Bacon's Rebellion

In Praise of Roundabouts

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Andrew Boenau, a Richmond transportation engineer, is a big fan of roundabouts. In fact, he has participated in the design of two of Virginia’s 12 roundabouts — one on the Virginia Tech campus and one in Gloucester County. For anyone interested in finding out more about this unconventional traffic-management tool, he recommends visiting the website of Michael Wallwork, a world-renowned expert. Wallwork, who cut his teeth as a traffic engineer in Melbourne, Australia, and now lives in Orange Park, Fla., explores the abundant design possibilities.

As the photo above from Clearwater, Fla., (taken from Wallwork’s website) makes evident, roundabouts do more than manage traffic flow. They stand out as major landmarks. The circles create visual focal points, which can be amplified with fountains, statues, gardens or other civic ornamentation. And, oh, by the way, this Clearwater roundabout carries 58,000 cars a day and 8,000 pedestrians.

By Boenau’s count, the Richmond region is the lead adopter of roundabouts in Virginia. There are two in Richmond — including the magnificent circle on Monument Ave. with the Robert E. Lee statue — as well as one in Chesterfield County and three in the West Creek office park in Goochland County. Charlottesville is coming on strong with one roundabout and three under construction. Gordonsville, Blacksburg, Amherst, Gloucester and Winchester also sport roundabouts.

Update: Boenau has pointed me to this Virginia Tech web page with an aerial view of the university’s roundabout.

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17 responses to “In Praise of Roundabouts”

  1. Shaun Kenney Avatar
    Shaun Kenney

    The Gordonsville roundabout is great — it could stand to be a bit larger, but it does the trick.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Dupont Circle in Washington, DC (plus a few others) doesn’t do much to make traffic flow better if you ask me.

  3. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous 8:28, DuPont Circle isn’t a roundabout. It’s a circle. Different kind of traffic flow. Confusing as the dickens. From what I understand, circles caused so much confusion that they discredited not only themselves but their siblings, roundabouts.

  4. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    Jim:

    You might be able to help focus the discussion better by providing readers with definitions of circles and roundabouts. I agree with 8:28 that D.C.’s circles are horrible.

  5. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “Both have circular medians, but roundabouts are generally smaller (100-200 feet in diameter) and have more narrow lanes, forcing traffic to slow to maneuver turns. Traffic always enters directly facing the center, requiring vehicles to yield to traffic already moving inside.

    Traffic circles have a larger nucleus (400-600 feet), have wider turns and are more of a free-for-all when it comes to yielding because people can enter at an angle and at different speeds.

    Traffic engineers say roundabouts are attractive because they control entry into the circle, “calming” traffic by forcing everyone to travel at similar speeds. And unlike traffic signals, roundabouts keep cars moving, which has the added benefit of improving air quality.

    Roundabouts also improve safety, according to industry research. A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found a 39 percent reduction in all crashes, a 79 percent reduction of injury-producing crashes and a 90 percent reduction in fatal accidents associated with roundabouts compared to traditional intersections.”

    http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/newjersey/story/6298371p-6182131c.html

  6. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    I’ve driven circles and roundabouts in DC, MA and the UK. I’ve heard them cursed in each location. Maybe it is the volume of traffic that – at some point – makes them unpleasant. Dunno. I’m not against them. Just find the irony of how many innovations are eventually cursed as ‘stoopid’ funny.

    The circles in DC are designed for where you place your artillery to shoot down the to the next circle. Meant to expedite crowd control in the capitol by giving the mobs a whiff of the grape.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    JAB is correct. Pierre L’Enfant designed the streets of DC to make it hard for invading armys (no matter where they were from)to navigate.

    Congrats, Mr. L’Enfant, you were successful in every way.

    -Anon 8:28

  8. Becky Dale Avatar
    Becky Dale

    Is the thing at the Lee monument a circle or a roundabout? Whatever it is, I’m never sure about it. If you’re in the left lane and continuing down Monument and there’s a car to your right that is continuing to stay in the circle, you’re going to run into each other if you both keep going. Is the car on the right supposed to yield to the car on the left? Or is the car on the left supposed to yield to the car on the right? I try to avoid the problem by staying out of the left lane and yielding to everyone.

  9. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Ideally there is only one lae in a traffic circle / roundabout, for just the reasons you mention.

    That means a traffic cirle is a bottle neck if two lanes empty into it. That is now called traffic calming. A cirle / roundabout needs to be huge in order to provide time for everybody to work things out.

    Fundamentally what a traffic circle does is take one intesection and turn it into four intersections. In other words, if you want less congestion, you need to spread things out.

  10. James Young Avatar
    James Young

    Traffic designers seem to run hot and cold on these devices. I remember one in Central Pennsylvania, where I grew up (at the north junction of US 11 and 15). When a new bridge was built (mainly to deal with the traffic from Weis Markets’ warehouse), the traffic circle — long considered a menace — was done away with, replaced by an overpass, ramps, and a stoplight.

