Is This 'Magic' Roundabout Made of 5 Mini-Roundabouts?
snopes.comI have driven round the similar roundabout in Hemel Hempsted many times
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hdU8g6mS2eAv4GgRA
It looks scary, but you just treat each mini-roundabout as a normal roundabout and you'll be fine. We had some visitors from the US who weren't very used to roundabouts and they managed the magic roundabout no problem!
When traffic is heavy (common on that roundabout in peak times) you can choose which way you go round it which is useful in avoiding congestion.
Edit: I just noticed on google maps it is rated as a tourist attraction with an average rating of one star :-)
There's also one in High Wycombe. https://www.google.com/maps/place/High+Wycombe,+UK/@51.62697...
I'm more familiar with that one than the one in swindon. It looks extremely terrifying from above, but what it actually looks like from the ground is a bit of a weird run of roundabouts one after another. If you take them one at a time rather than consider the intersection as a whole, it works fairly simply. It's actually shockingly intuitive.
Compared to the nearby roundabout onto the M40, which is of a much simpler design, but is covered in traffic lights, the Wycombe magic roundabout is actually much better at moving traffic around.
Handy Cross is the worst roundabout in the country, I hate it so much!
>the roundabout was voted the seventh most feared road junction in the country.
Fear is undervalued as a road safety measure :-)
Making drivers uneasy is often the best way to improve safety. Narrow lanes, in particular, help a good deal. https://www.wri.org/insights/bigger-isnt-always-better-narro...
Yes - the effect is seen when they improve visibility at road junctions in a effort to increase safety. Before, everyone approached the uncertain situation slowly. Afterwards, they rush head-on into collisions.
Where I live there is a stop sign before merging into a major road despite originally good visibility, so few people actually stopped, which apparently led to accidents. Then they installed some barriers to make visibility worse (so drivers will not see the traffic on the main road until shortly before the stop sign, more or less forcing them to stop and take stock of the traffic situation, unless of course they are very irresponsible). Not sure if this has improved safety, but the barriers have been there for some years now, so I guess they were at least a bit successful...
Overhead view is complex, sure. The only view that matters is thru the windshield. If the driver knows at every point where to go next, then it works fine. All about signage and lanes and signals.
I used to agree. But people are creatures of habits. There is a well-known "large" roundabout near Copenhagen often called the IKEA roundabout. Obviously next to IKEA but still so known that it has a "popular" name. It has large overhead signs. On road signage. Traffic and street lights. The overhead signs show that you should take the left most lane to go left. Two middle lanes for straight ahead. And a breakout lane to the right which goes right. It is all very easy to understand and logical. But the number of lanes and the fact it is so busy it is regulated with traffic lights makes people very uncomfortable. As I find it very logical and easy to navigate I have come to my own conclusion that it is because this type of roundabout is unusual and uncommon around here. You will notice peoples lizard brain set in. They are scared they cannot exit so they clearly choose the outer-most of the 2 straight ahead lanes. And dangerous situations when people who needs to go left take the outer lane because you can "always" do that in a roundabout (but not here!). And for further anecdotal evidence this has come up several times in conversations and people have stated they do not like it.
You can see it here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jr39hNie4d9fennq7
We have a similar roundabout in Dublin although it is not well signposted. People do two things that they seem to think will make them safe. First as you say they stick always in the outer two lanes. Second they increase their speed... I think on the basis that if they get through it quickly there is less chance of something going wrong.
Large busy overhead signs are not as helpful as simple arrows at each opportunity to turn. Maybe arrows on the pavement, just in front of the turn.
Our first roundabout around here had 13 (thirteen!) signs just before you entered, including a map. Disaster. Folks just want to know, which is the left-turn lane etc.
Btw is that the right link? It looks like an ordinary roundabout with right-turn ramps.
The link is correct.
The simple arrows you prefer are there as well. But the overhead signs are important when there is a lot of traffic as you will see the road markings too late.
You have to look at the satellite image to see the unusual (around here) parts: Traffic lights, stopping lines inside the roundabout and the left turn lane within.
Indeed. In fact, one could argue that a roundabout itself adds no complexity to the rules of the road. A roundabout can be understood simply as a one-way road that has priority over traffic which is joining it, which must give way (="yield" [en_US]) to vehicles already on it.
