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.
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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.
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.
Online I see this mentality that roundabouts are great no matter what and it seems really strange to me. It really depends on the design of the roundabout and the traffic conditions. Where I grew up there are a lot of roundabouts, but many of them are so dangerously designed I started actively avoiding them. It’s not that you can’t poorly design a four way stop, but it seems to be much less common, for whatever reason.
I see people complain about roundabouts with traffics lights and how it negates some of the reasons for the roundabout. The thing is, these aren’t just put in for fun, usually they’re in areas with extremely heavy traffic where merging can get extremely difficult which leads to long backups (or in cities, accidents that can shut down traffic).
Roundabouts can be great when used well, but they’re hardly the silver bullet that online discourse often portrays them as.
They absolutely are. Even if they don't prevent all collisions, they turn T-bones into glancing hits and so save a lot of lives. The worst roundabout beats the best 4-way stop any day of the week. Sometimes there really are easy answers.
> 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.
Your state is doing it wrong then. Almost every four way stop I've ever seen in the US has a little sign beneath the big octagon which says "4-way".
Anyways, I have nothing against roundabouts. But I do have issue with some states (looking at you, Wisconsin) which are obsessed with tearing out perfectly good stop signs (as in, it's a low volume intersection or it's only a two way stop with a highway going through) and replacing them with roundabouts. It's just a waste of taxpayer money.
Yep. Canada suburbs here. We're starting to see roundabouts used more often for what would be higher traffic four-ways or inconvenient lights. They're great, both as a driver and as a cyclist. Lower conflict risk, simple rules to proceed.
IMO all smaller 4 way stops should become what I've described as trash can roundabouts. Small island to circle around. So much better than stop signs.
People are generally driving significantly slower in snow though, so the need for a roundabout is lessened. And you can also install signage indicating a roundabout is there.
In Seattle, we have trash can roundabout (really just round traffic calming islands, we don’t consider them roundabouts) and stop signs at the same intersections.
Or two near me have traffic lights very near (1/4 block or so) from the exit, meaning that traffic will inevitably back up into the roundabout, locking it up.
Too many people remain at the stop sign until the roundabout completely clears, so it becomes an excruciatingly slow 4-way stop. And there's not much traffic there.
A few miles from that one, there's a high traffic roundabout that works very well. The heavily used right turn lanes are divided and don't enter the roundabout. There are very clear markings on the ground. And there are yield signs at the entrances, so people know what to do. Traffic flows great through it, with the heaviest direction of travel naturally getting more throughput.
That is a good way to have an accident - I know since I've done it. While "looking one way" on a USA counterclockwise roundabout you are looking left to see traffic already on the roundabout and if clear you go and run smack into the back of the vehicle ahead of you who for some reason stalled or hesitated or just judged the traffic differently. However it will be a low speed accident.
As a general rule, one should be looking in the direction in which the vehicle is traveling.
It's easily done though, if rushing, or if the vehicle in front pulls away slightly but stops again.
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.
I genuinely cannot read that roundabout from overhead, and I am not a person who has trouble with roundabouts. I think it would benefit greatly from an explanatory diagram. I do hope that it would be more obvious while on the ground, like you said.
Unfortunately, it's not. Driving from right-to-left (in the first picture) requires drivers to enter the roundabout twice, then leave once. Judging by the amount of vehicle debris generally present and the additional "Yield" markings and signage that have been added to the second yield point since the construction was completed, it's been confusing from the ground as well.
No, you're definitely not the only one who likes them. Some folks complain about them when they first go in, but they tend to figure it out.
WSDOT has been encouraging them for a few years now, and my town has several new roundabouts as a result -- and lots of other cities across the state are using them. They've made navigating those intersections way easier, reduced traffic "waiting times", and generally improved safety versus a lighted intersection. I'm glad they're continuing to find ways to make them work.
It seemed when I was growing up in NJ, the state DOT was taking out the giant roundabouts that they were famous for, and now in Washington, they're having a huge resurgence.
