2 Hardcore Roundabouts
1. Magic Roundabout, located in Swindon, England (google maps)
It was constructed in 1972 and consists of one large roundabout containing five mini-roundabouts. Its name comes from the popular children’s television series The Magic Roundabout.
The graphic below shows two possible routes to move from south to east. Tourists should follow the red path; keep in the Outer Circle all the way round and leave the yellow “Pro Driver Path” to the locals, who have roundabouts in their blood and know where they are going.
2. Magic Roundabout, located in Hertfordshire, England (google maps)
This another famous “magic roundabout”. I couldn’t decide which one is cooler, so I decided to put both in.
It was constructed in 1973 to reduce the congestion at the original standard layout roundabout where seven roads intersected, it was one of the first bi-directional roundabouts to be constructed in the UK. At the junction of each road with the roundabout a mini-roundabout is present and subject to the normal clockwise direction of travel for all traffic. (from wikipedia)
Extra one: London
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Aren’t roundabouts amazing? My husband is from Holland and they are all over the place there. Mostly alot smaller than the ones you have pictured. Roundabouts eliminate the need for stop signs. We could use some more of these in the States!
I know I don’t know why they don’t have any over here, los angeles could use a few hundred, New York needs one! I saw one in Canada once.
But we also have really stupid drivers here, it would cause lots of chaos.
Nice pics and great info.
i hav been across da one in herts a few times… i jus love em coz i live in milton keynes… the city of round abouts…
the one in london is jus lame.. u got lights all around so strictly speakin its jus a busy junction !!!
Simply amaaaaazing!!!!
I believe the people in the US wouldn’t be able to handle roundabouts, most of the can’t handle a normal T intersection. Traffic lights are still the most efficient rout when you take into account the judgment of the average American driver (if spot next to you is open, and gets you .5 car lengths ahead, take it, and cut off the guy behind you in the process.)
There was a Rotary near Camden, NJ that got removed because of all the fatalities (it was on a major highway intersection, with multiple lanes of traffic feeding in). They refer to roundabouts as smaller alternatives to the rotary (or traffic circle) in North Jersey. However, looking at your samples, I’m pretty sure it’s the same animal. They’re okay except when pedestrians are forced to play frogger to cross them.
The other problem with roundabouts is that they take up far too much space in comparison to simple red lights or stop signs.
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=nKUvXlWteqk
You’re right about them not working in the US – the brookfield traffic circle in illinois more or less always has a couple of crashed cars on it, because people go the wrong way around, or even straight across!
That’s what I like about roundabouts.
Pure randomness.
We do have them in the States but they’re called rotaries. They’re common in New Jersey and to a lesser extent parts of New England. They mark large cities as well, Columbia Circle in New York, Logan Square and Eakins Oval in Philadelphia. There’s also one in Colchester, UK that should have been on that list though I don’t know what it’s called.
“About 1,000 roundabouts have been built in 25 states, and research bears out the benefits to states like Kansas, where the new design has produced a 65% average drop in vehicular delays, according to a recent Kansas State University study.” source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1838753,00.html
thats AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!!
what on earth! hahaha. that’s amazing.
But if you replace traffic lights with roundabouts, how will people race at the intersection? Exactly. They won’t.
There’s an intersection right by my house that has two lanes on one side of the traffic light, but just a few yards after the traffic light the left lane merges into one. Nothing, I mean NOTHING can describe the feeling I get when I’m sitting at a red, and some asshole pulls up beside me and starts dancing his car around, and I know what’s up.
Besides, the US is a lot more spread out than European countries, so in many cases I believe the need for ‘traffic efficency’ declines, except for in places like New York City, where frequent roundabouts would just take up too much space anyway.
ok do you know what a webkinz is???
roundabouts are horrible. they just cause confusion.
When the University I go to remodeled some of the roads, they installed two small roundabouts to replace stop signs, and I can’t count how many times I’ve almost been hit in them.
California = shitty drivers.