The fact that this one-way road eventually goes full-circle and connects back onto itself is inconsequential.
Yes, and even a larger multilane roundabout is just a short stretch of highway that curves round and has a sequence of normal on and off ramps along it. Even the signalling you’re supposed to do is basically exactly what you’d do if you were joining a highway then exiting again.
If the turns are labelled, ON THE ROUNDABOUT!
Our local traffic engineer doesn't label the exits. So people STOP and look around, wondering if this is their exit.
There's one roundabout between me and Boston that gets very congested at rush hour and I commuted into on and off for about 18 months. It was obvious when school started up because the backups got way worse--partially more cars I assume but presumably you also had a lot of people who just weren't used to the traffic patterns. It tended to get better (though still awful) again after a few weeks.
ADDED: (One) problem with Route 2 is that it's an arterial highway that was never designed to be one. Especially to the west, the merges are also terrible at peak times. And (although there was one major upgrade a number of years back) it passes through some of Boston's tonier suburbs which makes major changes hard.
Roundabouts are extremely sensitive to rates of traffic. If one direction occasionally fills from e.g. a school parking lot, the others can become instantly congested.
You can use traffic lights etc to fix this. But then the major benefit of roundabouts is extinguished: their cheap cost. Just some pavement and acres, painted lines.
They're great for low traffic neighborhoods where the intersections don't warrant something as heavy weight as stoplights or 4-way stops. I'd love to replace every ridiculous 4-way stop in my neighborhood with a roundabout, it would probably double the life of my brake pads and have no effect on safety. Except Americans are baffled by them and they'd probably get shouted down at the next city council meeting for being weird and confusing.
I have thought that a "zipper merge" (let one car in ahead of you) convention would help congested roundabouts but that isn't how we're taught to use them.
I'm not sure how that would work. Now the person entering the rotary has to trust that another driver isn't going to cut them off. I can tell you that merges right after a traffic light it is absolutely routine for a car (or probably more likely a pickup) not to let you alternate. I don't even bother with the FU horn any longer.
When I moved to Boston I was supersized that people would talk in fear of all the newfangled "rotaries" as they are called here. Roundabouts in general are awesome but Boston has some unique challenges.
Roundabouts work well when there is similar amounts of traffic coming from all directions. In Boston they built some roundabouts where arterial roads meet suburban streets (or country lanes) at odd angles and it causes congestion. There really isn't a great solution for those intersections though - lights would reduce traffic flow.
It's basically the Route 2-related rotaries. The Concord rotary and the "twin doughnuts of death" as you enter Cambridge. Of course, all those intersections would be nightmares at rush hour however they were designed/configured.
It also doesn't help that someone is adding visual complexity to the picture by the dim duplicate extensions on the side (what is that called?). There may be times where that feature is useful, but this is definitely not one of those times.
As long as you aren't a cyclist, that is. Separated bike lanes? Never heard of 'em...
From memory the entire thing is ringed by a cycle loop on the pavement, no reason to get out and in to traffic.
From looking at it on street view it appears to be a narrow (if paved) sidewalk that's shared with pedestrians, and the only way to cross traffic is to trigger multiple traffic lights (per crossing!) to halt traffic so that cyclists and pedestrians can safely cross, and resorting to traffic lights means that you've given up on any traffic benefits of a roundabout in the first place.
To any budding civil engineers out there, please only consider roundabouts in the following circumstances:
1. Traffic is light enough that the roundabout can be a single lane. No multi-lane roundabouts in populated areas with pedestrian crossings!
2. Traffic is remote enough that there are no pedestrians or cyclists to worry about, in which case, feel free to go crazy with your multi-lane roundabouts.
And of course, Tom Scott has made a video about it: https://youtube.com/watch?v=D22BOOGbpFM
edit: fixed a typo
Swindon on HN; never thought I'd see it.
Back in the 2000s most driving test routes did cross this roundabout at least once, sometimes multiple times so most people growing up there don't understand the internets confusion by it all.
Look right, drive forwards, stop at the give way lines.
