Wow reading the comments I was expecting people to hate these things, but it seems most people understand the benefits, if the centers of the roundabouts can be used for rainwater storage that would be a double benefit.
I don't think they use the centers for stormwater because you'd have to make it lower than the road -- it's less visible and drivers might fall into it. Typically the center is the tallest part to be more visible.
I wish we had more in the Northeast, the one downside I would say would be bikers, statistically these intersections are more dangerous for them, not that they follow the rules of a regular intersection anyway 😂
@@bradfordjhart solution to that would be a double-width or triple-width shared sidewalk so cyclists don't have to enter the rotary, they can go roundabout outside it. This has been implemented in the Netherlands and it works like a charm
@@edwardmiessner6502 in the Netherlands there are no shared sidewalks. There are separate bike paths (with priority) all the way around the roundabout. The sidewalks are next to them, but clearly separated
And yet, you would be amazed at the number of people who don't know how to work them. These aren't new, btw. People on here are commenting like Carmel just came up with something so amazing and groundbreaking.
Take a ride in a semi thru that town. You will sit at that yield signs because no one will let you go. And you can't say I'm wrong, you see a semi and the first thing that goes thru your mind is you don't want to be behind that truck. Without a traffic light, semis have to pull out into traffic just to go and hope they don't get hit. Go find a round about that has major traffic and sit and watch for a couple hours, you will see what I'm talking about. You can't prove me wrong. 🙄🥺😳🤪🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🚛
@@woohoofromtexasharris4814 lol, I've seen semis enter roundabouts plenty of times. And what you just wrote is not how roundabouts work. No one will ever give you way if you're entering the roundabout. You wait until an opening and then enter. Anyone entering has to yeild, that's how that works. So you're wrong
Here in the U.K. it seems we have had roundabouts forever. Surprised it has taken so long for the world to find them. Best thing ever to keep traffic flowing.
there are tons of roundabouts outside the UK for a long time already. Point is: while they totally make sense in some places, they aren't quite helpful in others; There's a point where a roundabout wouldn't be able to handle a certain amount of traffic. At our airport I think 3 new roundabouts were added to a street which used to be a straight line with a few intersections; Traffic load isn't the issue there, but it's really annoying in my profession to drive there
This is great. Being from Louisiana, these would be great during blackouts due to storms. Sometimes it is so much more dangerous getting around because folks don't understand 4-way stops while others are just impatient.
I've been living in the Carmel area since 2009 and even though I didn't have my license until 2013-2014, I can say for certain that accidents are down and gas is saved. If you are in an accident in a roundabout it's typically a side swipe or a low speed fender bender / t-bone. Say, 10-15 mph. Also, as an EMT, I love them. No One really gets hurt. A little jarred and dazed? Sure. But very rarely do you see any broken bones or significant concussions.
The magic roundabout I heard about that because of Top Gear I wanna say that was James May narrating or Jezza but I did some random research for my education about these roundabouts and it's 5 roundabouts in one large roundabout going in both directions..
Nice try europenis, but roundabouts we're actually invented in America, that's why they're so awesome, and we have the bestest and the biggest ones in the history of ever!!! 😎🇺🇸
I hope this trend catches on! For those that don't know, the Mayor of Carmel, has done an amazing job of making Carmel one of the most livable, and walkable suburbs in the country. More cities should take a closer look at what they are doing here.
I work in Carmel and live 11 mins away . I only I have to experience one light and that’s outside my neighborhood which is on the border of Carmel ! LOVE IT !!
Life long Carmel resident! I absolutely love the roundabouts and the other cities in the county are starting to follow suite. Truly wonderful what they can do for a city!
The reason why traffic circles are better than a stop light intersection like intersection you actually reduce the points of conflict. There's one more thing that American engineers can take from the British and European engineers a mini traffic circle
Traffic circles are terrible. They invert road rules that roundabouts use causing many issues. See New Jersey. Roundabouts is what you want to use, at least this side of the Atlantic.
Wow! What? Roundabouts? These brand-new, state-of-the-art, innovative things are really impressive! We totally weren't using them in Europe for decades...
@@HollywoodF1 Well your "grid" is easy to design and build, but causes a hella lot of problems and is much more dangerous. Only thing that the "grid" provides is ease of building, you can just copy and paste a row of houses over and over again. It needs signalized intersections, causing in dangerous roads, electricity spent for no reason and traffic queues. Theoretically speaking, the best way to make everything safer and MUCH more efficient (economies of scale) would be mass transit (metros, buses, etc.) but I guess they haven't discovered that across the Atlantic as well... I guess it's about the "freedom" of everyone having a car. But is it really freedom when you have to rely on gas prices to literally commute? You can't live without a car, that's the opposite of freedom. In Europe you can live without a car and sometimes it's even better to do so. I call "being able to go basically anywhere without having to invest a hefty amount in something like a car or gas" freedom, don't know about you.
One of the reasons why roundabouts got a bad rep in the US was the early traffic circles which had traffic lights. They just absolutely suck. Most famous one is probably the Columbus Circle in New York. Traffic circles are not roundabouts.
interesting, we have very many roundabouts here in Sweden and they work mutch better then normal traffic lights! I have always woundered why it haven't been that succesful in USA. Thank you for making this clear for me :)
We have had them for 10 years and they are better than lights, especially the single lane roundabouts. There were two lights that would pile up cars every noon, now no delays, and people crossing have short distances to cross. If you need to turn around now, you can just go in a circle and be headed back. I have been in London and they have roundabouts with many lanes and you must make lane changes while circling and I did not like that.