Huge roundabouts are very dangerous; the safety factor in the modern ones WA installs is that they are tight and slow, which reduces the severity of any crashes.
It also does not help that NJ is the only state in the US that does not have a consistent rule about roundabout traffic priority.
I'm ok with most roundabouts. However, there is one near me that everyone complains about. There are 3 of them right in a row, but even that isn't the main issue. There is one with 5 places to turn out, which is relatively small and confusing. If you get it wrong it dumps you out on the expressway and it's an almost 9 mile trip to get back to where you originally wanted to go with no other option than to drive the 9 miles. I have yet to talk to a single person who hasn't made this mistake at least once. A little "oops" road to connect the expressway on-ramp with the road people intended to take would go along way and save hundreds, if not thousands, of wasted miles each year. Many people avoid the area completely because they don't want to deal with it.
Don't the exits have signs to say where the exit takes you? In Europe they'd be labeled, and highway onramps will have a different background color to indicate a highway..
Also, keeping your navigation display "north up" is much better than having one that will probably be laggy in a roundabout, confusing you on which exit to take.
If all else fails, look at the signage; I remember driving and a passenger not sure if the roundabout exit I was taking was correct, I said "Well there's a big sign there that says this way to our destination."
I think part of the issue is that it’s multi-lane. So if you’re in the right-lane to go to one road, and miss it, staying in the right-lane forces you onto the highway. If there is a car in the left lane you can’t get over to avoid it without causing an accident, or stopping, which would backup the whole circle and also risk accidents. So you end up paying the 9 mile tax. There is no way to miss your turn and easily recover.
I'll take a traditional cross with traffic signals or stop signs on all sides, it's simple and effective.
Roundabouts are a waste of space, disrupt traffic, and take more brain processing than I care to afford if I can help it. This particular example isn't even round.
I vastly prefer roundabouts, with a single exception. If traffic is heavy and dominated by the same entry and exit points, it can be hard to get a turn if you're coming from the side. Our nearest roundabout is this way.
I once saw a roundabout with stop signs. I assume it was an attempt to address this situation.
I think the problem is not that they're impossible to figure out but you have about 2 seconds from when you see the sign to when you're entering the double roundabout.
We have back-to-back round-a-bouts in Chattanooga (153 / Lake Resort / Access) which have two loops (concentric inner & outer round-a-bouts)... that can be quite confusing for anybody unfamiliar with the local pattern.
If your stop signs don't disrupt traffic then they're not working properly. Roundabouts are designed to efficiently weave traffic streams together instead.
Your opinion here is at odds with the record for higher traffic throughput and better safety for roundabouts. They are better in pretty much every way, for appropriate situations.
Here the situation is uneven road size, through traffic on the highway and odd angles. Perfect roundabout application.
Roundabouts are faster, safer and more convenient. It sometimes needs additional traffic lights, since heavily congested roundabouts lose their effectiveness.
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.
I'd say just the opposite. Indeed, in the UK it's normal for the signs leading up to a roundabout to include an overhead map view, since that's often the easiest way to understand what you need to do to get where you want to.
Agreed. I use to not pay attention to the layout at all. Instead, I resorted to counting down the exits I was moving past them, whilst remembering myself to gradually changing lanes to the left, paying attention to cars on the adjacent lanes. Because of this, I forget to look and plan ahead--almost like tunnel vision. Suffice to say, it was--and still is--stressful, especially at those roundabouts with which I'm not familiar.
Then I started paying attention to the displayed layout. This helped me with the bearings and lane positioning. At least, that's one item off my list when I'm in the roundabout.
I grew up in this town, and even had to navigate this Magic Roundabout on my driving test. It's not so bad once you understand how it operates, but you have to pay attention.
Ideally the sign would be 1) Rotated so that the driver proceeds from the base towards the top or sides. 2) Clearly depict the LOGICAL layout (bent slightly towards the physical) of what flow patterns _do_ during the roundabout from that input. 3) Also clearly depict which exits go where.