(If you couldn't figure this out you admitted you probably shouldn't be driving and booked your test in Cirencester instead)
It's probably more confusing for people who drive on the right (which is the majority of the world's population).
What I don't get however: is there really so much traffic there that a single big roundabout wouldn't work? I mean, it apparently works in other places (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_Charles_de_Gaulle#/media...), although that is scary as well...
For the longest time yeah, it was the centre interconnection of all major routes though the town centre. If you look on street view you can see the main arteries working out from there to the older parts of the town (ignore west and north neither existed in the 70s.)
I think it will predate the M4 and A417/9 build dates just, 100% predates Thamesdown drive so you didn't have good circular options around the town.
Thanks for posting the giant roundabout. Whatever is happening in the original could’ve been avoided entirely.
My state and surrounding counties have been on a roundabout build spree and it’s really awesome. The only one near me with 2 lanes on one side hand to go back down to single lanes because drivers couldn’t understand one lane was for going “straight” and one was for looping around to another exit.
Here in Lithuania lots of Turbo-roundabouts were built lately, I my eyes it the best way to connect multiple lane roads as it's pretty hard to mess it up - bumps on the road itself help to direct the traffic (and, of course, signs when entering help too).
Same roundabout came to my mind.
>Cirencester instead
Hey. Some of us chose Chippenham instead.
I honestly don't really understand what the fuss is with it, just keep looking right and drive forward when you're free to. It makes so much more sense than multiple stop signs where each side takes it in turn.
The junction is named after a 1960s-1970s children TV series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3DcChXNyYQ
Which itself has a fascinating backstory
Auto Shenanigans on YouTube recently posted a video about this
He finds a bunch of little known and mildly interesting things about the UK road network.
The Savoy Hotel entrance is the only (??) place in the UK where we drive on the right.
I can't imagine how people in my midwestern USA state would react to this. My small college shares an entrance with a middle school and they put a roundabout in a couple years ago. Except when parents are picking up or dropping off their kids it is very low traffic with very clear visibility. I still see people regularly not know how to use it. People stopping in the middle of it to let people in and stopping at the yield sign when it is obvious that there is no other car anywhere near it.
There's a certain familiarity factor to using roundabouts and add to that the need for a certain level of trust that other people aren't going to do something stupid. As I wrote elsewhere, there's a clear difference at a busy roundabout I'm familiar with when school gets back in and there are presumably a lot of parents driving it who aren't familiar with it given that big roundabouts in particular aren't common around where I live.
> I can't imagine how people in my midwestern USA state would react to this.
Abject horror. It’s an Eldritch monster as imagined by a civil engineer. A roundabout like that would turn me into a misanthropic agoraphobe, never to see the light of day outside the safety of my own abode ever again.
probably something like this: https://youtu.be/9TnGjq9mWSI?t=235
(this is tounge-in-cheek, but some people in the UK do genuinely find double mini-roundabouts terrifying)
I learned to drive in Swindon, and went round that roundabout more time that I care to think. Ironically, I failed my first test at a roundabout. Make of that what you will!
I have driven quite a lot of time through there, and it is very useful junction, if there is a path with traffic, you can just take another part with less traffic to go to the same exit.
Because preferences on the way it goes (mini roundabouts do not have roundabout preference, but you need to give preference to your right) you can break the preference and take advantage.
Which usually helps because if there is a main path of traffic, minor paths can't enter into the junction.
There is a horrific intersection in northern virginia that really needs to be replaced with something like this, but they'd have to change the name of the town.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/seve...
I've driven this. It's really not as bad as it seems, although that's a high bar, and I was screaming the entire time.
The biggest surprise here for me is snopes is still going.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
The Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England, is a ring junction constructed in 1972 consisting of five mini-roundabouts arranged in a circle. Located near the County Ground, home of Swindon Town F.C., its name comes from the popular children's television series The Magic Roundabout. In 2009, it was voted the fourth-scariest junction in Britain.
There is one for 6 roads:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst...
IME the one in Hemel Hempstead is much easier to navigate and I think that's because it's got a larger and 'solid' centre which provides a visual anchor.
For me the issue with the one in Swindon is that you can see right across it with only the signs and road markings to help you understand where you should be