The Wisconsin Department of Transportation has gone roundabout mad and residents are getting fed up with the use of these traffic control features in inappropriate situations (like near railroad crossings or stringing a series of them along the same road).
They actually built this on Highway 41 near Oshkosh
A number of roundabouts have had to be reconfigured (at considerable cost) because the DOT misjudged the flow of traffic.
Now a bill has been drafted in the State Assembly that would allow local municipalities to reject any DOT roundabouts being planned for their area.
I have mixed feelings about roundabouts. I lived in D.C. for a year and it was an interesting exercise in speed and timing to navigate those multilane things.
Yeah but, I heard roundabouts are really popular in Europe.
That’s exactly why they want them here. Doesn’t matter if they make sense to our type of driving. If it’s European, it must be better.
I love ’em. My motorcycle straightens ’em right out.
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there.
Yes I’ve had a few beers. Why’d you ask?
I absolutely HATE them and I don’t understand them and I think they are confusing and unnecessary! Give me an old-time American intersection any day of the week!
I like traffic circles, too. Where’d “roundabout” come from, anyway? I’ve been driving for over 50 years and they were always simply traffic circles until recently.
Here in God’s Waiting Room on Florida’s Gulf coast, I really love to discombobulate the timid Buick-driving oldsters trying to figure out what lane to be in when confronted by a circle servicing a pair of four-lane thoroughfares. BEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEP! I really shouldn’t do that; sometimes they stop dead in the middle of everything and that’s not good. Not good at all.
Unfortunately, although circles can be really efficient when designed well for the right intersections, they do require a little bit of thinking on the part of the drivers. I have yet to see any state license road test route applicants through a circle or two and that’s a bad oversight. Maybe it’s because the inspectors don’t know how to handle ’em either.
I was up in Truckee Cali for the first time in a couple years and the pace is filthy with them. I told the wife “Uh oh some idjut hire a European transit engineer.
I don’t like traffic circles.
Calling them roundabouts doesn’t help.
I found it distasteful typing the word just now.
P.S. I’m no fan of one-way streets either.
I was caught in this trap last year on the way to Airventure, it really is like the roundabout dimension up there.
I took the 41 foot 5th wheel there to Oshkosh a few years ago for the airshow. Everybody got out my way. At least the traffic circles there are flat and not landscaped. The temptation for spendthrift city councils is to fill the center with trees or retaining walls, defeating the whole purpose since you cant see who’s coming. I drove in Spain, England and Germany in the Air Force. I hated the trolley tracks more in Frankfurt. Watch out for those streetcars!
My favorite Yes song!
There’s one of those in Waco it has been there for years but the people want to get rid of it.
We stayed at Hickory Oaks in 2013, nice folks and got a spot with hookups at the last minute. It’s only 10 minutes from the airshow.
For the most part they’re worthless.
Trust me, though, the one at the intersection of Routes 200 and 22 just outside Killdeer, ND is a life saver!
I’m so glad I stubbornly refused to take Behind-the-Wheel some 40+ years ago when I was in high school. (Theory was required, with the result that I know every single speed limit in a state where I haven’t lived in 31 years LOL.)
This is precisely the kind of shit that would give me road rage.
They work if everyone who approaches one understands the concept of “yield to your left” – I have a hard time trusting the person just a head of me to remember to be patient and wait their turn.
That ain’t nothin they’ve got 40+ roundabouts in about a 30 mile stretch of hwy 41.
My buddy is a civil eng for wisdot and he just built a house. Even the concrete contractor ripped him by asking “I assume you want a couple roundabouts in your driveway?”
I ran into one of my old girlfriends at a traffic circle last night. She should be out of the hospital tomorrow.
They are basically games of chicken.
so’s my dumptruck
mythbusters “proved” they are more efficient than a 4 way stop.
but, but, all that extra greenspace… to inspire the children
They say that half the round-a bouts are in France. As far as I’m concerned, they can have the other half.
I’ve done Camp Sholler before, but it’s best to fly in, they still get you for 3 nights whether you want it or not. Otherwise I pick a day, leave at 6am and get home around midnight.
The only people who like round a bouts and the drivers that think their poop does not stink. They feel that they can tag the car in front of them and go through. every body else has to sit there until these idiots get threw the circle. A person tried to pull this on me at the 164 and Q roundabout and I put him on a big pile of snow. I have a car cam and if you want to mess with me, the video will be in court and I do not go cheap.
Yes, WI has been flooded with these cursed things, and the comment about it being a big game of chicken at each roundabout is pretty much spot-on.
In an era where NOBODY is paying attention any longer, who is the dummy who thought that installing a feature where EVERYONE needs to be fully aware of what’s happening was the best option?!?
Seriously, I think most of those who make decisions for things like this were the types who had been lobotomized prior to their employment with the DOT and anyone connected with this failed plan.
I entered the first one so fast in Truckee that I rear ended myself.
Only four? A few miles further south on the same highway (where 41 joins 45) there are FIVE on the crossing road.
Guess I have to pass 4 of them to the nearest dicounter.
A four way stop is more like a Mexican standoff.
(Except that Mexicans don’t stop)
“Enlightened” cities put them in, too.
Didja ever watch an 8-year-old bicyclist, or a 70+-year-old with a walker, try to get through one of those?
There are two here in north Fulton couunty, GA, and they are vastly more efficient than the 4-way stops they replaced. That being said, I have a theory that the more bicyclists on your city council, the more likely your town will get roundabouts. Bicyclists haaaaate to stop at stop signs.
We have a 2 lane round-about, it’s been called the most dangerous intersection in the state. I call it my personal lateral skid pad. it’s amazing to see how many “G’s” you can pull before your tires let go..
I’m waiting for them to build a “Magic Roundabout”. This roundabout joins five roads and consists of a two-way road around the central island with five mini-roundabouts meeting the incoming roads. I can’t wait to see multi-vehicle pile-ups when they do.
It’s really bad here with all the elderly people behind the wheel.. everyday we have a “silver alert” ( A missing elderly person who suffers from both dementia and Alzheimer’s).. and their vehicle tag numbers up in lights..
14 more roundabouts are planned..
We have another new one in the works.. has anyone else heard of a “diverging diamond interchange”? I bet we’re in store for a lot of head-on collisions in the near future..
Here in Green Bay we have roundabouts all over the place.
My advice: ALWAYS watch your right side. Idiots are everywhere.
Roundabouts can be entertaining when some fool takes a left, head first into traffic.
Depending on your driving skill, roundabouts really do speed up your travel time. Just remember, “Idiots are everywhere”.
Diverging Diamonds are wonderful. Springfield, Missouri got the first one in the United States a few years ago. They now have several with several more planned in the area. They look hard on paper, but once you get use to them, they move the traffic so much faster and safer.