OMG! CFI! (Part 1)

FYI, I recently had the privilege of driving through the relatively new Austin Boulevard (formerly Austin Pike) and S.R. 741 intersection just north of Springboro, Ohio. I drove through it turned around, drove through it again, did a completely legal U-turn, drove through it again, and continued this pattern until I was convinced that I had made every legal( and probably some inadvertent illegal) maneuvers in the intersection. Finally, I found what I was looking for: a place I could pull off of the side of the road and watch the intersection operate.

For those of you who haven’t heard about this intersection, or don’t know why I was/am so interested in it, AFAIK, this particular intersection is the first in Ohio and one of only a few in the United States that is a continuous flow intersection, or CFI.

The most noteworthy of the concepts behind a CFI is that conflicts associated with left-turning movements are removed from the main intersection by directing the left turning traffic across the opposing lanes at an intersection several hundred feet before the main intersection. Make sense? Imagine how you would feel if I tried explaining the entire concept to you. It’s a complicated concept that to truly understand, I recommend you go the Montgomery County Engineer’s website (http://www.mcohio.org/government/engineer/index.html) and watch the video describing the intersection.

It’s hard to get a grasp on the concept because

1. Not many of us, if any have ever seen, much less been through one, and
2. We aren’t used to the concept of oncoming traffic driving on our right.

Nevertheless, I recommend that everyone go check out the intersection at least once.

It is TBD if the intersection has met its design goal of reducing delays and congestion or not. And, as with any new and innovative design, there will be a learning curve for both the drivers and the agency in charge of maintaining the signals, and public opinion has been mixed.

So what does a Traffic Superhero think of all of this? Stay tuned—I’ll let you know in my next post.

(If you are not a texter or don’t have a teenager to ask, the texting acronym definitions can be found at http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/acronyms.php).