Roundabouts are great for improving level of service (i.e. traffic throughput) as well as safety for drivers, but they are terrible for anyone outside of a car. Crossing a roundabout on foot or bike is more challenging since there's no dedicated light cycle for them and drivers tend to be focused on not getting hit by other cars, not anticipating pedestrians. It's important not to treat roundabouts as a one-size-fits-all solution. Traffic planners need to decide: is this road meant to move cars quickly or is it meant to connect to destinations? The latter is less suitable for roundabouts. And to be clear, there are solutions to this problem, but they tend to be expensive. In the Netherlands, what they'll sometimes do is build dedicated cycle tracks adjacent to the road that cuts underneath the roundabout to avoid any conflict points with cars. This is by far the safest way to implement it, but it obviously increases costs substantially. I really wish traffic planners in the US took more consideration into pedestrian and cyclist needs rather than focusing all their efforts on LoS.
I live between Carmel & Indy so I drive them everyday. Rounabouts are so much better than traffic lights and stop signs. The flow of traffic is much improved. I hate dealing with the stop & go of traffic now when I have to commute somewhere else. I always go north to Carmel because it takes 6-7 minutes vs going south to Indy with all the traffic lights where it takes probably 15 minutes even though it is closer. Just have to get used to it & know the rules. I have been saying as such for years since they first started putting them in like 10 years ago. But some people hate change.
Did you watch the video? These allow the use of less road & more biking/walking trails to be put in alongside the road. Carmel is one of the best suburbs for biking.
They have elevated crossings, road signs, markings on roads, and islands between opposing lanes of traffic. Just about the only thing they could do better would be enforcement of making sure yielding is going on with aggressive ticketing, fines, points and loss of license.
@@schmitty8225 Most of the ones they show in the video are the best examples from that town, a lot of them are lacking, I do agree that a few of the ones shown have only small issues.
@@maddiekits look around with gsv. 90% of them are good. The few that aren't look like they are original ones or brand new ones which are still being finished. Last time Google drove around was 2019 so could be better by now.
Roundabout are more common in Europe because they have less rigid 4 way stops. Intersections are more irregular and often have multiple streets meeting. The roundabout drives people to yield, but keeps traffic moving. They almost always trump traffic lights, even stop signs.
*especially stop signs. Stop signs are notoriously inefficient and idiotic lol. Really something out of the 1930s that somehow the US stuck to and still thinks is acceptable.
Some of these roundabouts are shaped like a peanut, like the one in Kelley Square in Worcester MA! These types of roundabouts replace some of the world’s most dangerous and chaotic intersections. And they look so futuristic, they make the traditional circle roundabout look ancient!
Roundabouts are not rocket science, for those who hate them. You keep going around till you find your exit, and you can do a U turn too. I love it. They’re fun to drive on!
So awesome! Great for the environment; great for drivers; reduces accidents, gas consumption and the need for extra lanes; no fancy traffic controls necessary, etc., etc. Love it!!
America needs public transportation. America has the worst public transportation in the world. Enough of roads and bridges and concrete we need high speed trends. We need to free our cities from stupid cars.
What public transportation is it that you propose? There's already bus systems and inter-city railway systems. And even car pool lanes were established decades ago. I hope you are not suggesting a HSR (High-Speed Railway) in the US. It's not practical for a multiple of reasons. Everything from too vast of land to cover (& at what ex$pen$e), to corruption, to dangerous engineering and to the presentation of a catastrophic event should a terrorist get any "brilliant" ideas of disrupting the sensitive & vulnerable line in a highly populated area. California is a good example of that bad idea. But then again, California is a good example of a lot of bad ideas...
@@janebeatty9472 that's becouse they don't plan things right.and there are more company's involved who are just looking for a payday. And making the project more expensive then it should be.
@@maxmulsanne7054 in holland where I live there was never a terrorist attack on a train or the railways. Even tho people were scared of it. Just becouse your afraid of something doesn't make it a bad idea. A good and efficient railway system can move a lot of people in a short amount of time. Plus it reduces car dependency but also all the ridiculous large parking lots in American city's. When your in a train you don't have to stress in traffic. Or deal whit people whit roadrage. Or thing like that.
@@janebeatty9472 california ran out of money trying to tax its elites and making them flee the state with their companies. This has nothing to do with public transportation, which in fact is way less expensive than keeping 10+ lane highways and can be done with simple and cheap measures such as designated bus lanes for a BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system.
Definitely saves time and gas at what use to be four way stops and lights. The rush hour backup was nuts. I’m glad all the surrounding Indianapolis suburbs did this. Carmel’s roundabouts have a nickname…”The circles of death”. At rush hour, its hairy.
@@edwardmiessner6502 T bone have barely any chance of happening on roundabouts. On rataries (traffic circles, those things with lights and many lanes that are annoying to go through, like those on the Paris ring interchanges...) well... it's probably possible
As a Brit living in the USA, I was surprised, when I had to take the driving test, that signaling on Roundabouts has yet to be made part of the code. Also, I have yet to encounter a roundabout that has more than one lane. In Minnesota, the gains made from having a roundabout are partially lost by having to wait to be sure what someone on the roundabout is going to do. A lesson that the USA needs to learn quickly is that large roundabouts are a bad idea.
Carmel actually tried to implement that, but people complained. So they canned it. And to be honest, I don't mind it because by the time you put the signal on you're usually out of it. Almost all the roundabouts I use are 2 lanes.
So if someone in the roundabout is signaling to leave the roundabout and rather continues in the roundabout and hits a person entering, who is at fault?
I'm so glad to see that more of them are built in the States, although there is a long way to go in most States. During my last trip to Long Island (NY), all the stop-light intersections wasted so much of my time that it drove me crazy.
I saw a roundabout between two rural roads, neither on the state's numbered highway system, near Colon, Michigan. It was surprising to see one, but there must have been a large number of accidents for the comparatively small traffic using what had been a dangerous intersection.
Some people don't like roundabouts because they require you to perceive risk and pay attention. But that's part of the reason why they're so effective at reducing crashes.
@@clintonwoodward ah I see, thank you; With so many roundabouts in the city I kind of expected they'd record all the scenes right there, without taking stock footage; Still odd to see parking spaces in the roundabout.
