Josh Wooten used to spend his evenings driving in circles. During his two years as a pizza delivery driver in Keene, N.H., he would loop around the town’s recently installed roundabout intersections some 30 to 40 times a night.
He didn’t know it at the time, but this meant each delivery likely caused less planet-warming pollution.
“All of a sudden I'm like, oh man, I'm getting through these deliveries a lot faster,” Mr. Wooten said. “Slowly moving is better than waiting at a light any day.”
In 2023, Keene, a small college town with about 23,000 residents, installed its seventh and newest roundabout. These circular intersections are easily confused with rotaries or traffic circles, but are distinctly free of traffic lights. Instead they require drivers to yield to traffic before entering and are constructed to be slower-moving while minimizing stopping.
I read they make the streets safer too. Albuquerque has installed a bunch.
I’ve driven through Keene many times and very familiar with the new Rotary’s (That’s what we call them here in New England). I’ve stated this before in this forum - Rotary’s work great in low traffic areas (which Keene NH is). We have a famous Rotary in Concord MA called the Rt 2 Rotary. It’s a NIGHTMARE to drive through. I used to work in Concord for about a year and had to traverse that Rotary every day. During that period, I personally witnessed several accidents.
Ugg, traffic circles. Attended a town hall meeting, our city is trying to get a train station. If all goes through as planned, one intersection will be changed to a circle. Was talking to my mail carrier, she does not look forward to that either, she will need to navigate the circle twice on a daily basis.
When you write rotary do you mean roundabout or traffic circle? I learned to drive in DC and to dread the traffic circles, which had multiple lanes and often lights. Roundabouts have no lights or stop signs, are single lane, and they’re just obstructions in the middle of the intersection that make one go around them.
Different places call them different things. I happen to like “traffic circles”. Much more efficient than sitting at a light. They do tend to slow people down, which is the whole point. But for the most part you keep moving, which I like!
This is generally true until a point like Mike mentioned- when the traffic volume exceeds a critical point, they become worse than a traffic light. We have a few around here that are exceptionally difficult to navigate during heavy traffic- which happens multiple times a day. Couple the volume with people that are clueless about how to navigate them and sit paralyzed even when there is sufficient room to merge.
There’s a heavily traveled road into DC from Chevy Chase, MD that has a traffic circle. It’s where Connecticut Avenue intersects Western Avenue at the District line. There are 3 lanes around the circle plus. Turn lane at Western Avenue. It has traffic lights. I recall that traffic flowed reasonably well, though I never used it during rush hour. I’m describing it in detail for @RandomTroll or anyone curious about it. As you may know, DC has lots of traffic squares and traffic circles.
There are 2 different things: 1 is a small circle, about 20’ diameter, in the middle of the road, that makes everybody go around it (left-turners must go 270°), usually with yield signs, but not stop signs or traffic lights; the other can, often does, have multiple lanes, traffic lights, and its own traffic. I remember riding with my mother who got trapped in a big one (she had never driven 1 before), stuck in the center lane going round and round. It was the only time I heard her curse. You can’t get stuck in the first kind, go around it more than once. We have only the first kind in Albuquerque, and only recently. The traffic people call them roundabouts to distinguish them from the second kind, which they call traffic circles.
That’s Chevy Chase Circle, right? I remember when someone sued the city because they drove into one of its trees. It’s always been okay when I’ve been there, but that was past downtown back then, and not rush hour.
They got a lot of hate in Albuquerque when they first went in, and some deliberately drove over them. But we seem to have adjusted. Whether they’ve made the streets safer or faster I don’t know. A Dutch traffic engineer claims that he’s studied them and they do.
Yes, that’s it. There has been no change to it since I’ve been driving, almost 50 years ago.
I hadn’t heard about that. What a ■■■■■.
We went into DC at least every Sunday, often entering or leaving past Chevy Chase Circle. Traffic circles have never bothered me. BTW, I did all the driving.
Which of these 2 is a ‘rotary’? The top one is Chevy Chase Circle, which @jtsanders described, the bottom the intersection of Silver and Cornell in Albuquerque.
It doesn’t. Just a regional thing. I grew up in NY, and they were called traffic circles. NH calls them Rotaries or sometimes Roundabouts. Here in NH, we call Subs (submarine sandwiches) - Grinders. I still don’t understand that one. Other parts of the country call them Hoagies.
I like traffic circles when they’re clearly marked. I can’t stand the abomination at the north end of Main Street in Keene. Unless something has changed since my last time through there, it’s around three lanes wide without any pavement markings or signs. It’s not obvious how to navigate it safely (if that’s even possible).