I have driven though the one in Hertfordshire. Its in Hemel Hempstead. Despire being a bit intimidating it actually works really well, provided people pay attention. Personally i do prefer roundabouts in the UK. reduces risk of accidents and mostly helps traffic move. The issue is where you have ALOT of traffic from one direction and it cuts off other entry points onto the roundabout.
zagreb rotor
In Australia we have roundabouts and they work extremely well. I think the problem in the states stems from the fact that when you drive on the right (read wrong) side of the road you need to go counter clockwise. Because you need to give way to anyone who has entered the intersection first you are effectively making people give way to the left which is not part of peoples normal skill set in driving. Because we drive on the left (read right) side of the road here, we only need to give way to the people on our right making the whole exercise alot simpler.
We have one of these in Long Beach, Ca. It’s pretty large and makes the flow of traffic move along wonderfully. I make a conscious effort to think about how much I love it and the people who were brilliant enough to put it there every time I drive through it.
Maryland has a bunch of them, and they work just fine: http://www.sha.state.md.us/safety/oots/roundabouts/location.asp
And for the folks discussing traffic circles, they’re not the same thing.
The reason they do not have them in the states is because… They do not have them in the states.
They installed a few of them in san diego, usually at narrow but heavily trafficked roads near the beach, because the residents want them to slow down traffic.
Since there are only 3-4 that I know about in the county, finding one and reacting to them can be very superising.
- We drive faster in the states, which leads to less reaction times, so while we are used to cars doing odd things, we are not used to ROADS doing odd things. I’ve passed through millions of intersetions with stop signs, lights and Ramps, both in the US and Japan, in A bike and in a car. I’ve passed through 10 round abouts in CA. 2 of them were almost accidents due to right-of-ways.
- The Roundabouts are NOT put in areas to good, they are put here to slow people down where there is lots of traffic. And tourists. And commuters. Residents may be used to the little ones, but Tourists form other parts of the state may react wrong and mess up. the skid marks leading up to the roundabouts are usually quite numerous and interesting.
- There is a reason e here in San Diego have 23 lane (total) freeway interchange – there are a TON of cars. 2-3% of people in San Diego use public transportation. We have ALOT of cars, more than other places. We have systems designed for VERY heavy flow. The Roundabouts, esp. the big ones may work great in a system dominated by roundabouts, but would be totally out of place with out fast moving and congested freeway system, or our arterial roads.
Unless we want to…
a) Replace a TON Major intersections with roundabouts
b) Put them in many more places where people can use them and get used to them
C) Actually mention them in our drving tests so people know what the hell they are
Then maybe they would be a good idea in the states. But that would be like replacing a good chunk of the intersections throughout all of europe. The Population of Norway is about the same as the entire metro area of San Diego. We’re a big state in an even bigger Country.
Keep in mind we re not comparing the same road system or traffic or even driver familiarity. The same solution may not work in all cases.
Javbw
@fromoz: Uh, if you drive on the right side of the road you are used to looking left for oncoming traffic. There is absolutely no functional difference between driving on the left or right side of the road.
My head hurts.
They have them in india, and that population desinty kind of dwafs the USA. comparing Norway to San Diego is like comparing Los Angeles to Germany, irralivant.
The guy from Australia “fromoz”, that whole unnatural to instincivly give way to your left argument?!?!?!? you sit position wise in the car perfect for left hand yeild.
Roundabouts work, whether or not they are adapted in the USA isn’t a big deal, every country has there pluses and minuses… In Austrailia you can’t turn left at a red light?
This article showed two very weird roundabouts. weird yes, but if they work they work. Other countries should concentrate on the basic roundabout and worry about the messed up ones later, or never. The london roundabout is nothing more than a garanteed cleared intersection, so if an idiots get stuck in the middle it won’t really hold up traffic.
And as an FYI roundabout do NOT take up more room than a intersection, they can take up as little or as much room as required. Many 4 way stops are converted to round abouts in the suburbs with no additional land required. The “tighter” roundabout work exteremly well at keeping speed down, the larger roundabouts work well at keeping speed up.
