The Daily Populous Thursday May 23rd, 2024 evening edition
Image from preview.redd.it and submitted by FanohgeChamoru

mid_vibrations on May 23rd, 2024 at 06:10 UTC »

what's going on here?

Xanthus179 on May 23rd, 2024 at 08:56 UTC »

Protected? I don’t see a single machine gun turret or spike trap.

Oh, they come out of the street at the first sign of trouble? Neat.

criminalalmond on May 23rd, 2024 at 12:31 UTC »

Transportation engineer here. Protected intersections are becoming very common in my city, and I have designed several of them.

The intersection protects pedestrians and bicyclists from vehicles and forces drivers to slow down to traverse tighter turning radii. The pedestrians crossings have been shortened with the queuing areas crossing the major road.

It’s hard to tell from the image, but the small football shaped islands on the corners usually have a mountable curb for larger vehicles to make the turns.

The median running left-right forces vehicles either right or straight on the major road. It forces vehicles right from the minor road. I would guess drivers used this minor road as a cut-through before, and it just didn’t have the capacity for it. Yes, the major road may become congested due to the diversion, but it is likely an overall improvement to the roadway network efficiency. Traffic studies of the entire network usually justify this.

This may seem unusual if you’ve never encountered it, but upon entering the intersection it’s clear what you do as a driver. You can only go where the striping and raised medians allow you to go.