@@EnjoyFirefighting yes most of the video was from Carmel but they (poorly) fillled in with stock footage when they were talking general concepts. The scene you mentioned and the one just before it were non Carmel stock footage. Pretty much everything else in the video is local.
indeed that's not ideal, however shouldn't be a problem as speeds inside the circle is low as 15 mph. Of course the one reversing from parking should not take too long ...
Massachusetts where I grew up we had an earlier iteration of the roundabout called a rotary. Initially it was a free-for-all meaning there were lots of fender-benders, then in the mid 1970s Yield signs were posted at each entry and the rotaries functioned much safer and smoother.
I grew up there as well. My favorite was the old drum hill rotary that got removed. It was hilarious watching people backup in it because they missed their turn. Not sure how many rotaries are left there anymore. For a while the state was pretty set on removing them all.
My grandmother LOVED rotaries! We had to fight tooth and nail to get her to switch to the “new fangled phone with all those buttons”. Oops wrong rotary
@@dividebyzero1000 My favorite was the Hingham Rotary. Nice and tight and two lanes of traffic on Route 3A dump onto it going east. AFAIK it's still there. I've also been to the Drum Hill one and saw what they did to it; it now looks like any intersection of an interstate and a major stroad.
If people in other states and cities can't stay in their lane on a straight highway, there's no way they'll be able to handle a roundabout with other cars beside them! 🤣🤣🤦♂️🤷♂️
Roundabouts helps to solve to things, traffic flow specially in a power outage and power consumption from street lights. In my country Nicaragua they have been using them for the past 22 yrs as a substitute of street light on heavy traffic intersections, but also the public needed to be educated. when they were first built because the roundabout in Managua Nicaragua have a hughe diameter with up to 3 lanes inside the thing, so no stopping nor yielding while inside of it and stick to your lane too...
Roundabout lanes dont have to be narrow. You can have 2 lanes approaching a roundabout and it works completely fine And is safe. Allows for 2 different directional movements reducing vehicle build up
What is the most efficient size roundabout diameter for two lane road given median and lane widths? Not making it so small that its just an intersection but not too big that you roast your tires.
Carmel, IN must be blessed to have traffic engineers prioritize to keep traffic moving vs adding more congestion for pricing to take place, like in NYC.
@@spacetoast7783 NYC engineers designed to make everyone stop/slow down to prevent or lessen accidents which hasn't happened, but with additional congestion as a result made it easy pickings for the $ plan to go through.
Round snouts are only good with a certain level of traffic. New Jersey they had to get rid of all the circles because it got to dense. The round avoid became way to crowded to be useful.
The problem is half the round abouts in my state aren't big enough. They take an existing intersection, throw a concrete dome/bump in the middle and that just isn't a real round about imo. It's a Yield Bump 😂
As an American, this video is embarrassing. Roundabouts and their benefits are common sense to the rest of the world, but Americans have to have it marketed to us as some new revolutionary concept.
I first saw them put one in on my college campus and I thought they were weird to do that. Maybe I should have taken a traffic engineering course, since maybe that's when the textbooks changed. Ten years later they were installing some small ones in Maryland and I was wondering what changed? I think they need a minimum radius to allow trucks through. Of course one of the problems was they are slightly different from traffic circles which have a lot of stop lights, as Washington, DC had some. Roundabouts make incoming traffic stop or yield while those inside have the right of way.
Also, don’t forget to use your turn signals in the roundabout! Signal in the direction you are turning, right until you are about to exit the roundabout, in which you use your right turn signal.
Racers love a long boulevard of roundabouts. Instant racetrack. I live near 12 roundabouts and every night you can hear them racing. It’s actually a lot of fun in a sports car
And that is the exact thing we _Don't Need_ on public roads located in neighborhoods. That sort of "activity" belongs in industrial areas, if not out in the bleeding country somewhere...
But how will they generate any revenue without stop lights and traffic fine cameras? Can't have it actually safer if they are losing money on fines! Roundabouts are great until they get too busy, then they are nightmares.
There is nothing more wasteful of my time and money, than sitting at an intersection waiting for a light to turn green and praying the intersecting traffic is paying attention. They aren't a difficult concept, there is no "learning curve" If you're too dumb for roundabouts, you're too dumb to be driving.
Not roundabouts are dangerous, stupid drivers are. Anyone with even an average level of ability should be able to understand how a traffic circle works and learn the rules: i) go slow, ii) yield to traffic in the roundabout, it has has the right of way, iii) signal when exiting. And: YIELD does not mean stop, but slow down and drive through if no one is coming from the left. Paying attention to the signage helps a lot as well. Anyone who doesn't get this right should seriously consider whether he or she is right at the wheel of a vehicle
do they do it like that in the US? In some countries they use turn signal to indicate the final driving direction when entering the roundabout and use the right turn signal when leaving, while in other countries you may not use the turn signal in the roundabout until you leave it
🚦The automatic traffic light was invented in Carmel. When finished converting all intersection into roundabouts, they will leave one traffic light...in the location of that very first one. 🚦
When roundabouts have two lanes there are many points at which drivers who haven't planned ahead will panic and cross in front of others. Or, inconsiderate drivers just plain won't yield right of way. Both those situations are designed into the roads. My questions is - if the cities and/or states endorse these and cars get into a wreck, can the drivers sue those responsible for the roads (because they were aware of the potential problems)?
Probably not - these are issues with drivers, not the junction. As the video says, roundabouts significantly reduce the number of crashes, so I can't see someone being able to sue the road designers because someone couldn't be bothered to obey a yield sign.
@@totalignition1259 I got news for you -- drivers sue for EVERYTHING. The road can be clear without traffic and they'll sue the city/county/state. As long as lawyers can take home one third of any settlement there will be lawsuits galore.
You mean street takeovers? Not gonna lie, they could probably still do them in roundabouts, if they're big enough. But I'm guessing Carmel doesn't have to worry about them since they aren't LA.
@@cowfat8547 But if you connect these separated suburbs with bike only cut thru's so you don't have to drive 1 mile to go to the house that's on the other side of your backyard fence. You will be able to go from suburb to suburb really fast. That's what bike infrastructure can do. Cut through areas where cars can't go through. Causing the bike to be faster than the car.
