Hi All,
There’s an open user report at this roundabout.
The roundabout is not actually constructed as a waze roundabout, just a bunch of normal segments. This results in a navigation instruction only being issued for the exit and the instruction is a keep left on to <road name>
The reporter, also an editor, suggests it be redrawn as a proper waze roundabout so that a take the 1st/2nd exit instruction is given. While I can see where he’s coming from as a regular user of this roundabout I’m not so sure about that.
It should be noted that approaching from the north on Yarra Glen and heading to Yamba Dr, if you are in the left lane you don’t really enter the roundabout as you don’t have to give way (there’s an unbroken line), but if you are in the right lane you do have to give way to traffic on the roundabout, although its fairly rare that you have to do as its rare that someone coming from Melrose Dr wants to go to Yamba Dr (only Lyons residents and residents of the southern half of Curtin would do that).
So what I’m thinking, is that if drawn as a roundabout a bypass segment would be needed from Yarra Glen to Yamba Dr. This could perhaps be drawn so as to give a keep left which would suggest straight ahead traffic use the left lane (this is safest). Some users might flag this as an error as its physically straight through, but I think erring on the side of safety should come first.
What do others think about redrawing this roundabout?
I think the argument for using actual roundabout segments would be that for users navigating through for the first time in the client (the usual point of a GPS after all) would expect a roundabout direction at this point, rather than just keep lefts (as the reporter mentioned). The roundabout with a straight through lane is handled just as a roundabout at the Parkes Way, Anzac Parade intersection and works just fine.
To deal with the left lane bypass you could emulate the HQ JOC or Parkes Way/Cooyong St setup - it’s not as pronounced here but would navigate the same way in the client. Would be hesitant to do that with only an unbroken line as you say people wouldn’t have advance warning of the give way if in the right lane. Since the north to south “take the first exit” would be a valid direction might be a good idea to leave it without a second lane.
I’ve always queried this myself. As a user of this it doesn’t make sense for it to be a roundabout, but as the error report indicates people who don’t regularly use this would expect it to be so. I reckon we make it a round about. I wouldn’t worry about drawing the bypass though, I don’t think the advantages would outweigh the error reports. Plus really it wouldn’t hurt for people in the left lane to be aware as well, especially seeing the number of people when on the roundabout quickly merge to that left lane and don’t look to see the oncoming traffic, solid line or not.