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by jrbancel 3900 days ago
The problem with roundabouts is starvation.

I grew up in France, which has more than 50% of the world's roundabouts. They are everywhere.

Where I am from, there is a roundabout at the intersection of a major road and a small road with little traffic. During rush hour, it is impossible to enter the roundabout coming from the small road because there is a continuous flow of cars coming from the major road. It is truly an uninterrupted flow of cars because the cars come from another roundabout...

Before the roundabout, there was no problem because there was a light that would be always be green for the main road expect when a car was detected on the small road. It was optimal.

2 comments

Thanks for sharing! That makes sense that roundabout traffic flows can't be too lopsided or else you'll get this kind of behavior. It wasn't something I had ever thought of.
Couldn't you just put speed bumps at the entrances to the roundabout to ensure a gap between cars in this case?
Why don't we put a light at the entrance to the roundabout to create a gap between cars only when necessary?