There should really be two signs actually, one before the diagram that lists (locally relevant roads / landmarks) by lane for sorting (if there's more than one lane in).
PS: The route map should also add a YIELD sign in mini next to the entrance with an according broken line. The interior lanes of roundabouts always have priority and all inputs are yield merges in.
Never underestimate how confused people can get with the unfamiliar. I live a couple of blocks from a fairly standard roundabout and see people trying to exit the roundabout through an entrance to the roundabout or try to go clockwise in the roundabout (this is in Canada) several times a year. This happens even though the design of the roundabout, the road markings, and the signage make it perfectly clear how you are supposed to go through it.
Then there is the less obvious stuff that happens multiple times per hour, like entering in the wrong lane given the desired exit (even though it is marked), vehicles inside the roundabout yielding to vehicles entering the roundabout (even though there is signage), or vehicles entering the roundabout failing to yield to vehicles inside of it (same signage).
As for non-standard roundabouts, those can confuse just about anyone since people often don't realize that it is a roundabout.
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.
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
Aside from one old lady that I saw doing laps a few years ago after our nearby roundabout first opened, it seems like most people figure it out pretty quickly. But they're too comfortable with it, and most people blast through without even hitting the brakes. That brings its own problems.
It may be unusual there, but in the UK we have loads. Some are smaller than this: the minimum roundabout is just a paint circle. They aren't a problem
Most people here actually prefer roundabouts to traffic lights because you keep moving (although this is partly selection bias- traffic lights are deployed at junctions where a roundabout would fail to evenly arbitrate the different flows )
That one is a bit odd, because the central bit looks like a roundabout but is not. To navigate it you need to forget the central bit and focus on the five mini roundabouts
You may feel less enthusiastic about it once you watch the linked video. I wouldn’t exactly call it a roundabout. That’s only what’s at the center of it.
Ok fair enough, that extra bit does make it slightly more complicated. Having said that though, I would not be fazed by this, and I don't think many UK drivers would be - because we already deal with many that have more parts. When I was learning to drive, I found a particular triple roundabout quite painful but no longer have any difficulty.
There are two skills you need to pick up to deal with any roundabout system. The first is judgement of how distant other vehicles need to be before you can enter. As a learner I used to irritate the drivers behind me by being far too cautious; on a busy roundabout you can't expect an enormous gap, so you need to know what length of gap the other drivers will expect you to take advantage of. This you can only learn from experience.
The other is to plan your route, because you need to choose your entry lane based on where you want to go. These days your navigation app will probably tell you the best entry lane.
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.
Gravel trucks are the last trucks that should ever be hopping curbs though, even gentle ones. Gravel trucks already require many roads to be upgraded due to the weight and damage they do just to a flat surface. A truck carrying diapers and crackers won't mind so much, but when you got 50 tons of gravel then even a small 1 inch jump causes significant extra forces on both the road and the truck.
That road has been carrying gravel trucks for decades. The smart WSDOT engineers took into account the business with large trucks that is just a mile away when building this roundabout.
> 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.
I'm not a fan of roundabouts, but the recent WSDOT roundabouts I'm subjected to have gentle curbs, at least for now, so that part isn't so bad. The part where I actually need to look left and right simultaneously to see if there's room for me to join the flow, and also watch for pedestrians (if present) isn't so great.
And I'm really not a fan of the unbounded wait when there is a large flow that crosses my entrance, which could result in a very long wait when the large flow comes from rush hour conditions or a ferry offloading.
OTOH if you can't read the sign where to turn right, you can keep turning left, make a full circle, and check the signs again, and again if needed, in under half a minute. All without creating a problem to anyone around you, and being safe yourself.
I'll take it any time over a typical highway exit; if you miss it, or uf you take a wrong one, it's usually dozens of miles before you have a chance to take any corrective action at all.
