This is oddly timely. I'm travelling in Europe at the moment and have been covering a lot of area with a lot of roundabouts where they would be signaled or signed intersections in the US. They definitely make traffic flow smoothly and I've noticed a few areas where they are used to eliminate dangerous left turns at places like parking lots, you leave turning right, hit the next roundabout to "uturn" then head back the way you wanted to go. As a traffic device they really have lots of different kinds of use cases beyond just an alternative for a 4way.
Where I grew up in a rural part of the US, we had one terrible 4-way intersection between two undevided highways. Over time they added lights, then experimented with different signaling systems, but every day it would back up for several miles in a couple directions, and add up to 30 minutes to some commutes. Then there were the inevitable accidents as people tried to rush it, making things worse all around.
They replaced it with a roundabout about a decade ago, the population in the area also has increased dramatically in those years as farms turned into suburbs, but the backup is entirely gone. Theres no need any longer to maintain lights and switching systems, and the accidents are almost nil. Nobody has died there in years. People complained at first because it was "weird" then they realized they were complaining at home a half hour ealier than they would have been, so they stopped.
They've since added a few more in the area and have even gotten very experimental with a double diamond interchange that's also done a lot of good. There's something in the water at the planners office. Seeing that transformation though and the immediate benefits has turned me into a lifetime fan of the roundabout.
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svl
No discussion about roundabouts can be complete without a mention of the (mostly) Dutch "turbo roundabout", where the lane you take going into a multi-lane roundabout depends on where you want to exit, and you can't / are not allowed to switch lanes while on it:
I live in the US now, but originally from Ireland. My least favourite part of US road infrastructure is the 4 way stop. They are just not good compared to a roundabout. Half the time the only way you can tell it’s an all way stop is by looking for the back of the stop signs on the perpendicular road.
With a roundabout, you only have to look in one direction, and if it’s clear, you don’t even have to stop.
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tmnvix
Roundabouts get a lot of praise whenever they're mentioned, and from a traffic flow perspective that's understandable - if by traffic you mean motorised traffic. For pedestrians and cyclists they are worse than the alternative (lights - or even a simple intersection) in my opinion.
> Making a roundabout for everyone
ctrl-f "walk", "cycl", pedes". Nothing.
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nixosbestos
Apparently I'm sticking my neck out here, but it really doesn't seem that hard. Overhead, I can intuit the path I would take, and if I imagine it first-person, it seems even more obvious.
It's frustrating riding with certain other American drivers in other countries. I've met numerous folks now that seem upset that they have to actually pay attention to their driving and the traffic. Meanwhile I'm horrified that they're apparently just ... completely on auto-pilot in the US.
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lolinder
Keep in mind that a lot of these traffic devices look way more confusing from above than they actually look while on the ground. From above you can see the whole device at once, and trying to trace a path through it can feel overwhelming, but when you're actually going through it your view is usually restricted in ways that limit your perceived choices at any point in time.
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dm319
A roundabout looks to be more appropriate here compared to the previous junction. The only thing that catches my eye as a UK-driver is the road markings would go against the way we would mark roundabouts in the UK. The dashed lines should indicate where the priority is - and that is on the roundabout, so in the UK there would be lines going across the road as you approach the roundabout, indicating that you are a minor road connected to a major road which has priority.
Driving in Morocco is a very special experience. Some roundabouts follow the 'priority on the right', which is a default if the junction doesn't indicate priority, in much of Europe (especially France). This means you give way to those approaching the roundabout, as they are on your right. But there are also roundabouts where you have priority on the roundabout. The only way to tell are to look at the road markings which help to indicate the priority.
The picture of the roundabout from above at the beginning of the article is extra confusing because it doesn't have the final lane markings yet and the ones you can see are misleading.
The (presumably) final markings[0] make things less confusing.
I live near this roundabout and drive through it almost daily.
> Drivers going northbound on SR 203 traffic may need to yield twice – once when entering the roundabout and again if traffic is passing between the two islands. If you think about it, that’s just following the same rules a second time.
