I beg to disagree. Roundabouts are being used a lot in the US. From small to
large. Here in Colorado, they've been popping up all over the place, the
option of choice when medium volume roads come together. They're taking out
signalized intersections to do them. Golden, Littleton, Vail....
Where I grew up in Easton PA, the Centre Square was a big traffic circle
with a town public space in the center highlighted by a Civil Way memorial
obelisk. Easton has changed the right-of-way method for driving the Circle
(as we called it) about five times during my lifetime.
-----Original Message-----
From: Lowell G. McManus [mailto:
mcmanus71496@...]
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 1:30 PM
To:
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [BoundaryPoint] Re: Five Corners, ME times three
Jesper asked:
> Don't they make roundabouts in the US?
They aren't very common at all here, except in Washington, D.C., which,
after
all, was designed by a Frenchman!
When they do occur, they are never called "roundabouts," but rather
"circles" or
"traffic circles." The usual reason is to contain some sort of monument or
other ornament, and almost never to serve the flow of traffic. Lee Circle
in
New Orleans would be a prime example of the monumental sort.
You must remember that the typical American city is laid out in a
rectangular
grid. Therefore, circles would be more of a hindrance to the flow of
traffic
than a help.
Mexico, on the other hand, has quite a devotion to circles, both as sites
for
monuments and as traffic-flow devices.
Lowell G. McManus
Leesville, Louisiana, USA
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