milton Keynes and just letting them drive. THAT would be hilarious.
-Randy Brenzen
