Traffic at the world’s craziest intersection: Meskel Square in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. No lights, no roundabout, no traffic cops, and lots of lucky people narrowly avoiding collisions of all kinds. According to Amusing Planet, “Meskel Square is one of the major hotspots for accidents in Addis Ababa.”
2019 Update: According to Seattle’s The Stranger in 2014:
The lack of regulations, lights, signs fits with the traffic and design theories of the late Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic engineer. According to his way of thinking, removing safety features and instructions from a road forces drivers to pay more attention to what’s happening outside of their vehicles (pedestrians, cyclists) rather just blindly following the rules.
But in 2019, the local government is making changes. From Construction Review online:
Ethiopia is set to construct 40 intersections in its capital Addis Ababa to ease traffic jams in the City which is being made worse with the ever growing population; now going up to 3.5 million people.
Addis Ababa City Road Traffic Management Agency will hire a consultant to study, design and supervise the construction of the intersections with tender notice already served.
The winning company will conduct traffic surveys, prepare preliminary and final designs of the sections, prepare bid documents, locate where to build the intersections, estimate the cost of the design and construction phases and supervise the project during implementation.
Related watching: Testing the 4 Way Stop vs the Roundabout.
via Swiss-Miss.
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