{"id":2210,"date":"2007-08-20T15:02:36","date_gmt":"2007-08-20T19:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2210"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:51:58","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:51:58","slug":"the-rise-of-the-modern-roundabout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/08\/20\/the-rise-of-the-modern-roundabout\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise of the modern roundabout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/111\/286586728_16ab83b693.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Last week, I did a series of posts regarding <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=2197\">cycling<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=2198\">traffic calming<\/a> in Vancouver. One of my observations focused on the roundabouts installed at smaller intersections, something that Toronto is in short supply of. To give a historical perspective on the modern roundabout, and the current spike in North American roundabouts, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iht.com\/articles\/2007\/08\/17\/arts\/DESIGN20.php\">an article from today&#8217;s International Herald Tribune<\/a>. I&#8217;d love to hear what Spacing Wire readers think of roundabouts.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Modern roundabouts have been popular in Britain since the 1950s and were adopted by other European countries during the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, they&#8217;ve been introduced, initially on a trial basis, to the United States and Canada. Those trials have proved so successful, not least in dispelling drivers&#8217; fears of the strange circular junctions &#8211; remember when &#8220;The Simpsons&#8221; visited Britain only to find themselves driving around and around one? &#8211; that many more roundabouts are now being built.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When construction started, there was a quite an outpouring of concern,&#8221; said Tom Adriance, highway superintendent of Malta, a town in upstate New York, where five roundabouts were recently completed and another seven are planned. &#8220;It was something new, and people were nervous. But as they&#8217;ve gotten used to the roundabouts, they&#8217;ve realized the benefits. The traffic moves quicker and flows pretty freely; very rarely is there any type of stacking or backup. Who wants to sit at a red light for two or three minutes?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The success of the modern roundabout&#8217;s design is rooted partly in its structure and partly in its ability to modify motorists&#8217; behavior by encouraging them to drive more slowly and considerately. It dates from the early 1900s, when William Phelps Eno designed Columbus Circle in New York as a &#8220;gyratory traffic circle&#8221; where vehicles drove around a central island. Across the Atlantic, his archrival, Eug\u00e0\u00a8ne H&eacute;nard, was developing a similar idea around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>Other traffic circles followed, but there was no consistency in deciding how drivers should use them. There were no rules in Britain, and in the United States some cities gave priority to north-south traffic and others to approaching vehicles. The confusion didn&#8217;t matter when the roads were empty, but as traffic increased from the 1950s onwards, the circles became congested.<\/p>\n<p>This problem was addressed in Britain by the invention of the modern roundabout with a smaller island and wider entrances. Critically, approaching drivers were obliged to give way to vehicles already inside, prompting them to slow down before entry. The result was less congestion and fewer accidents, especially when compared with traffic signals, where drivers often accelerated to race through and avoid red lights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/kaptainkobold\/286586728\/\">Alan Saunders<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, I did a series of posts regarding cycling and traffic calming in Vancouver. One of my observations focused on the roundabouts installed at smaller intersections, something that Toronto is in short supply of. To give a historical perspective on the modern roundabout, and the current spike in North American roundabouts, is an article<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/08\/20\/the-rise-of-the-modern-roundabout\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;The rise of the modern roundabout&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,20],"tags":[6544,6541,457,6542,5399,1127,469,21,470,12,6545,19,464,506,54,6543],"class_list":["post-2210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-traffic","category-urban-design","tag-alan-saunders","tag-arc-de-triomphe","tag-canada","tag-highway-superintendent","tag-international-herald-tribune","tag-malta","tag-new-york","tag-other-cities","tag-paris","tag-planning","tag-tom-adriance","tag-toronto","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-vancouver","tag-william-phelps-eno"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The rise of the modern roundabout  - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/08\/20\/the-rise-of-the-modern-roundabout\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The rise of the modern roundabout  - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week, I did a series of posts regarding cycling and traffic calming in Vancouver. 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