The one key difference from the average (American) roundabout is the second yield. After you've waited your turn and entered the roundabout, you're required to yield again within a few feet. Obviously this is not an impossible task, but the signage leading up to the roundabout from northbound SR 203 doesn't at all indicate the shape of the roundabout. The navigation sign at the entrance only shows a single roundabout.
The second yield point is indicated with the standard yield sign and triangle markings on the road. But judging by the amount of detritus scattered on the ground, as well as the recent addition of "YIELD" text painted on the road and orange flags attached to the yield sign (both not present at any other entrance to the roundabout), the yield-twice pattern is not obvious to everyone.
Plus, the topology of the roundabout isn't conducive to seeing this from the ground, either; the relatively sharp right turn leading into the roundabout places the second yield sign out of your forward vision when you're approaching the roundabout, and the whole intersection itself is very slightly tilted away from the northbound entrance, making it really tricky to see and understand it when approaching.
---
Anecdotally, almost every time I've driven through here while there is simultaneous traffic from northbound SR 203 and northbound 203rd St. SE, the northbound 203rd St. SE traffic ends up being cut off by drivers failing to yield at the second entrance.
id00
Australian who lived in Washington state for 4.5 years. Very happy to see those kind of changes. Much better and safer than 4-way stop intersections and I hope American drivers will figure out eventually how to use them
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ojhughes
I thought Americans called them "turning circles"
nullindividual
I drive through this roundabout. It’s such a huge improvement. And little confusing at first due to being two roundabouts in one, but not hard to navigate.
buffaloPizzaBoy
Whats not mentioned in the article is that this particular intersection has a
(15mph residential access road - top right)
(25 mph farmland road - bottom)
(50mph country highway - left and right)
Previously, only drivers from the 15mph and 25mph roads had to stop!
Visibility coming from the south would also be terrible to check for incoming highway drivers (left is blocked by foliage, right the road curves out of sight), so getting the highway drivers to slow down is a welcome improvement here.
There is also not enough space to add at the intersection here either, its seemingly bordered entirely by private land.
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OptionOfT
The biggest problem with roundabouts the main direction can starve the lesser-used entrances.
Imagine the main road going North-South, and you're entering via East to go South.
Because of never-ending traffic going North-South you just don't get to enter.
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code_runner
US here. There seems to be an obsession at the moment with adding roundabouts in my area. They don’t always fit where they are put. Some of them have a stop sign in the roundabout?
When asked why, the answer is reducing “points of conflict”, which is a static variable. There aren’t actually studies being done before or after to see if makes the flow of traffic better.
They are also adding them in walkable areas with the express intent of “traffic never stopping” which doesn’t go well with pedestrians crossing the street.
I think we can find better ways to spend money… including the salaries of the people dreaming up bizarre applications for these things.
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marssaxman
I'm glad they're excited, but I hope I never encounter this.
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nostromo
Seattle Department of Transportation and Washington State DOT have honestly gotten way too creative. It's like every city, every locale, and sometimes every street has a new collection of obstacles and rules to circumnavigate.
Roundabouts are great, but they should probably be round. In this case, it seems that it'd be easy to navigate if the two roads were brought into a single, simple roundabout intersection like you see at any other location.
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jwHollister
I live in Duvall, don't go to Monroe often but that thing is awful. Feels so awkward going through every time.
aitchnyu
Are the wide turning trucks supposed to go over the bricks?
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albertopv
In Italy we had them for 30 years at least, they are everywhere now.
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temporallobe
We have a few roundabouts where I live in the USA now, and they are absolutely wonderful, apart from the occasional clueless driver who doesn’t know how to use them, which seem to come in two varieties: 1) blast right into them without yielding or even slowing, or 2) Going the wrong way. In their defense, they probably have never seen them or never learned about them in driving school.
virtualwhys
One area where a 4-way stop sign intersection is somewhat superior to a roundabout is the notion of taking turns -- in the States it seems like busy roundabouts are an opportunity for one stream of traffic to just plow through, completely ignoring everyone else who also has something better to do than sit around waiting for others to be courteous :)
AngryData
I fail to see how this helps over more traditional designs. Not to mention tight roundabouts always have horrible curbs that trucks have to smash into to try and jump over to make the turns, and they are never gentle bumps, they are always tire and curb damaging trash, especially for heavy loads which are primarily the vehicles that need to jump the curbs.
