The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) recently announced that according to department data, fatalities, injuries, and crashes decreased overall after intersections at 39 locations were replaced with 42 roundabouts.
"PennDOT is continuing its work to identify and implement innovations and best practices across Pennsylvania," PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll in a press release. "I'm proud to see that the data on roundabouts remains consistent on saving lives and reducing crash severity."
PennDOT recently reviewed data for 36 single-lane and six multi-lane roundabouts on state routes at intersections that were previously stop or signal controlled. These intersections were selected based on having at least three years of crash data available before and after the roundabouts were built.
Department data from 2003 through 2022 obtained from police-submitted crash reports shows that crashes involving suspected serious injuries were reduced by 24%; crashes involving suspected non-serious injuries were reduced by 51%; and the total number of crashes were reduced by 3%.
Although roundabouts are frequently installed to address intersections with safety issues, they are also commonly installed to improve traffic flow or for other reasons such as traffic calming.
The seven new roundabouts included in this review and the other that met selection criteria can be found on the PennDOT website.
Roundabouts are recognized by the Pennsylvania State Transportation Innovation Council (STIC) as an innovation that has become standard practice within the transportation community.
The Pennsylvania STIC facilitates the rapid implementation of proven, well-researched and documented state, regional, national and international technologies, tactics, techniques and other innovations that are new to Pennsylvania. The STIC also supports the implementation of the Federal Highway Administration's Every Day Counts (EDC)Opens In A New Window innovations.
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Source: The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
