Apparently, in addition to sponsoring blog space for the black helicopter crowd, Community Newspapers has evidently extended their laissez-faire policy to assertions of fact made in print at Community Newspaper Inc.'s "MyCommunityNOW" papers.
Witness the "Community Voices" feature in the June 25 edition of the Franklin/Greendale/Hales Corners/Oak Creek NOW Newspaper, "Love or hate 'em, plenty of views on roundabouts."
From "Linda G" of Philadelphia:
I spent 25 adult years in the Franklin area before moving out east and find this talk of roundabouts a bit strange. People in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are getting RID of them. Folks here hate them. Accidents abound. Granted, most accidents are minor. Ten years from now, I bet people will regret having built these things.
Editing? Well, the underlined material above was actually edited out of the print version of this comment (the online posting is here,) Another (wiser) edit was the rambling "A tour guide in Halifax, during one of our visits, said of a roundabout we were navigating that it was going to be replaced because at least two or three accidents happen every day. Sure enough, one happened right there in front of us. Semi-truck crunched a van.")
Fact checking? Opinions are one thing, but, as a newspaper, when you print an assertion of fact, it's generally a good idea to go to Google or make a phone call. Had anyone at Community Newspapers done so, they would have learned that in the older cities of the eastern United States - particularly in Pennsylvania and New Jersey - traffic circles were and are common traffic features.
Let's make this clear (as Community Newspapers missed a teachable moment): Just as not all roundabouts are correctly engineered or appropriate for certain locations, Traffic circles are very different - and much less safe and efficient than - roundabouts. In fact, any traffic circle - often erroneously referred to as a "roundabout" - built in the U.S. prior to 1994 is almost certainly not a conforming roundabout.
And, guess what? The old traffic circles in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, etc. - some dating back to horse and buggy days - are indeed being removed. And often replaced by roundabouts when appropriate.
Does Community Newspapers enrich public discussion when they take this lazy approach?
I guess it falls to me to do what they don't have time for.
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