All the roundabouts around me I wish they would just get rid of, I can navigate them just fine, but they are way too small, over congested, and dangerous because the 5 seconds you have to read the signs as you approach to know whats going on is too much for anyone non-local which makes them unpredictable and nervous drivers.
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asimjalis
I would recommend some yield signs; the dashed line on the ground is easy to miss.
twelve40
At least that one is small. They'd know for sure from the change in numbers pretty soon if it improved things or not.
But for multi-lane ones I absolutely lose my shit and freak out when I get into one. Many decades of driving experience, but when in Europe (France, Italy, Spain) i encounter a multi-lane roundabout, every time it feels extremely confusing and unpredictable. People moving in all directions, cars, scooters, you need to calculate which lane you need to get into, and get out of, and do all that while accommodating crisscrossing neighboring vehicles who are all also trying to maneuver in every direction. Having to turn the entire time makes it feel very fast and dangerous, always paranoid about crushing some scooter that I didn't spot from one of the many angles while turning. Doesn't seem to get easier with time for me either, unlike all other driving. Glad we don't have multi-lane roundabouts in CA.
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mozzieman
The comment section on the youtube video is soo good. Everyone seem to almost have accidents and everyone complaining. Think prob they need to work a bit on this design.
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komali2
I guess that's somewhere quite remote? I don't see any pedestrian infrastructure and I don't understand how a pedestrian would cross this road safely
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dzhiurgis
We are getting similar one here [0]. Whenever you get there you try to get out asap. It’s a nightmare.
This is oddly timely. I'm travelling in Europe at the moment and have been covering a lot of area with a lot of roundabouts where they would be signaled or signed intersections in the US. They definitely make traffic flow smoothly and I've noticed a few areas where they are used to eliminate dangerous left turns at places like parking lots, you leave turning right, hit the next roundabout to "uturn" then head back the way you wanted to go. As a traffic device they really have lots of different kinds of use cases beyond just an alternative for a 4way.
Where I grew up in a rural part of the US, we had one terrible 4-way intersection between two undevided highways. Over time they added lights, then experimented with different signaling systems, but every day it would back up for several miles in a couple directions, and add up to 30 minutes to some commutes. Then there were the inevitable accidents as people tried to rush it, making things worse all around.
They replaced it with a roundabout about a decade ago, the population in the area also has increased dramatically in those years as farms turned into suburbs, but the backup is entirely gone. Theres no need any longer to maintain lights and switching systems, and the accidents are almost nil. Nobody has died there in years. People complained at first because it was "weird" then they realized they were complaining at home a half hour ealier than they would have been, so they stopped.
They've since added a few more in the area and have even gotten very experimental with a double diamond interchange that's also done a lot of good. There's something in the water at the planners office. Seeing that transformation though and the immediate benefits has turned me into a lifetime fan of the roundabout.
No discussion about roundabouts can be complete without a mention of the (mostly) Dutch "turbo roundabout", where the lane you take going into a multi-lane roundabout depends on where you want to exit, and you can't / are not allowed to switch lanes while on it:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:roundabout%3Dturbo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundabout#Turbo_roundabouts
https://www.arcadis.com/en-us/knowledge-hub/blog/united-stat...
I live in the US now, but originally from Ireland. My least favourite part of US road infrastructure is the 4 way stop. They are just not good compared to a roundabout. Half the time the only way you can tell it’s an all way stop is by looking for the back of the stop signs on the perpendicular road.
With a roundabout, you only have to look in one direction, and if it’s clear, you don’t even have to stop.