@@jeffreykregel3821 good luck on getting Mr. and Mrs. Darren and Karen Nimby to part with a narrow piece of their land AND to get their neighbors to go along with it 🙄
@@edwardmiessner6502 That's why you plan accordingly have those cut throughs already in place while actually building the suburbs, before Mrs. Darren and Karen Nimby ever live there. So once they start living there they know about the cut through and can't complain about. Because it was already there before their house was. It's called urban planning. Loving the names by the way😁
Kokomo built one that could accommodate their long firetruck. That was while back when they were first being used. They had to widen and reduce the center radius.
one time my mom and i were visiiting boston. we were going to drive . uncle asked what do you know about roterys ? mom said service club. uncle said no. uncle said slow down to 25 mph , put on your flashers and yeld
Yea well tooo many drivers here don't know how to use them, they stop anyway when no one is coming, they will sometime drive around them several times not knowing how to pull out of them to the next street.
how stupid can one be not to know how to exit it? It's like going straight while the road makes a turn because they didn't know how to turn the steering wheel
Anyone with even an average level of ability should be able to understand how a traffic circle (or roundabout or whatever) works and learn the rules: i) go slow, ii) yield to traffic in the roundabout, it has has the right of way, iii) signal when exiting. And: YIELD does not mean stop, but slow down and drive through if no one is coming from the left. Paying attention to the signage helps a lot as well. Anyone who doesn't get this right should seriously consider whether he or she is right at the wheel of a vehicle
![[Sub Thai] APT. - ROSÉ & Bruno Mars](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bYjhzP8x_uc/mqdefault.jpg)
Wow reading the comments I was expecting people to hate these things, but it seems most people understand the benefits, if the centers of the roundabouts can be used for rainwater storage that would be a double benefit.
I don't think they use the centers for stormwater because you'd have to make it lower than the road -- it's less visible and drivers might fall into it. Typically the center is the tallest part to be more visible.
@@degnaw tall planets and signs could do that
All cities in the U.S. need to be like this with bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure everywhere.
My son lives in Carmel and I have to say, the roundabouts are brilliant! I love them and really wish we had them where we live up north in the state.
I wish we had more in the Northeast, the one downside I would say would be bikers, statistically these intersections are more dangerous for them, not that they follow the rules of a regular intersection anyway 😂
@@bradfordjhart solution to that would be a double-width or triple-width shared sidewalk so cyclists don't have to enter the rotary, they can go roundabout outside it. This has been implemented in the Netherlands and it works like a charm
@@edwardmiessner6502 in the Netherlands there are no shared sidewalks. There are separate bike paths (with priority) all the way around the roundabout. The sidewalks are next to them, but clearly separated
It's awesome. They just need more bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure on all roadways.
If you love them so much then you can move there.
The fact in a 3min video it took him the last 5 seconds who explain the simple rules of a roundabout just shows how easy they are to use.
And yet, you would be amazed at the number of people who don't know how to work them.
These aren't new, btw. People on here are commenting like Carmel just came up with something so amazing and groundbreaking.
These things are also just pleasant to drive on, much more enjoyable to move along and free flowing than a traffic light.
And they're much safer than the typical dangerous traffic light intersection of two major roads lined with strip-malls!
They are a pain in the A..
@@peterbelanger4094 give me one reason lmao
Take a ride in a semi thru that town. You will sit at that yield signs because no one will let you go. And you can't say I'm wrong, you see a semi and the first thing that goes thru your mind is you don't want to be behind that truck. Without a traffic light, semis have to pull out into traffic just to go and hope they don't get hit. Go find a round about that has major traffic and sit and watch for a couple hours, you will see what I'm talking about. You can't prove me wrong. 🙄🥺😳🤪🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🚛
@@woohoofromtexasharris4814 lol, I've seen semis enter roundabouts plenty of times. And what you just wrote is not how roundabouts work. No one will ever give you way if you're entering the roundabout. You wait until an opening and then enter. Anyone entering has to yeild, that's how that works. So you're wrong
Here in the U.K. it seems we have had roundabouts forever. Surprised it has taken so long for the world to find them. Best thing ever to keep traffic flowing.
"The world" mostly meaning the US
A lot of the world already has a lot too
there are tons of roundabouts outside the UK for a long time already. Point is: while they totally make sense in some places, they aren't quite helpful in others; There's a point where a roundabout wouldn't be able to handle a certain amount of traffic.
At our airport I think 3 new roundabouts were added to a street which used to be a straight line with a few intersections; Traffic load isn't the issue there, but it's really annoying in my profession to drive there
These news reports are baffling. we have over 10,000 roundabouts in the US.
@@JakeRoot The USA is almost 40x bigger than the UK but has 2.5x LESS roundabouts than the Uk
This is great. Being from Louisiana, these would be great during blackouts due to storms. Sometimes it is so much more dangerous getting around because folks don't understand 4-way stops while others are just impatient.
They're cheaper to maintain as well. Most people don't realize a single traffic light costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
4 way stop is a sin. :D
I've been living in the Carmel area since 2009 and even though I didn't have my license until 2013-2014, I can say for certain that accidents are down and gas is saved. If you are in an accident in a roundabout it's typically a side swipe or a low speed fender bender / t-bone. Say, 10-15 mph. Also, as an EMT, I love them. No One really gets hurt. A little jarred and dazed? Sure. But very rarely do you see any broken bones or significant concussions.
Good move by this town.
Where I live in the UK, we have roundabouts every couple of hundred metres. We also have a roundabout composed of five separate roundabouts.
Tell me you're from Swindon without telling me you're from Swindon.
@@kodongo87 😂
The magic roundabout I heard about that because of Top Gear I wanna say that was James May narrating or Jezza but I did some random research for my education about these roundabouts and it's 5 roundabouts in one large roundabout going in both directions..
and that roundabout, next to the Heathrow is crazy! Must be banned.
