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- Hacker News
- This dreaming about roundabouts is as American as the fantasies about using metric one day.by pornel
- Roundabouts are much more common in the US than they were 10 years ago.by UltraSane
- They are everywhere in the areas around me now. I had a similar sentiment at one time and now they seem pretty common.
I think roundabouts work fantastically well in some places but in others they are unnecessary and in others don't work as well as alternatives. Maybe that's obvious but every so often I feel like they are overapplied — probably because of what you're mentioning, along with the fact they were underapplied in other areas in the past. I've come to like them usually but sometimes it feels like the civil engineers were having too much fun at the cost of practicality.
by derbOac - Nowadays, depending on your state, they're being built in almost every new intersection that would call for one. And the worst existing intersections converted to them. It's happening and will only speed up.by pkamb
- They’re being used often in new construction areas. It’s just not likely that they’ll be retrofitted to existing areas due to needing more space than regular intersections.by orev
- I like roundabouts over lights at small intersections. I still prefer simple give way/stop that changes the next intersection over roundabouts.
Lights suck unless there’s sufficient traffic.
by grebc - They replaced a intersection near me that would get backed up very badly during rush hour with a roundabout that has a much higher capacity and never seems to get backed up.by UltraSane
- I've lived some places where 4-way stops were just abused, like Sugarland, TX. England and Ireland are full of roundabouts, some of which are incredibly small, just a painted dot, and some are giant multi-lane white-knuckle nightmares. There are places with good traffic light setups, but traffic lights generally suffer from the same problems of sometimes stopping traffic for no good reason while also encouraging excess speed.
In my current city, I can identify at least 3 intersections that would be better as a roundabout, but I don't have my hopes up.
by projektfu - > Roundabouts come with this otherwise unused patch of land in the middle. Apparently, it has become common practice around the world to put some random art there, or a little green space, or a fountain, or a "welcome to this town" sign.
Or a dog: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roundabout_dog&ol...>
by teddyh - I wish local councils wouldn't insist on putting in shrubs that block the line of site across the roundabout.by magarnicle
- I'm old enough to be "triggered" by the word "Roundabout" to have this "Yes" song to start playing in my head:by daltont
- I wonder, does the song have more fans today because of Jojo, or because of fans from when Yes were in their prime?by Macha
- [edit: for clarity, I am not against roundabouts]
I don't have real expertise in civil engineering
Traffic lights have a smaller physical footprint and require less construction activity.
Traffic lights fit on a cost spectrum from two stop sighs, to four stop signs, to stop signs plus blinking lights, to non-trivial signaling.
First make it work. Then make it good. Then make it fast.
Engineering is not a one size fits all discipline.
[edit: I have a background in urban planning, architecture, and real-estate development]
by brudgers - A roundabout can be as simple as a circle painted in the middle of an intersection, plus a bit of signage. It doesn’t have to be a big thing.by wat10000
- You forgot roundabouts with traffic lights.
Here’s one in Australia near Perth:
https://youtu.be/h8lhX9Q6Z5g?si=eloUWLcH8q3eJiZH
And I’m certain I’ve driven through other roundabouts with traffic lights in other states.
- The footprint is a cost problem once. They don't need power, computers, or technicians to come out and maintain the equipment constantly.by olyjohn
- Did anyone study the fuel efficiency of a roundabout vs. traffic light?
I expect it to be a lot worse.
- roundabout, light traffic : break, turn, accelerate again, 100% of the time - (dumb) traffic light, light traffic: 50% chance of stopping and accelerating again, 50% chance of not slowing down at all. - roundabout, heavy traffic : stop, move 3m, stop again, move 3m more, stop again, repeat 10 times, finally turn, accelerate. - traffic light, heavy traffic: stop & engine off, start & move 100m, stop & engine off, start again and accelerate.by M95D - You're missing the variations where you have stop lights to go into the roundabout or the even worse variant, roundabouts that are large enough to have 3-4 zones of stoplights inside of the roundabout itself!
I'll take a roundabout any time of the day, but then I mostly to drive out in the public when the traffic is the least, so any stop lights tend to be more annoying that useful.
- Mythbusters did a test of roundabouts vs fourway intersections (no lights), many years ago.
Their conclusion i believe was they were about the same in pretty much all regards.
It was highly synthetic, people driving around a small course with roundabouts or fourway intersections, continuously for an hour or something.
- Streetcraft on Youtube compared 2 similar routes, one with roundabouts and one with traffic lights. They found roundabouts to be quicker and more fuel efficient: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=012fMI3TdRoby Miksel12
- I feel like the author would appreciate Milton Keynes, which is an entire city of 180 roundabouts on a grid system:
https://lostcolonials.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/milton-keynes...
Fun for drifting late at night. Like a chav version of tōge from Initial D.
by qingcharles - Appreciate indeed. Thanks for the referenceby ngruhn
- Surprised Carmel, Indiana hasn’t been mentioned in article or comments. They replaced almost every single stoplight and stop sign intersection in the town with roundabouts. Think the number of roundabouts in the town is in the hundreds
- This led me down somewhat of a rabbit hole looking at roundabouts, then to the official roundabout page from the Department of Transportation, where I couldn't believe my eyes to see that National Roundabout Week is next week: https://highways.dot.gov/safety/intersection-safety/nrwby rusty_rick
- You almost missed it!by qingcharles
- Author here. Wow that's amazing unintended timing!by ngruhn
- The city I grew up in had no roundabouts back then. Today it does have some, some were even made and removed again since. People there hate roundabouts.
The city I live nearby now has so many roundabouts that I can drive for over an hour without seeing a traffic light. It always had those, people are used to using them.
Guess what works better and barely has any traffic issues at all.
by herbst - As a bicyclist I hate them, at least the smaller ones. Because they slow me down, can't take them with 40 to 50 kph, need to slow down to 30. But that was the intent, yes?
However, crossings with traffic lights I can take at any speed I'm able to, when they are green for me, and I don't need to turn. Or if I can oversee them from afar, and they are empty, and I can give a shit about 'lights'.
- > Guess what works better and barely has any traffic issues at all.
The one that where mass transit works better.
But yeah, a city still needs cars, and roundabouts are still unbeatable in low-traffic crossings. But they are not the most impacting change a city can make.
by marcosdumay - You only need one roundabout to be able to drive for hours without seeing a traffic light. It’s one of the main features of loops.