If you need to start with them, place them in the suburbs, it wont take long for people to get used to them. and it will stop drag light racing. At least you wont have to worry about the guy that runs the red light.
cheers
choco
Good argument choco. Do you have some investment in roundabouts? You just make a really passionate sales pitch.
lol roundabouts are pretty rad… im from australia and they are second nature when driving… im pretty sure they would work well anywhere… but to introduce round abouts to a place that doesnt have them would just cause chaos because its just about impossible to get a few million people to sit still and listen to the new rules for them….
You’ll love the Lancashire town of Skelmersdale. There are no traffic lights as everything is controlled by roundabouts. I also rate Redditch highly for its ample number of expressways accompanied by roundabouts.
interesting site picdit. i think i know the roundabout in hertfordshire (hemel hemstead?) well – it’s a real lulu. we moved to italy a little while ago and they are less keen on them than in the uk, sadly. will keep checking through the archive to catch up on your earlier stuff.
please feel free to check out the pasta paulie website.
ciao
pp
http://www.pastapaulie.wordpress.com
Similar to what choco said, in my hometown of Carmel, Indiana, (a suburb) we have about 20 roundabouts. They started putting them in about 8-10 years ago to ease congestion at existing intersections, and let me tell you, they *work*.
It took the community about 6 months to get used to them, but now, no one here, I’m tellin’ ya—NO ONE—wants to go back to stoplights. They’ve even greatly reduced the amount of devastating accidents at intersections. Right now, they’re putting in a series of massive roundabouts through the main stretch of town, a 4 lane highway.
The other nice thing about roundabouts is they greatly reduce the time you sit at a stoplight, idling. So, as far as road design goes it’s more environmentally friendly (if you could ever call cars or roads “enviro friendly”…)
Anyway, roundabout rock. They can absolutely work in the U.S., and anyone who says any different should just visit Carmel and you’ll see.
The first roundabout looks quite dangerous I wonder how many incidents happen there per year, and great info
In fairness there arnt that many accidents on roundabouts. Had a few moments of close calls but most of the time if you pay attention its fine. Issue on the really BIG roundabouts is people not knowing how to deal with them, but this is England. We have signs to explain how to do pretty much everything.
I grew up in Vail, Colorado; we had four major intersections where highway(I-70) on and off ramps connected to frontage roads. All of these were essentially 6-way stops and the traffic would get really bad. So bad, that my dad would take 1.5-2 hours to dive the ~5 miles home from work every day. They put roundabouts in these intersections and they work fairly well. Yes, there are always idiots or tourists who don’t understand that you drive on the right side of the road in the US and that a one way sign actually means that you can only drive one way; but I have never actually seen an accident in any of the roundabouts.
On the other hand, I now live in Boulder, Co where there are “traffic circles” in some of the suburban areas. To call these circles is very generous because they are little more than islands in the middle of what was once a four-way stop. People, myself included, don’t slow down or yield properly at these intersections. On the bright side, mods of them are no more than two blocks from a hospital.
I have had nothing but good experiences with proper roundabouts and would prefer them to a traffic light any day, but when you put in a half-assed one, you are just asking for trouble.
two points:
1. roundabout accidents are less serious. When someone runs a red light, they speed up – but you can’t do that at a roundabout.
2. In the US (well, my part anyway – Philadelphia area) they DO have roundabout-like things. I’ve seen more in NJ than PA. I’m British so I know all about roundabouts. The biggest problem I can see is that they all have different rules! So Americans think that all roundabouts/circles are unpleasant and confusing, when actually it is only theirs that are like this.
-tim
I grew up in Vail, Colorado; we had four major intersections where highway(I-70) on and off ramps connected to frontage roads. All of these were essentially 6-way stops and the traffic would get really bad. So bad, that my dad would take 1.5-2 hours to dive the ~5 miles home from work every day. They put roundabouts in these intersections and they work fairly well. Yes, there are always idiots or tourists who don’t understand that you drive on the right side of the road in the US and that a one way sign actually means that you can only drive one way; but I have never actually seen an accident in any of the roundabouts.