Good on this Mayor and traffic engineer! These guys get it. Roundabouts need to be used so much more in America
I like how they don’t point out this is common in Europe, like this is a cool revelation they’ve worked out.
I think cause it's a story that maybe aired locally. Not too sure. But wasn't all encompassing.
Nice try europenis, but roundabouts we're actually invented in America, that's why they're so awesome, and we have the bestest and the biggest ones in the history of ever!!! 😎🇺🇸
@@japes7 No it's not. This is national CBS.
Why would they? It is an American news station & it's only being implemented in one US city mainly.
Not everything is about Europe.
I hope this trend catches on! For those that don't know, the Mayor of Carmel, has done an amazing job of making Carmel one of the most livable, and walkable suburbs in the country. More cities should take a closer look at what they are doing here.
Glad to see the US is finally catching up on proper road design.
I work in Carmel and live 11 mins away . I only I have to experience one light and that’s outside my neighborhood which is on the border of Carmel ! LOVE IT !!
really cool how the roundabouts also allow for more bike lanes! should be way more common
Also, cars have to yield to cars already in the circle
Yes that's how roundabouts work.
@@jakieboiZ94 :)
It used to be the opposite in New Jersey. Good recipe for gridlock!
Life long Carmel resident! I absolutely love the roundabouts and the other cities in the county are starting to follow suite. Truly wonderful what they can do for a city!
In Bristol, England, they have a hybrid. Roundabouts, but controlled by traffic lights at high volume times.
The reason why traffic circles are better than a stop light intersection like intersection you actually reduce the points of conflict. There's one more thing that American engineers can take from the British and European engineers a mini traffic circle
Traffic circles are terrible. They invert road rules that roundabouts use causing many issues. See New Jersey. Roundabouts is what you want to use, at least this side of the Atlantic.
Idk man kinda sounds like communism to me
Traffic circles are quite different from roundabouts mate. The one has traffic lights and many lanes, the other not
@@Spido68_the_spectator they are literally the same thing just different terms
@@markbollinger1343 not at all. Traffic circles have traffic lights. Roundabouts use give way signs
I travel between a bunch of cities in Indiana for work and Carmel immediately came to mind lol
they are definitely very pleasant to drive around
Wow! What? Roundabouts? These brand-new, state-of-the-art, innovative things are really impressive! We totally weren't using them in Europe for decades...
Relax. Our country was built on a grid, not hubs and spokes. Signalized intersections made more sense geometrically.
@@HollywoodF1 Well your "grid" is easy to design and build, but causes a hella lot of problems and is much more dangerous. Only thing that the "grid" provides is ease of building, you can just copy and paste a row of houses over and over again. It needs signalized intersections, causing in dangerous roads, electricity spent for no reason and traffic queues. Theoretically speaking, the best way to make everything safer and MUCH more efficient (economies of scale) would be mass transit (metros, buses, etc.) but I guess they haven't discovered that across the Atlantic as well... I guess it's about the "freedom" of everyone having a car. But is it really freedom when you have to rely on gas prices to literally commute? You can't live without a car, that's the opposite of freedom. In Europe you can live without a car and sometimes it's even better to do so. I call "being able to go basically anywhere without having to invest a hefty amount in something like a car or gas" freedom, don't know about you.
If we follow the 'muricans logic, roundabouts are useless... *Because in murican logic:
Add more lanes on roads to solve the traffic jam problem...*
@@Kiyoone 30-lane freeways! Yee-haw!
@@HollywoodF1 This might be true for Chicago and New York but for anything that is suburban that isn't true.
Um were they driving their car down the bike lane?
One of the reasons why roundabouts got a bad rep in the US was the early traffic circles which had traffic lights. They just absolutely suck. Most famous one is probably the Columbus Circle in New York. Traffic circles are not roundabouts.
interesting, we have very many roundabouts here in Sweden and they work mutch better then normal traffic lights!
I have always woundered why it haven't been that succesful in USA. Thank you for making this clear for me :)
Roundabout are NOT also known as Rotaries. They are not the same thing. Carmel does not have rotaries.
Yeah, there are many roundabouts in Europe including my country but only in UK you have rotaries
Roundabouts are easier to understand and safer than unprotected left turns and 4way stops intersection...
We have had them for 10 years and they are better than lights, especially the single lane roundabouts. There were two lights that would pile up cars every noon, now no delays, and people crossing have short distances to cross. If you need to turn around now, you can just go in a circle and be headed back.
I have been in London and they have roundabouts with many lanes and you must make lane changes while circling and I did not like that.
Roundabouts are great for improving level of service (i.e. traffic throughput) as well as safety for drivers, but they are terrible for anyone outside of a car. Crossing a roundabout on foot or bike is more challenging since there's no dedicated light cycle for them and drivers tend to be focused on not getting hit by other cars, not anticipating pedestrians. It's important not to treat roundabouts as a one-size-fits-all solution. Traffic planners need to decide: is this road meant to move cars quickly or is it meant to connect to destinations? The latter is less suitable for roundabouts.
And to be clear, there are solutions to this problem, but they tend to be expensive. In the Netherlands, what they'll sometimes do is build dedicated cycle tracks adjacent to the road that cuts underneath the roundabout to avoid any conflict points with cars. This is by far the safest way to implement it, but it obviously increases costs substantially. I really wish traffic planners in the US took more consideration into pedestrian and cyclist needs rather than focusing all their efforts on LoS.
I live between Carmel & Indy so I drive them everyday. Rounabouts are so much better than traffic lights and stop signs. The flow of traffic is much improved. I hate dealing with the stop & go of traffic now when I have to commute somewhere else. I always go north to Carmel because it takes 6-7 minutes vs going south to Indy with all the traffic lights where it takes probably 15 minutes even though it is closer.
Just have to get used to it & know the rules. I have been saying as such for years since they first started putting them in like 10 years ago. But some people hate change.
