As an American, every single intersection should be a round-a-bout. Get rid of stop signs and traffic lights. The only exception would be having traffic lights at massive intersections.
The most common complaint I get is “people don’t know how to drive in them” and my argument is: that’s only because there are so few of them. And people don’t know how to drive period 🤷♂️
Round-a-bouts have a constant flow of traffic. No need to wait at lights when no one else is there, or deal with stupid light sensors that are green for 3 seconds and red for 4 minutes (Floridian here, this is way more common than it should be), or deal with people that run stop signs.
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Agreed. I love round-a-bouts.
Nah American license system is so easy it would be a disaster
Downvoted you because I have no idea why this would be an unpopular opinion.
I believe this opinion is more popular than you think. But nothing changes until something changes. If you want more roundabouts in your area, attend a city council meeting. Get involved in local government.
Orrr you end up with roundabouts WITH stop signs like in my neighborhood
This is only unpopular to people that lack the thinking skills to adapt.
Come to England…
No! Big light bulb would go out of business! Who wants an ugly flower bed to drive around in the middle of an intersection anyway?! Big tarmac will NOT have that!
I’ve never driven in one, but from photos they look confusing lol.
I definitely like them better than 4-way stops. Now those are what people don’t know how to use. There’s always somebody waving you on when it’s their turn to go.
I prefer the divergent diamond more. Traffic circles can be good if done right, but a divergent diamond is way easier to understand and more controlled. The use of lights and exits is also more familiar to Americans so it decreases the adoption time needed to work efficiently.
Uh no. I hate them. In the country side we prefer stop signs. It’s a waste of money as well. Put that money into fixing our roads and side walks.
Agreed. They’re way easier to navigate than people think
I find them kind of scary as a pedestrian.
Certainly not every intersection. I like them at the main crossroads, but every intersection through a neighborhood would be impractical, a waste of money, and overkill.
Where I live people don’t know how to drive on straight roadways 🙄
Im down voting u. But only because I completely agree and don’t think this is unpopular.
You’re spot on OP except there is a a pretty big level of diminishing returns on roundabouts. Low traffic areas like residential neighborhood are terrible for roundabouts for example.
On higher traffic roads though, they should be the default.
You’re also spot on with people hating them because they don’t use them frequently. I would say that about 75% of people who use them regularly become fans.
I agree for intersections without pedestrians crossing.
Otherwise it’s a nightmare to get around for example with a stroller.
I like roundabouts but they can actually be more dangerous for pedestrians, especially if a road is busy and has multiple lanes. Drivers are usually more focused on navigating the roundabout than paying attention to pedestrians. No piece of road design is one-size-fits-all.
So, use eminent domain to take land from everyone on a corner lot?
Then make streets to curvy for busses?
And make walking and biking distances longer?
No thanks
No ive seen this in two spots where I live the majority of the population is just way way wayyy too fucking stupid to handle this even when it’s a single lane one people constantly stop like it’s a stop sign almost hit each other or force people off the road
Let there be traffic lights only
Hate ’em. No, please.
I’m a transportation planner. We’re working on it! Some intersections will always need signalization but there’s a definite push right now to replace controlled intersections with roundabouts for both cost and safety reasons.
I’ve gone overseas, and not stopped at a red light for a month (excluding one lane bridges).
I come back at midnight and hit 2 dozen or so red lights on my way home – and I’m the only person on the road!
It’s like we are still living in the 50’s. Traffic problem? Throw in a traffic light! Pedestrian problem? Traffic light!
I went to Europe a few yrs ago and I was so hype to see roundabouts more often than stop lights.
I’ve had to explain to my American friends how they work, but once I did they love em, they just get freaked out when they first come across one
Paging u/heathtree
I always get scared of driving a roundabout since I try to yield to cars and I get honked at for not trying to get in a head on collision
Move to Vail buddy, they’ve got you covered.
They have huge multiple lane roundabouts in Ireland, they’re awesome!!! Americans need to put their phone down and stop being stupid
I love driving in Aruba. They are everywhere and basically never have to stop
As a transportation engineer, I don’t agree. There are multiple situations in which roundabouts do not help or actually make things worse.
First of all, they take up more space than basic four way intersections. That only scales as roads get wider. Our 4+ lane roads are abominations, but even 3 lanes don’t work.
The size thing is also an issue in urban environments where buildings are right up on the edge of the roadway. Retrofitting them is basically impossible. I am aware of the “mini” roundabouts in the UK where you just have a circle painted on the ground, but there’s way too much room for error there compared to a simple stop sign when people have never seen them, like literally every American driver who has never driven in another country.
Roundabouts work best with balanced and moderate traffic flow with only 1 or 2 lanes. Plenty of these places exist, but we still run into the retrofitting issue. I live on divided 35 mph street, with 1 lane each way, that intersects another 35mph divided street with 2 lanes each way. While a roundabout physically makes sense (ignoring space constraints), the street I live on has far less traffic than the one it intersects, so a roundabout would slow the thru traffic down unnecessarily. There are also many streets in my city that are 2 lanes each way but are divided by canals. Can’t put a roundabout there. You gotta turn right and make a U-turn. Those streets are actually quite efficient though, so no complains there.
Then there’s the whole neighborhood issue. Since roundabouts take up more space, you’re eating into property space. Residents don’t like that.
The fact of the matter is that we can’t redesign all that many intersections to fit roundabouts instead of stop signs or traffic signals. When we can, we should. When we can’t, we can’t.