Washington, DC is afflicted with a plague of “traffic circles” at places like Dupont Circle. These are very annoying for pedestrians, and also put drivers in the position of constantly facing imminent death. And don’t get me started on biking through Thomas Circle. One additional cost of all this madness is that if you go around town telling people that the country should have more “roundabouts” people look at you like you’re insane. These traffic circles are horrible, they say! But as Brad Plumer points out, a roundabout is actually something different and “modern-day roundabouts, in which incoming traffic yields to cars already in the circle, work quite smoothly, which explains why they’re creeping back in fashion.”
What’s so good about roundabouts? Well, relative to traditional intersections they lead to far fewer crashes and thus somewhat less congestion. This isn’t well-suited to every location, but it is something we ought to have more of.
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