Bike and multi use paths would be even better so that less people need to drive in the first place
Did you watch the video? These allow the use of less road & more biking/walking trails to be put in alongside the road. Carmel is one of the best suburbs for biking.
They have both.
Roundabouts are good but they also need better crossings for bikes and walkers, as they it can easily be less safe form them without it.
They have elevated crossings, road signs, markings on roads, and islands between opposing lanes of traffic. Just about the only thing they could do better would be enforcement of making sure yielding is going on with aggressive ticketing, fines, points and loss of license.
@@schmitty8225 Most of the ones they show in the video are the best examples from that town, a lot of them are lacking, I do agree that a few of the ones shown have only small issues.
@@maddiekits look around with gsv. 90% of them are good. The few that aren't look like they are original ones or brand new ones which are still being finished. Last time Google drove around was 2019 so could be better by now.
Dutch roundabouts
The best in the world
Roundabout are more common in Europe because they have less rigid 4 way stops. Intersections are more irregular and often have multiple streets meeting. The roundabout drives people to yield, but keeps traffic moving. They almost always trump traffic lights, even stop signs.
*especially stop signs. Stop signs are notoriously inefficient and idiotic lol. Really something out of the 1930s that somehow the US stuck to and still thinks is acceptable.
Stop lights take too long
2:21 Just name the roundabouts "Freedom Circles" and everyone would be open to this idea. 😅
Some of these roundabouts are shaped like a peanut, like the one in Kelley Square in Worcester MA! These types of roundabouts replace some of the world’s most dangerous and chaotic intersections. And they look so futuristic, they make the traditional circle roundabout look ancient!
And of course people lose their freaking minds when one of these is suggested because change is hard. 🙄
Traffic circles have been successfully used in Europe for over 70 years...! Also they work during power outages, no stupid red lights...!
these things are so simple but people just overthink it.
Roundabouts are not rocket science, for those who hate them. You keep going around till you find your exit, and you can do a U turn too. I love it. They’re fun to drive on!
I live in Carmel and I love the roundabouts.
With the amount of traffic lights in America I’m surprised it’s taken them this long to realise how much faster they could make traffic
So awesome! Great for the environment; great for drivers; reduces accidents, gas consumption and the need for extra lanes; no fancy traffic controls necessary, etc., etc. Love it!!
America needs public transportation. America has the worst public transportation in the world. Enough of roads and bridges and concrete we need high speed trends. We need to free our cities from stupid cars.
Will you be paying for it? California tried it and ran out of money.
What public transportation is it that you propose? There's already bus systems and inter-city railway systems. And even car pool lanes were established decades ago.
I hope you are not suggesting a HSR (High-Speed Railway) in the US. It's not practical for a multiple of reasons. Everything from too vast of land to cover (& at what ex$pen$e), to corruption, to dangerous engineering and to the presentation of a catastrophic event should a terrorist get any "brilliant" ideas of disrupting the sensitive & vulnerable line in a highly populated area. California is a good example of that bad idea. But then again, California is a good example of a lot of bad ideas...
@@janebeatty9472 that's becouse they don't plan things right.and there are more company's involved who are just looking for a payday. And making the project more expensive then it should be.
@@maxmulsanne7054 in holland where I live there was never a terrorist attack on a train or the railways. Even tho people were scared of it. Just becouse your afraid of something doesn't make it a bad idea.
A good and efficient railway system can move a lot of people in a short amount of time. Plus it reduces car dependency but also all the ridiculous large parking lots in American city's.
When your in a train you don't have to stress in traffic. Or deal whit people whit roadrage. Or thing like that.
@@janebeatty9472 california ran out of money trying to tax its elites and making them flee the state with their companies. This has nothing to do with public transportation, which in fact is way less expensive than keeping 10+ lane highways and can be done with simple and cheap measures such as designated bus lanes for a BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system.
Only time I saw a line of cars in this video was at the traffic light 😂
Definitely saves time and gas at what use to be four way stops and lights. The rush hour backup was nuts. I’m glad all the surrounding Indianapolis suburbs did this. Carmel’s roundabouts have a nickname…”The circles of death”. At rush hour, its hairy.
I assume they have frequent T-bones at the two lane roundabouts because some idiot didn't pay attention entering the rotary?
@@edwardmiessner6502 Have never seen an accident at one. These aren’t small and they are well marked.
@@edwardmiessner6502 T bone have barely any chance of happening on roundabouts.
On rataries (traffic circles, those things with lights and many lanes that are annoying to go through, like those on the Paris ring interchanges...) well... it's probably possible
We are doing almost the same thing in SW Michigan plus a lot of road diets.
0:58 wow!! Those bike paths look almost identical to the ones here in the Netherlands!
It's amazing. The U.S. needs more of this.
As a Brit living in the USA, I was surprised, when I had to take the driving test, that signaling on Roundabouts has yet to be made part of the code. Also, I have yet to encounter a roundabout that has more than one lane. In Minnesota, the gains made from having a roundabout are partially lost by having to wait to be sure what someone on the roundabout is going to do. A lesson that the USA needs to learn quickly is that large roundabouts are a bad idea.
Large roundabouts work in Massachusetts
Hmmm…most of the round a bouts in Carmel and the Indianapolis suburbs are all 2-3 lanes.
We have oversized cars with bad turn radii, unfortunately, so some of our cities do need bigger roundabouts.
Carmel actually tried to implement that, but people complained. So they canned it. And to be honest, I don't mind it because by the time you put the signal on you're usually out of it.
Almost all the roundabouts I use are 2 lanes.
So if someone in the roundabout is signaling to leave the roundabout and rather continues in the roundabout and hits a person entering, who is at fault?
I'm so glad to see that more of them are built in the States, although there is a long way to go in most States.
During my last trip to Long Island (NY), all the stop-light intersections wasted so much of my time that it drove me crazy.
I saw a roundabout between two rural roads, neither on the state's numbered highway system, near Colon, Michigan. It was surprising to see one, but there must have been a large number of accidents for the comparatively small traffic using what had been a dangerous intersection.