    It’s still a bottleneck.

  11. Jim Wamsley Avatar
    Jim Wamsley

    Roundabouts are one item in the highway engineers tool kit. They replace intersections on two or four lane roads where left turns delay traffic.

    When traffic volume increases the overpass is the next item in the tool kit. At even higher volume a limited access highway is substituted.

    They can also be used as a nice traffic calming device for neighborhoods.

  12. Becky Dale Avatar
    Becky Dale

    Can’t someone answer my question? I’d really like to know. A car is in the right hand lane of the circle at the Lee Monument heading for Allen (north). Another car is in the left hand lane of the circle heading for W. Franklin (east). The way the lanes are marked, the car in the left hand lane will be staying in his lane as he exits the circle onto W. Franklin in the left hand lane of W. Franklin. Should the car in the right hand lane of the circle yield? Or should the car in the left hand lane yield? DMV Rules of the Road, p. 36, has a little bit on roundabouts but doesn’t address this question. Does anyone know? Maybe they’re both supposed to stop and roll down their windows and discuss who goes first?

  13. C. P. Zilliacus Avatar
    C. P. Zilliacus

    Becky, I live in Maryland, and
    only relatively infrequently do
    I drive in the Commonwealth as
    far south as in Richmond (though
    I’ve driven around the circle
    at the Lee Monument at some point
    in the past). Most of the time,
    I am content to enjoy the
    congested streets, roads and
    highways of Northern Virginia.

    The link below is a pointer
    to a pretty good discussion
    of roundabouts as prepared by
    the State Highway Administration
    of the Maryland Department
    of Transportation.

    Note that the MDOT/SHA link is
    about state-of-the-art
    _roundabouts_, and NOT ABOUT
    TRAFFIC CIRCLES (for example,
    the District of Columbia has
    many old-style traffic circles,
    such as Dupont Circle, and Chevy
    Chase Circle (located on the
    Md./D.C. border) but I can
    only think of one modern
    roundabout, in the LeDroit Park
    area of D.C., near Howard
    University).

    MDOT/SHA (Official State of Md. site) Traveling Maryland’s Roundabouts

    (there’s a nice graphic presentation that requires Shockwave/Flash in this page)

  14. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Becky: I guess it depends if you are on a British Roundabout or an American one:-).

    In some places a car in the roundabout has right of way, and it is so marked. In other places the entering car has right of way, since he is on the right (Unless you are in England).

    My advice is to stay out of the left lane of the circle, because of the problem you mention. I nearly got slammed a couple of times at the Bourne Bridge circle that way: someone on the inside says oops this is where I get off, and makes a right turn across the outer lane to exit.

    I’m sure it is not always true, but my experience in England was that if you had the right of way, you were expected to go. Also drivers there seemed more adept at taking turns than in America. they seemed to have the zipper merge down pat, at least compared to us.

  15. Becky Dale Avatar
    Becky Dale

    I’ve written to DMV (e-mail form on their website) to pose my question. Will let you know when I get an answer.

  16. Becky Dale Avatar
    Becky Dale

    Here’s the reply I received this morning from Jean Dudley at DMV:

    Thank you for visiting dmvnow.com.

    According to the Driver’s Manual, page 36, “Unless signs direct you otherwise, if you plan to turn right, stay to the right as you enter the roundabout. If you plan to go straight, you may stay in either lane (if it is a dual lane roundabout). If you plan to turn left, stay to the left as you enter the circular.”

    In the situation that you described, it sounds as if the person who wishes to stay in the circle should treat the circle as if he is making a left turn and should be in the left lane if he plans to continue in the circle. I recommend that you contact a local police officer for a more precise answer.

    ****
    So, she doesn’t know either. I’ll try Richmond police and see what they have to say. That car that’s in the right lane of the circle could have entered from south Allen and be headed for north Allen and be in the correct lane, according to the manual, and still be in danger of collision from a car in the left lane of the circle who entered from west Monument headed for east Franklin (again, in a correct lane according to the manual). Who has the right of way? My quest for an answer continues. I’m writing to Richmond police, will let you know what they say.

  17. Emily Avatar
    Emily

    Becky,

    You cannot stay in the circle from the outside lane when turning from east/west to north/south. As you noticed, there are pavement markings clearly indicating that that pavement is reserved for travel from the left lane continuing straight on Monument. In order for a car in the right (outside) lane to continue around the roundabout, they would have to cross these lines, which they can’t do. The DMV spokesperson was correct that if a person wishes to continue in the circle, they need to be in the left lane. Doing otherwise is essentially turning left from the right lane.

    A lot of people do it anyways because Americans are very unfamiliar with roundabouts. It is a big problem and I hate going through that roundabout because too many people don’t know how to use it and unlike you, don’t try to learn.

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