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Bashar

Roundabouts in America

I started this over at UniLang months ago...now I'm bringing it here!

Long ago, going to high school in an upscale Dallas suburb, that Europeans had these things that the British call "roundabouts" and the Americans (supposedly) call "traffic circles." I did not know what these things actually were since I had never seen one before in my life. Then I finally got to experience it on our second trip to Hungary.

A couple years later during a summer in New Jersey, I learned three things: they do have traffic circles (and that is what they are called) in New Jersey, as well as in the nation's capital Washington, DC. They also exist in Boston, but up there they are called "rotaries" not traffic circles.

Now there's something new going on. It seems that places in the US heartland, and Texas, suddenly like roundabouts. Not "traffic circles"--"roundabouts." There's one in Addison, Texas (a Dallas suburb) around the big blue steel monument. There's a sign near it saying, "yield for roundabout." There's another one in Allen (the Dallas suburb where I went to high school). Then this spring as I was driving north to my new home in Nebraska, I was on a highway in Kansas where I saw a large sign by an exit ramp that looked a lot like the signs in Hungary telling you where each exit from a roundabout leads. And sure enough, there was another sign by that one saying "roundabout ahead."

And now...look what I found in Omaha, Nebraska:
http://freeshells.ch/~xavier/P6230006.JPG
Lazar

Haha, I've been extolling the benefits of roundabouts.

I wrote:
No, roundabouts are an excellent concept. Numerous studies in the US and other countries have shown that they reduce car crashes by about 40%, pedestrian crashes by about 75%, injuries by up to 80%, and traffic delays by 60-90%. They're better than intersections in every way, and I hope they become dominant in the US.

There are a few of them in my area, and we do call them rotaries.
Elaine

Lazar wrote:
Haha, I've been extolling the benefits of roundabouts.

I wrote:
No, roundabouts are an excellent concept. Numerous studies in the US and other countries have shown that they reduce car crashes by about 40%, pedestrian crashes by about 75%, injuries by up to 80%, and traffic delays by 60-90%. They're better than intersections in every way, and I hope they become dominant in the US.


I definitely understand the benefits of having roundabouts, but honestly in a place like L.A., I cannot imagine having those at our busiest intersections. It would be natural selection played out on our streets. I can just picture more bottlenecks and pandemonium as every driver tries to beat other drivers into and out of the circle and never slowing down merely to let wussy drivers in.

Bashar, we discussed roundabouts in the London thread (Travel forum). Check it out when you have the chance.

http://langcafe2.myfreeforum.org/ftopic460-0-asc-0.php
Deborah

I met my first traffic circle in North Carolina earlier this year. It was a pretty simple one, though my friend there said that it still confuses some people -- they'll freeze up and stop in it!
Uriel

I despise those things. Nothing wrong with a good four-way stop!
ddog800

yeah, we actually have one where i'm at (used to be 2, but it was replaced with a typical overpass-style interchange some years back), and we call them traffic circles here. and yes, during the busy hours, if its real bad, it can turn into dumbass-city out there. the thing is though, it can be super busy 5 o'clock traffic , and 90% of th people will back up the right lane going into the traffic circle, and almost no one at all will be in the left inside lane..like they're all afraid that they won't be able to get over into the right lane to exit or something, once they're on the circle... unfailingly I can hop into that wide open inside lane, speed up past everyone and exit at my leisure as 3-car wide gaps always open up right past each possible entrance into the circle...




ahhhhh, traffic-circle theory... gotta love it. people complain about that thing around here like you wouldn't believe, but as long as u know how to drive it, its very efficient.

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