Roundabouts get a lot of praise whenever they're mentioned, and from a traffic flow perspective that's understandable - if by traffic you mean motorised traffic. For pedestrians and cyclists they are worse than the alternative (lights - or even a simple intersection) in my opinion.
> Making a roundabout for everyone
ctrl-f "walk", "cycl", pedes". Nothing.
Apparently I'm sticking my neck out here, but it really doesn't seem that hard. Overhead, I can intuit the path I would take, and if I imagine it first-person, it seems even more obvious.
It's frustrating riding with certain other American drivers in other countries. I've met numerous folks now that seem upset that they have to actually pay attention to their driving and the traffic. Meanwhile I'm horrified that they're apparently just ... completely on auto-pilot in the US.
Keep in mind that a lot of these traffic devices look way more confusing from above than they actually look while on the ground. From above you can see the whole device at once, and trying to trace a path through it can feel overwhelming, but when you're actually going through it your view is usually restricted in ways that limit your perceived choices at any point in time.
A roundabout looks to be more appropriate here compared to the previous junction. The only thing that catches my eye as a UK-driver is the road markings would go against the way we would mark roundabouts in the UK. The dashed lines should indicate where the priority is - and that is on the roundabout, so in the UK there would be lines going across the road as you approach the roundabout, indicating that you are a minor road connected to a major road which has priority.
Driving in Morocco is a very special experience. Some roundabouts follow the 'priority on the right', which is a default if the junction doesn't indicate priority, in much of Europe (especially France). This means you give way to those approaching the roundabout, as they are on your right. But there are also roundabouts where you have priority on the roundabout. The only way to tell are to look at the road markings which help to indicate the priority.
UK reader here (we are pretty much 'all in' on roundabouts) I'm reading this and wondering how they'd cope with the 'Magic Roundabout': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst...
Even UK drivers struggle a bit with this one!
The picture of the roundabout from above at the beginning of the article is extra confusing because it doesn't have the final lane markings yet and the ones you can see are misleading.
The (presumably) final markings[0] make things less confusing.
[0]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/High+Rock+Rd,+Washington+9...
I live near this roundabout and drive through it almost daily.
> Drivers going northbound on SR 203 traffic may need to yield twice – once when entering the roundabout and again if traffic is passing between the two islands. If you think about it, that’s just following the same rules a second time.
The one key difference from the average (American) roundabout is the second yield. After you've waited your turn and entered the roundabout, you're required to yield again within a few feet. Obviously this is not an impossible task, but the signage leading up to the roundabout from northbound SR 203 doesn't at all indicate the shape of the roundabout. The navigation sign at the entrance only shows a single roundabout.
The second yield point is indicated with the standard yield sign and triangle markings on the road. But judging by the amount of detritus scattered on the ground, as well as the recent addition of "YIELD" text painted on the road and orange flags attached to the yield sign (both not present at any other entrance to the roundabout), the yield-twice pattern is not obvious to everyone.
Plus, the topology of the roundabout isn't conducive to seeing this from the ground, either; the relatively sharp right turn leading into the roundabout places the second yield sign out of your forward vision when you're approaching the roundabout, and the whole intersection itself is very slightly tilted away from the northbound entrance, making it really tricky to see and understand it when approaching.
---
Anecdotally, almost every time I've driven through here while there is simultaneous traffic from northbound SR 203 and northbound 203rd St. SE, the northbound 203rd St. SE traffic ends up being cut off by drivers failing to yield at the second entrance.
Australian who lived in Washington state for 4.5 years. Very happy to see those kind of changes. Much better and safer than 4-way stop intersections and I hope American drivers will figure out eventually how to use them
I thought Americans called them "turning circles"
I drive through this roundabout. It’s such a huge improvement. And little confusing at first due to being two roundabouts in one, but not hard to navigate.
Whats not mentioned in the article is that this particular intersection has a
(15mph residential access road - top right) (25 mph farmland road - bottom) (50mph country highway - left and right)
Previously, only drivers from the 15mph and 25mph roads had to stop!
