Merry-go-round my roundabout
Today I’d like to talk about the singlemost terrifying piece of infrastructure facing Fresno’s drivers to date: traffic cirlces. Do I go? Do I stop? Wait? Merge? OMG! My research uncovered the term traffic circle is actually incorrect. Wikipedia reports, “In the United States it is technically called a modern roundabout, to emphasize the distinction from the older, larger type of traffic circle.”
I’ve got two things to say about this
First, how funny is it that the US actually rebranded the traffic circle by renaming it a modern roundabout? Isn’t that a nice, fun word to say? Modern roundabout. Like child’s play on a merry-go-round. (Extra fun to say if you’re Canadian, don’t you know?)
And secondly, what exactly is the distinction between the traffic circle and the modern roundabout? Maybe these definitions will clear things up:
A roundabout is a type of road junction at which traffic enters a one-way stream around a central island.
A traffic circle is an intersection with a circular shape and, usually, a central island.
To be fair, Wikipedia did mention things like one-way traffic, speed variance, and right-of-way differences, but it was late in the day and I lost focus. Whatever the precise differences may be, the Institute of Transportation Engineers claims that roundabouts are statistically safer than both traffic circles and traditional intersections. Cool! Good thing the US completely abandoned the traffic circle in the mid 1950s.
My research also uncovered three interesting facts
- The Roundabout Appreciation Society — Seriously people?
- The largest traffic circle in the world is claimed to be in Saudi Arabia with a length of approximately 1.20 miles.
- This terrifying demonstration, the “Magic roundabout”, located in Swindon, England:
Fresno’s coming around to roundabouts
To the best of my knowledge, Fresno has two modern roundabouts. The first on the road that runs through River Park shopping center. This is where you can spot terrified and dumbfounded motorists as they rack their brains trying to recall the two sentences in the DMV manual that address this issue. And the second one opened nearly one year ago at Barstow and Chestnut avenues. Fresno State was even kind enough to offer directions on how to drive a roundabout. How nice of them. Unfortunately, they didn’t follow the brandmap and left out the word modern.
6 Comments to “Merry-go-round my roundabout”
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Roundaboots are more fun when you’re drunk anyway.
That one in England looks like an accident waiting to happen. Of course it will involve a foreigner that doesn’t know what he/she is doing.
Isn’t that completely insane?
I like to speed up and cut people off on the modern roundabouts. Makes me feel powerful
There’s a fun one at the intersection of Belmont, Golden State and Thorne (just SE of Roeding Park). It’s a fun one.
I love when confused motorists perform U turns AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC in the one at river park. Just go around with the flow, you dumb-tards!