Indeed, urban planning works! 👏👍
This was either a really slow news day or the usa really thought putting a road in a circle was revolutionary and had to be broadcast on the news
0:07 WRONG. The surname " rotary " is for TRAFFIC CIRCLES (road circles with many lanes and traffic lights)
Excellent! We need more traffic circles! Eliminate stop start traffic.
Some people don't like roundabouts because they require you to perceive risk and pay attention. But that's part of the reason why they're so effective at reducing crashes.
Who in their right mind would place spots to park inside a roundabout? At 1:55 in the video
CBS stock footage, that specific shot isn't in Carmel
@@clintonwoodward ah I see, thank you; With so many roundabouts in the city I kind of expected they'd record all the scenes right there, without taking stock footage; Still odd to see parking spaces in the roundabout.
@@EnjoyFirefighting yes most of the video was from Carmel but they (poorly) fillled in with stock footage when they were talking general concepts. The scene you mentioned and the one just before it were non Carmel stock footage. Pretty much everything else in the video is local.
@@clintonwoodward It could be Gettysburg. That town has a central square where the buildings are placed like that.
indeed that's not ideal, however shouldn't be a problem as speeds inside the circle is low as 15 mph. Of course the one reversing from parking should not take too long ...
Massachusetts where I grew up we had an earlier iteration of the roundabout called a rotary. Initially it was a free-for-all meaning there were lots of fender-benders, then in the mid 1970s Yield signs were posted at each entry and the rotaries functioned much safer and smoother.
I grew up there as well. My favorite was the old drum hill rotary that got removed. It was hilarious watching people backup in it because they missed their turn. Not sure how many rotaries are left there anymore. For a while the state was pretty set on removing them all.
My grandmother LOVED rotaries! We had to fight tooth and nail to get her to switch to the “new fangled phone with all those buttons”.
Oops wrong rotary
@@dividebyzero1000 My favorite was the Hingham Rotary. Nice and tight and two lanes of traffic on Route 3A dump onto it going east. AFAIK it's still there. I've also been to the Drum Hill one and saw what they did to it; it now looks like any intersection of an interstate and a major stroad.
All they really need is some paint, which the state seems to have added to quite a few rotaries recently.
I've seen LOTS of those back in the Philippines, they're called "rotundas".
We still can't talk about mass transit investment, but we're finally catching up to European drivers.
Indeed. If this town were in the Netherlands it'd most certainly have several tram lines and an intercity rail station.
If people in other states and cities can't stay in their lane on a straight highway, there's no way they'll be able to handle a roundabout with other cars beside them! 🤣🤣🤦♂️🤷♂️
Every city in USA should make it
Brilliant 👏🏾
yay, finally someone who doesn't "just add another lane"
We have a few of them like this here in Mobile.
Roundabouts helps to solve to things, traffic flow specially in a power outage and power consumption from street lights. In my country Nicaragua they have been using them for the past 22 yrs as a substitute of street light on heavy traffic intersections, but also the public needed to be educated. when they were first built because the roundabout in Managua Nicaragua have a hughe diameter with up to 3 lanes inside the thing, so no stopping nor yielding while inside of it and stick to your lane too...
The roundabouts are fine until you get around Keystone Pkwy, where there can be 3 of them in a row. Feels like you're on a roller coaster.
The mayor did say he wants Carmel to be the roundabout capital on the US 😆
Roundabout lanes dont have to be narrow. You can have 2 lanes approaching a roundabout and it works completely fine And is safe. Allows for 2 different directional movements reducing vehicle build up
What is the most efficient size roundabout diameter for two lane road given median and lane widths? Not making it so small that its just an intersection but not too big that you roast your tires.
Carmel, IN must be blessed to have traffic engineers prioritize to keep traffic moving vs adding more congestion for pricing to take place, like in NYC.
Congestion pricing makes people pay for creating congestion. NYC is not proposing to pay people to drive.
@@spacetoast7783 NYC engineers designed to make everyone stop/slow down to prevent or lessen accidents which hasn't happened, but with additional congestion as a result made it easy pickings for the $ plan to go through.
@@BlimpCityFeeder Yep, its very effective and other cities should copy it.
Nope, our city engineer isn't even qualified.
Welcome to catching up with the rest of the world guys ;)
Round snouts are only good with a certain level of traffic. New Jersey they had to get rid of all the circles because it got to dense. The round avoid became way to crowded to be useful.
I wish we had more of these in Los Angeles.
You guys have too much traffic and not enough room for roundabouts. You'll have to live with traffic lights. Sorry!
@@edwardmiessner6502 if LA can figure out, anywhere can do it.
Yes, urbanism!
The problem is half the round abouts in my state aren't big enough. They take an existing intersection, throw a concrete dome/bump in the middle and that just isn't a real round about imo. It's a Yield Bump 😂
As an American, this video is embarrassing. Roundabouts and their benefits are common sense to the rest of the world, but Americans have to have it marketed to us as some new revolutionary concept.
which it is to Americans
I first saw them put one in on my college campus and I thought they were weird to do that. Maybe I should have taken a traffic engineering course, since maybe that's when the textbooks changed. Ten years later they were installing some small ones in Maryland and I was wondering what changed? I think they need a minimum radius to allow trucks through.
Of course one of the problems was they are slightly different from traffic circles which have a lot of stop lights, as Washington, DC had some. Roundabouts make incoming traffic stop or yield while those inside have the right of way.
Roundabouts are universal. Not weird. Not difficult, and not rocket science.
@@plumeria66 Traffic Engineering (Science).
Well, this seems like a good idea! Good going, Carmel!
Also, don’t forget to use your turn signals in the roundabout! Signal in the direction you are turning, right until you are about to exit the roundabout, in which you use your right turn signal.
is it like that in the US? I know it's done like that in Sweden and Norway, but not in Germany
We don’t signal in the US.