For one, roundabouts turn what would be a T-Bone intersection into a glancing hit. I think that's the biggest safety benefit. They also improve the flow of traffic since there's no starting and stopping (think of it like a stoplight is a mutex lock and a roundabout is a spinlock).
And because they have no electronic or moving parts, the upkeep is minimal. There is some cost to a traffic light, particularly as you start adding weird phases and whatnot.
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.
> Previously, only drivers from the 15mph and 25mph roads had to stop!
This is something which drives me crazy with a decent number of roundabouts that the Wisconsin DOT constructs. You have a rural intersection where a local road crosses a major highway, and the local road has a stop sign in either direction. Then the DOT slaps a roundabout in there, greatly inhibiting the highway traffic which is 95% of the traffic going through that intersection. That is not a good use case for a roundabout! But for some reason they insist on doing them anyway. It's terrible road design.
The area borders wetlands and a very steep hillside where one of the roads intersects. And the regular flow of traffic pre-roundabout was more like 60-65 mph.
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.
> Some of them have a stop sign in the roundabout?
Traffic gets much heavier and we'll need stop signs at our roundabout near my house. During rush hour it has predominantly one flow of traffic and nobody slows down below 30-35 mph so getting into the roundabout can be difficult. A stop sign would defeat some of the point of a roundabout but it may become necessary to enforce safety.
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.
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 :)
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.
The article explains why they made the decision not to do a traditional dog-bone interchange with two circular roundabouts. Namely, there were right of way limitations and a need to incorporate heavy farm trucks making a left turn. So, they ended up with basically 1.5 roundabouts which represents a simplification over the dog bone.
The lack of turn signal usage in the region also makes funky roundabouts much harder to navigate. Like you have to wait until there is a large enough gap in the cars to enter the circle, even if none of the cars actually end up intersecting your path.
It is intentional. The idea is to force drivers to reduce speed, and the mechanism is because it isn't familiar to the drivers. The claim is it forces them to be thoughtful.
Whether or not it works or is a good idea is not something on which I'm opining.
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.
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.
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.
IME (also observing other drivers), the usual multi-lane roundabouts are something you get comfortable with after just a little spaced repetition and then it's not all bad.
There are major cities in those countries with a few exceptionally gnarly ones, though. I don't blame if you're traumatized if you ever found yourself circling Arc de Triomphe in Paris, for example.
Yes, it's a few miles outside of the nearest town. It's the intersection of a state highway and some small roads that mostly lead to farmland. Not much pedestrian traffic expected there.
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.
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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.
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.
Online I see this mentality that roundabouts are great no matter what and it seems really strange to me. It really depends on the design of the roundabout and the traffic conditions. Where I grew up there are a lot of roundabouts, but many of them are so dangerously designed I started actively avoiding them. It’s not that you can’t poorly design a four way stop, but it seems to be much less common, for whatever reason.
I see people complain about roundabouts with traffics lights and how it negates some of the reasons for the roundabout. The thing is, these aren’t just put in for fun, usually they’re in areas with extremely heavy traffic where merging can get extremely difficult which leads to long backups (or in cities, accidents that can shut down traffic).
Roundabouts can be great when used well, but they’re hardly the silver bullet that online discourse often portrays them as.
They absolutely are. Even if they don't prevent all collisions, they turn T-bones into glancing hits and so save a lot of lives. The worst roundabout beats the best 4-way stop any day of the week. Sometimes there really are easy answers.
> 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.
Your state is doing it wrong then. Almost every four way stop I've ever seen in the US has a little sign beneath the big octagon which says "4-way".
Anyways, I have nothing against roundabouts. But I do have issue with some states (looking at you, Wisconsin) which are obsessed with tearing out perfectly good stop signs (as in, it's a low volume intersection or it's only a two way stop with a highway going through) and replacing them with roundabouts. It's just a waste of taxpayer money.
