CFI - want a taste?

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
June 25, 2012

CFI - Continuous Flow Intersection... Good or bad? Improvement or disaster?

I don't know what it cost for McHenry County officials to make a fast trip to Colorado to inspect the CFI in Loveland, which is about 50 miles north of the Broncos' stadium in Denver. I'll bet it wasn't cheap; I wonder who paid for that trip.

Loveland's CFI is at the intersection of Madison Avenue and Nickel Drive. Check out this article on a local resident's blog, complete with diagrams.

Author Perry Peterson's comments are worth noting here:

"A continuous flow intersection is never logical to the uninitiated."

"Besides local drivers doing the wrong thing at the wrong place in the intersection it's quite normal to see out-of-state cars really fouling up the traffic flow causing potential hazards."

The Loveland intersection is on what is obviously a busy commercial corner. The confusion of drivers who are trying to figure how to get into a store on the corner needs to be added to the mix and seriously considered by planners. Toss in responding emergency vehicles, too.