How not to build a traffic circle/roundabout/godforsaken irritating POS

Fargo is starting to obsess over round abouts. All of the new neighborhood additions are putting in round abouts right at the entrances to them. So basically, turn off main road, round about big enough to have a house in the middle connecting two roads that don't really have enough traffic flow to warrant a roundabout.
 
LOL @ traffic circles.
Almost unheard of in Ontario. Traffic lights are fine if you ask me.
They are pretty rare in Ontario, but a few have started to come out. The restaurant district my sister works had has no 4-way stops but roundabouts instead. Unfortunately...Ontario driver education is not very good...so I often encountered very confused drivers going into the roundabout the wrong way. For me, roundabouts are not a big problem for me...rather its stupid Toronto bylaws that are inconsistent from area to area meaning easy tickets.
 
Roundabouts are great for testing lateral G forces.
 
I can't find a picture of it right now but there used to be a roundabout near the airport here in Brisbane that went under the motorway AND had 4 sets of traffic lights on it (very similer to the 1st pic in hbriz'z post). The state gov had that great idea to stop the amount of accidents occuring on said roundabout, but insted doubbled the traffic congestion on the roundabout AND the motorway! Thankfully its now been torn up as a part of the Airport link/Gateway Motorway revamp.
 
Hey guess what? here's another one from Massachusetts. Man do urban planners like their rotaries here:

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and one from Israel. After picking up your rental car, this is probably the first intersection you see.

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Good or bad, there are some places that should have roundabouts, like this intersection:

 
Good or bad, there are some places that should have roundabouts, like this intersection:


Such places need one thing much more than roundabouts: Rules and people who are willing to follow them.

Btw., all the roundabouts they installed here make sense. Mostly they put them there, because there was a crossroads before with no lights, where you couldn't get out in heavy traffic and queues were forming rapidly.

Only downside is, that some drivers still seem to be afraid of roundabouts -- they stop and look around carefully before driving in, even if there is no other car in sight. They annoy me lots...
 
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It's a signal tree! Brilliant!
 
how an intersection should be organised:
800px-Klaverblad_in_nabijheid_Sabiha.JPG


or

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you can keep the pedal to the metal, without fearing someone might come from your side an plow into you...
 
Madcat.. you live in Walnut Creek? I know exactly where that roundabout is...one of my main motorcycle buddies lives on Farm Hill Ct. I take that roundabout, then make a left onto North Gate, right onto Doncaster past the LDS Church, then a right onto Indian Hill.

That's pretty crazy I know exactly where you're talking about!

I don't find that roundabout too terrible though :p
 
Madcat.. you live in Walnut Creek? I know exactly where that roundabout is...one of my main motorcycle buddies lives on Farm Hill Ct. I take that roundabout, then make a left onto North Gate, right onto Doncaster past the LDS Church, then a right onto Indian Hill.

That's pretty crazy I know exactly where you're talking about!

I don't find that roundabout too terrible though :p

It's great! It hugely improved the traffic. I suppose I should have specified that I wasn't bashing it. Starts you off with a smile on your way to any destination. It's rather too tight to take at full race speed though.

Yep, the homesteads at Northgate, right at the foot of my big ole mountain. A more stereotypical rendition of suburbia there never was. Nice as it is, I can't wait to GTFO.
 
Yo yo yo it's 2012 and I my busdriver navigate this shit everyday. Take the horror in this picture and add in the few hundred cars wanting to go everywhere and suicide cyclists from Urbania of rush hour. The picture is a little out of date, there are now "british" yellow criss cross marks on the intersecting roads. The problem is that people stop in them anyway. Probably because they're bewildered by the planning.

I give you J?rntorget in G??????????teborg.

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To illustrate where people want to go I made a magnificient painting in an expert photo editor. I'm the big fat white thing.
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The whole thing is spectaculary sensitive to gridlock but the U-turn of failure down by the green copper roof in the left corner is hilarious. The lanes in the center are very short and congests instantly. Then there's the yellow "go straight" lane that is sort of hard to see on the right which is also wonderful. I forgot a few lines, the yellow wants to do a U-turn too and the green wants to continue straight onto yellow. If you're red or pink and want to continue straight ahead, that's because the city fooled you into taking a wrong turn somewhere.
 
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From the most confusing to the most stupid... I give you, the one way only most idiotic roundabout ever.

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This is the entrance to a mall, the green things are the parking spots' roofs... I drew arrows to show that those streets are 1 way only.
There used to be no roundabout there, why? cos there was absolutely 0% chance of a collision, ever.
Who uses the final quarter of the roundabout? Well, people who say "fuck it" and just cut from the entrance road right to the other two roads skipping the stupid thing altogether, which is, 95% of guys.
 
Well...

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