Yep. Canada suburbs here. We're starting to see roundabouts used more often for what would be higher traffic four-ways or inconvenient lights. They're great, both as a driver and as a cyclist. Lower conflict risk, simple rules to proceed.
IMO all smaller 4 way stops should become what I've described as trash can roundabouts. Small island to circle around. So much better than stop signs.
In the UK they are called mini roundabouts, and are sometimes just painted on: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mini-roundabout.jp...
Painted roundabouts will be invisible when it snows.
Do I really have to point out that you don't need road markings to drive safely when it snows?
People are generally driving significantly slower in snow though, so the need for a roundabout is lessened. And you can also install signage indicating a roundabout is there.
In Seattle, we have trash can roundabout (really just round traffic calming islands, we don’t consider them roundabouts) and stop signs at the same intersections.
Wait until you find one of the distressingly common places where they build a roundabout and put stop signs on some or all of the entrances.
Or two near me have traffic lights very near (1/4 block or so) from the exit, meaning that traffic will inevitably back up into the roundabout, locking it up.
Yep, every time I drive through this one, I curse the idea of 4-way-stop-roundabouts: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7609857,-121.1244208,3a,75y,...
Too many people remain at the stop sign until the roundabout completely clears, so it becomes an excruciatingly slow 4-way stop. And there's not much traffic there.
A few miles from that one, there's a high traffic roundabout that works very well. The heavily used right turn lanes are divided and don't enter the roundabout. There are very clear markings on the ground. And there are yield signs at the entrances, so people know what to do. Traffic flows great through it, with the heaviest direction of travel naturally getting more throughput.
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7004641,-120.976448,3a,75y,1...
That is a good way to have an accident - I know since I've done it. While "looking one way" on a USA counterclockwise roundabout you are looking left to see traffic already on the roundabout and if clear you go and run smack into the back of the vehicle ahead of you who for some reason stalled or hesitated or just judged the traffic differently. However it will be a low speed accident.
As a general rule, one should be looking in the direction in which the vehicle is traveling. It's easily done though, if rushing, or if the vehicle in front pulls away slightly but stops again.
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.
I genuinely cannot read that roundabout from overhead, and I am not a person who has trouble with roundabouts. I think it would benefit greatly from an explanatory diagram. I do hope that it would be more obvious while on the ground, like you said.
Unfortunately, it's not. Driving from right-to-left (in the first picture) requires drivers to enter the roundabout twice, then leave once. Judging by the amount of vehicle debris generally present and the additional "Yield" markings and signage that have been added to the second yield point since the construction was completed, it's been confusing from the ground as well.
No, you're definitely not the only one who likes them. Some folks complain about them when they first go in, but they tend to figure it out.
WSDOT has been encouraging them for a few years now, and my town has several new roundabouts as a result -- and lots of other cities across the state are using them. They've made navigating those intersections way easier, reduced traffic "waiting times", and generally improved safety versus a lighted intersection. I'm glad they're continuing to find ways to make them work.
It seemed when I was growing up in NJ, the state DOT was taking out the giant roundabouts that they were famous for, and now in Washington, they're having a huge resurgence.
Huge roundabouts are very dangerous; the safety factor in the modern ones WA installs is that they are tight and slow, which reduces the severity of any crashes.
It also does not help that NJ is the only state in the US that does not have a consistent rule about roundabout traffic priority.
I'm ok with most roundabouts. However, there is one near me that everyone complains about. There are 3 of them right in a row, but even that isn't the main issue. There is one with 5 places to turn out, which is relatively small and confusing. If you get it wrong it dumps you out on the expressway and it's an almost 9 mile trip to get back to where you originally wanted to go with no other option than to drive the 9 miles. I have yet to talk to a single person who hasn't made this mistake at least once. A little "oops" road to connect the expressway on-ramp with the road people intended to take would go along way and save hundreds, if not thousands, of wasted miles each year. Many people avoid the area completely because they don't want to deal with it.