Visibility coming from the south would also be terrible to check for incoming highway drivers (left is blocked by foliage, right the road curves out of sight), so getting the highway drivers to slow down is a welcome improvement here.
There is also not enough space to add at the intersection here either, its seemingly bordered entirely by private land.
The biggest problem with roundabouts the main direction can starve the lesser-used entrances.
Imagine the main road going North-South, and you're entering via East to go South.
Because of never-ending traffic going North-South you just don't get to enter.
US here. There seems to be an obsession at the moment with adding roundabouts in my area. They don’t always fit where they are put. Some of them have a stop sign in the roundabout?
When asked why, the answer is reducing “points of conflict”, which is a static variable. There aren’t actually studies being done before or after to see if makes the flow of traffic better.
They are also adding them in walkable areas with the express intent of “traffic never stopping” which doesn’t go well with pedestrians crossing the street.
I think we can find better ways to spend money… including the salaries of the people dreaming up bizarre applications for these things.
I'm glad they're excited, but I hope I never encounter this.
Seattle Department of Transportation and Washington State DOT have honestly gotten way too creative. It's like every city, every locale, and sometimes every street has a new collection of obstacles and rules to circumnavigate.
Roundabouts are great, but they should probably be round. In this case, it seems that it'd be easy to navigate if the two roads were brought into a single, simple roundabout intersection like you see at any other location.
I live in Duvall, don't go to Monroe often but that thing is awful. Feels so awkward going through every time.
Are the wide turning trucks supposed to go over the bricks?
In Italy we had them for 30 years at least, they are everywhere now.
We have a few roundabouts where I live in the USA now, and they are absolutely wonderful, apart from the occasional clueless driver who doesn’t know how to use them, which seem to come in two varieties: 1) blast right into them without yielding or even slowing, or 2) Going the wrong way. In their defense, they probably have never seen them or never learned about them in driving school.
One area where a 4-way stop sign intersection is somewhat superior to a roundabout is the notion of taking turns -- in the States it seems like busy roundabouts are an opportunity for one stream of traffic to just plow through, completely ignoring everyone else who also has something better to do than sit around waiting for others to be courteous :)
I fail to see how this helps over more traditional designs. Not to mention tight roundabouts always have horrible curbs that trucks have to smash into to try and jump over to make the turns, and they are never gentle bumps, they are always tire and curb damaging trash, especially for heavy loads which are primarily the vehicles that need to jump the curbs.
All the roundabouts around me I wish they would just get rid of, I can navigate them just fine, but they are way too small, over congested, and dangerous because the 5 seconds you have to read the signs as you approach to know whats going on is too much for anyone non-local which makes them unpredictable and nervous drivers.
I would recommend some yield signs; the dashed line on the ground is easy to miss.
At least that one is small. They'd know for sure from the change in numbers pretty soon if it improved things or not.
But for multi-lane ones I absolutely lose my shit and freak out when I get into one. Many decades of driving experience, but when in Europe (France, Italy, Spain) i encounter a multi-lane roundabout, every time it feels extremely confusing and unpredictable. People moving in all directions, cars, scooters, you need to calculate which lane you need to get into, and get out of, and do all that while accommodating crisscrossing neighboring vehicles who are all also trying to maneuver in every direction. Having to turn the entire time makes it feel very fast and dangerous, always paranoid about crushing some scooter that I didn't spot from one of the many angles while turning. Doesn't seem to get easier with time for me either, unlike all other driving. Glad we don't have multi-lane roundabouts in CA.
The comment section on the youtube video is soo good. Everyone seem to almost have accidents and everyone complaining. Think prob they need to work a bit on this design.
I guess that's somewhere quite remote? I don't see any pedestrian infrastructure and I don't understand how a pedestrian would cross this road safely
We are getting similar one here [0]. Whenever you get there you try to get out asap. It’s a nightmare.
0: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BxmPqsf41p639Vy88?g_st=ic
At first glance I’m confused how to navigate it- a flowchart would be nice. Or just a video of traffic using it.