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.