Don't the exits have signs to say where the exit takes you? In Europe they'd be labeled, and highway onramps will have a different background color to indicate a highway..
Also, keeping your navigation display "north up" is much better than having one that will probably be laggy in a roundabout, confusing you on which exit to take.
If all else fails, look at the signage; I remember driving and a passenger not sure if the roundabout exit I was taking was correct, I said "Well there's a big sign there that says this way to our destination."
I think part of the issue is that it’s multi-lane. So if you’re in the right-lane to go to one road, and miss it, staying in the right-lane forces you onto the highway. If there is a car in the left lane you can’t get over to avoid it without causing an accident, or stopping, which would backup the whole circle and also risk accidents. So you end up paying the 9 mile tax. There is no way to miss your turn and easily recover.
Yeah, roundabouts certainly have the potential to be superior, but they're not immune to bad design!
I'll take a traditional cross with traffic signals or stop signs on all sides, it's simple and effective.
Roundabouts are a waste of space, disrupt traffic, and take more brain processing than I care to afford if I can help it. This particular example isn't even round.
I vastly prefer roundabouts, with a single exception. If traffic is heavy and dominated by the same entry and exit points, it can be hard to get a turn if you're coming from the side. Our nearest roundabout is this way.
I once saw a roundabout with stop signs. I assume it was an attempt to address this situation.
In the UK, you get roundabouts with traffic lights at the entrances, sometimes only operational at peak times, and off most of the time. Works well
How is a roundabout more disruptive than a 4 way junction with stop signs.
In terms of brain processing, you get used to it and it becomes second nature. It is a skill.
Agreed, with the condition that there is only one lane.
Ones with multiple layers stress me out, there are more ways to screw up and more demands on your defensive-driving attention.
Yes. If there are 2 it should be a "dog bone" with a long straight bit so you have time to adjust. Like:
I think the problem is not that they're impossible to figure out but you have about 2 seconds from when you see the sign to when you're entering the double roundabout.
That’s a very solvable problem of bad signage.
We have back-to-back round-a-bouts in Chattanooga (153 / Lake Resort / Access) which have two loops (concentric inner & outer round-a-bouts)... that can be quite confusing for anybody unfamiliar with the local pattern.
If your stop signs don't disrupt traffic then they're not working properly. Roundabouts are designed to efficiently weave traffic streams together instead.
Your opinion here is at odds with the record for higher traffic throughput and better safety for roundabouts. They are better in pretty much every way, for appropriate situations.
Here the situation is uneven road size, through traffic on the highway and odd angles. Perfect roundabout application.
Roundabouts are faster, safer and more convenient. It sometimes needs additional traffic lights, since heavily congested roundabouts lose their effectiveness.
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.
I'd say just the opposite. Indeed, in the UK it's normal for the signs leading up to a roundabout to include an overhead map view, since that's often the easiest way to understand what you need to do to get where you want to.
Agreed. I use to not pay attention to the layout at all. Instead, I resorted to counting down the exits I was moving past them, whilst remembering myself to gradually changing lanes to the left, paying attention to cars on the adjacent lanes. Because of this, I forget to look and plan ahead--almost like tunnel vision. Suffice to say, it was--and still is--stressful, especially at those roundabouts with which I'm not familiar.
Then I started paying attention to the displayed layout. This helped me with the bearings and lane positioning. At least, that's one item off my list when I'm in the roundabout.
I imagine you're referring to a simple line drawing (with labels)?
They're schematic but they reflect the shape of the roundabouts to help you follow it. E.g. https://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2005/QBlog160705A.html has some examples.
For example - Britain's most notorious roundabout https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5622263,-1.7713205,3a,48.7y,...
I grew up in this town, and even had to navigate this Magic Roundabout on my driving test. It's not so bad once you understand how it operates, but you have to pay attention.
They're often not 'signaged' correctly.