@@EnjoyFirefighting it’s technically the law to do so, but rarely does anyone actually signal
Wtf? You shouldn't signal if you're not turning.
Search "Changwon square" in South Korea. It may be the largest roundabout in the world.
which means what in respect to this vid?
Racers love a long boulevard of roundabouts. Instant racetrack. I live near 12 roundabouts and every night you can hear them racing. It’s actually a lot of fun in a sports car
And that is the exact thing we _Don't Need_ on public roads located in neighborhoods. That sort of "activity" belongs in industrial areas, if not out in the bleeding country somewhere...
That's why we need good cops patrolling and shutting this stuff down. Impound cars if they have to.
@@maxmulsanne7054 Well worst comes to worst.....racing thru a roundabout is technically safer than blowing thru a bunch of red lights.
I like them. They have them in Tijuana and they work quite well with tons of lanes and traffic.
But how will they generate any revenue without stop lights and traffic fine cameras?
Can't have it actually safer if they are losing money on fines!
Roundabouts are great until they get too busy, then they are nightmares.
Roundabouts are good
There is nothing more wasteful of my time and money, than sitting at an intersection waiting for a light to turn green and praying the intersecting traffic is paying attention. They aren't a difficult concept, there is no "learning curve" If you're too dumb for roundabouts, you're too dumb to be driving.
Why aren’t they used in more places? Because they take up a lot more space. This should have at least have been mentioned.
not necessarily; You can design them to fit into the same space ...
I live in Central Indiana and I hate roundabouts!!!! They are dangerous because people still don't know how to use them safely and are dangerous too.
Not roundabouts are dangerous, stupid drivers are. Anyone with even an average level of ability should be able to understand how a traffic circle works and learn the rules: i) go slow, ii) yield to traffic in the roundabout, it has has the right of way, iii) signal when exiting. And: YIELD does not mean stop, but slow down and drive through if no one is coming from the left. Paying attention to the signage helps a lot as well. Anyone who doesn't get this right should seriously consider whether he or she is right at the wheel of a vehicle
People hate roundabouts because they can't blow through red light and should slow down.
Please use your turn signal when entering and exiting a roundabout. Thanks!
No
do they do it like that in the US? In some countries they use turn signal to indicate the final driving direction when entering the roundabout and use the right turn signal when leaving, while in other countries you may not use the turn signal in the roundabout until you leave it
Not in the US.
Why when entering? Isn’t that OBVIOUS since they are at the ENTRANCE?
They’re all over Europe for a reason. They’re efficient.
🚦The automatic traffic light was invented in Carmel. When finished converting all intersection into roundabouts, they will leave one traffic light...in the location of that very first one. 🚦
What absolute garbage
Roundabouts are the furure!
Every Pennsylvania major city Philly Easton Scranton Allentown Reading Harrisburg have round abouts with statues in the middle
We been doing this in the UK since we started having cars.
When roundabouts have two lanes there are many points at which drivers who haven't planned ahead will panic and cross in front of others. Or, inconsiderate drivers just plain won't yield right of way. Both those situations are designed into the roads. My questions is - if the cities and/or states endorse these and cars get into a wreck, can the drivers sue those responsible for the roads (because they were aware of the potential problems)?
Probably not - these are issues with drivers, not the junction. As the video says, roundabouts significantly reduce the number of crashes, so I can't see someone being able to sue the road designers because someone couldn't be bothered to obey a yield sign.
@@totalignition1259 I got news for you -- drivers sue for EVERYTHING. The road can be clear without traffic and they'll sue the city/county/state. As long as lawyers can take home one third of any settlement there will be lawsuits galore.
Most importantly, it prevents sideshow takeovers.
You mean street takeovers? Not gonna lie, they could probably still do them in roundabouts, if they're big enough. But I'm guessing Carmel doesn't have to worry about them since they aren't LA.
Why not just build bike infrastructure and get people out of their cars.
because biking everywhere in large suburbs isn’t very efficient or as convenient as cars
@@cowfat8547 But if you connect these separated suburbs with bike only cut thru's so you don't have to drive 1 mile to go to the house that's on the other side of your backyard fence. You will be able to go from suburb to suburb really fast.
That's what bike infrastructure can do. Cut through areas where cars can't go through. Causing the bike to be faster than the car.
@@jeffreykregel3821 good luck on getting Mr. and Mrs. Darren and Karen Nimby to part with a narrow piece of their land AND to get their neighbors to go along with it 🙄
@@edwardmiessner6502 That's why you plan accordingly have those cut throughs already in place while actually building the suburbs, before Mrs. Darren and Karen Nimby ever live there. So once they start living there they know about the cut through and can't complain about. Because it was already there before their house was. It's called urban planning.
Loving the names by the way😁
Ever been through a Midwest winter?
I hate traffic lights
Traffic circles wouldn't work in Los Angeles.
surely not with 8 lanes
What about larger vehicles longer vehicles
There's a semi-trailer truck at 1:54 going through a roundabout.
I drive an18 wheel semi tractor trailer and I've never had any trouble going through a round about.
Kokomo built one that could accommodate their long firetruck. That was while back when they were first being used. They had to widen and reduce the center radius.
one time my mom and i were visiiting boston. we were going to drive . uncle asked what do you know about roterys ? mom said service club. uncle said no. uncle said slow down to 25 mph , put on your flashers and yeld
Yea well tooo many drivers here don't know how to use them, they stop anyway when no one is coming, they will sometime drive around them several times not knowing how to pull out of them to the next street.
how stupid can one be not to know how to exit it? It's like going straight while the road makes a turn because they didn't know how to turn the steering wheel
Anyone with even an average level of ability should be able to understand how a traffic circle (or roundabout or whatever) works and learn the rules: i) go slow, ii) yield to traffic in the roundabout, it has has the right of way, iii) signal when exiting. And: YIELD does not mean stop, but slow down and drive through if no one is coming from the left. Paying attention to the signage helps a lot as well. Anyone who doesn't get this right should seriously consider whether he or she is right at the wheel of a vehicle