Ideally the sign would be 1) Rotated so that the driver proceeds from the base towards the top or sides. 2) Clearly depict the LOGICAL layout (bent slightly towards the physical) of what flow patterns _do_ during the roundabout from that input. 3) Also clearly depict which exits go where.
There should really be two signs actually, one before the diagram that lists (locally relevant roads / landmarks) by lane for sorting (if there's more than one lane in).
PS: The route map should also add a YIELD sign in mini next to the entrance with an according broken line. The interior lanes of roundabouts always have priority and all inputs are yield merges in.
Never underestimate how confused people can get with the unfamiliar. I live a couple of blocks from a fairly standard roundabout and see people trying to exit the roundabout through an entrance to the roundabout or try to go clockwise in the roundabout (this is in Canada) several times a year. This happens even though the design of the roundabout, the road markings, and the signage make it perfectly clear how you are supposed to go through it.
Then there is the less obvious stuff that happens multiple times per hour, like entering in the wrong lane given the desired exit (even though it is marked), vehicles inside the roundabout yielding to vehicles entering the roundabout (even though there is signage), or vehicles entering the roundabout failing to yield to vehicles inside of it (same signage).
As for non-standard roundabouts, those can confuse just about anyone since people often don't realize that it is a roundabout.
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...
They made a video that explains how to navigate the roundabout, and shows what it will actually look like (with yield markings)[1]
[1]: https://youtu.be/07_m7HHiZRw
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
Aside from one old lady that I saw doing laps a few years ago after our nearby roundabout first opened, it seems like most people figure it out pretty quickly. But they're too comfortable with it, and most people blast through without even hitting the brakes. That brings its own problems.
I'm glad they're excited, but I hope I never encounter this.
It may be unusual there, but in the UK we have loads. Some are smaller than this: the minimum roundabout is just a paint circle. They aren't a problem
Most people here actually prefer roundabouts to traffic lights because you keep moving (although this is partly selection bias- traffic lights are deployed at junctions where a roundabout would fail to evenly arbitrate the different flows )
You guys like roundabouts so much you've gone recursive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
(To be clear I like roundabouts)
That one is a bit odd, because the central bit looks like a roundabout but is not. To navigate it you need to forget the central bit and focus on the five mini roundabouts
You may feel less enthusiastic about it once you watch the linked video. I wouldn’t exactly call it a roundabout. That’s only what’s at the center of it.
Ok fair enough, that extra bit does make it slightly more complicated. Having said that though, I would not be fazed by this, and I don't think many UK drivers would be - because we already deal with many that have more parts. When I was learning to drive, I found a particular triple roundabout quite painful but no longer have any difficulty.
There are two skills you need to pick up to deal with any roundabout system. The first is judgement of how distant other vehicles need to be before you can enter. As a learner I used to irritate the drivers behind me by being far too cautious; on a busy roundabout you can't expect an enormous gap, so you need to know what length of gap the other drivers will expect you to take advantage of. This you can only learn from experience.
The other is to plan your route, because you need to choose your entry lane based on where you want to go. These days your navigation app will probably tell you the best entry lane.
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.
There is no room for a traditional roundabout in this location and the gravel trucks from the nearby quarry can hop the very short curbs as needed.
This roundabout is perfectly fine in practice.
Gravel trucks are the last trucks that should ever be hopping curbs though, even gentle ones. Gravel trucks already require many roads to be upgraded due to the weight and damage they do just to a flat surface. A truck carrying diapers and crackers won't mind so much, but when you got 50 tons of gravel then even a small 1 inch jump causes significant extra forces on both the road and the truck.
That road has been carrying gravel trucks for decades. The smart WSDOT engineers took into account the business with large trucks that is just a mile away when building this roundabout.
Watch the video - this roundabout's islands are designed to be driven over by semis and trailers. (Hopefully the drivers of those vehicles know that).
> 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.
I'm not a fan of roundabouts, but the recent WSDOT roundabouts I'm subjected to have gentle curbs, at least for now, so that part isn't so bad. The part where I actually need to look left and right simultaneously to see if there's room for me to join the flow, and also watch for pedestrians (if present) isn't so great.
And I'm really not a fan of the unbounded wait when there is a large flow that crosses my entrance, which could result in a very long wait when the large flow comes from rush hour conditions or a ferry offloading.
OTOH if you can't read the sign where to turn right, you can keep turning left, make a full circle, and check the signs again, and again if needed, in under half a minute. All without creating a problem to anyone around you, and being safe yourself.
I'll take it any time over a typical highway exit; if you miss it, or uf you take a wrong one, it's usually dozens of miles before you have a chance to take any corrective action at all.
For one, roundabouts turn what would be a T-Bone intersection into a glancing hit. I think that's the biggest safety benefit. They also improve the flow of traffic since there's no starting and stopping (think of it like a stoplight is a mutex lock and a roundabout is a spinlock).
And because they have no electronic or moving parts, the upkeep is minimal. There is some cost to a traffic light, particularly as you start adding weird phases and whatnot.
This roundabout was intentionally designed for the curbs to be traversable by long vehicles.
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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.
> Previously, only drivers from the 15mph and 25mph roads had to stop!
This is something which drives me crazy with a decent number of roundabouts that the Wisconsin DOT constructs. You have a rural intersection where a local road crosses a major highway, and the local road has a stop sign in either direction. Then the DOT slaps a roundabout in there, greatly inhibiting the highway traffic which is 95% of the traffic going through that intersection. That is not a good use case for a roundabout! But for some reason they insist on doing them anyway. It's terrible road design.
They can eminent domain whatever land they need to expand the intersection.
The area borders wetlands and a very steep hillside where one of the roads intersects. And the regular flow of traffic pre-roundabout was more like 60-65 mph.
A roundabout was the correct choice.
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.
> Some of them have a stop sign in the roundabout?
Traffic gets much heavier and we'll need stop signs at our roundabout near my house. During rush hour it has predominantly one flow of traffic and nobody slows down below 30-35 mph so getting into the roundabout can be difficult. A stop sign would defeat some of the point of a roundabout but it may become necessary to enforce safety.
In the UK a lot of roundabouts have traffic signals for this purpose that only turn on during busy times.
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.
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 :)
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.
The article explains why they made the decision not to do a traditional dog-bone interchange with two circular roundabouts. Namely, there were right of way limitations and a need to incorporate heavy farm trucks making a left turn. So, they ended up with basically 1.5 roundabouts which represents a simplification over the dog bone.
The lack of turn signal usage in the region also makes funky roundabouts much harder to navigate. Like you have to wait until there is a large enough gap in the cars to enter the circle, even if none of the cars actually end up intersecting your path.
It is intentional. The idea is to force drivers to reduce speed, and the mechanism is because it isn't familiar to the drivers. The claim is it forces them to be thoughtful.
Whether or not it works or is a good idea is not something on which I'm opining.
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.
I would recommend some yield signs; the dashed line on the ground is easy to miss.
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.
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.
IME (also observing other drivers), the usual multi-lane roundabouts are something you get comfortable with after just a little spaced repetition and then it's not all bad.
There are major cities in those countries with a few exceptionally gnarly ones, though. I don't blame if you're traumatized if you ever found yourself circling Arc de Triomphe in Paris, for example.
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.
There’s a link in the article but here it is with a time code for the start of the simulation.
https://youtu.be/07_m7HHiZRw?t=39
I think this is what it’s supposed to be like
https://imgur.com/a/nsh80tf
About half way in to the article is a link to a youtube video.
The article has a video
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
https://maps.app.goo.gl/aBMc8ik6B1zZbBPQ7
It's not quite the middle of nowhere, but definitely quite rural. I wouldn't expect to find pedestrians out there.
Yes, it's a few miles outside of the nearest town. It's the intersection of a state highway and some small roads that mostly lead to farmland. Not much pedestrian traffic expected there.