Non-Intersection Roundabouts

[Brian556]

Ocoee, Florida:
https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.544174,-81.558455&spn=0.002349,0.003098&t=h&z=19

Can't figure out why they chose to put a roundabout here.


Flower Mound, Texas;
https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.990524,-97.066162&spn=0.006344,0.012392&t=h&z=17

The northern one had a street attached recently, but was a non-intersection roundabout for a long time.
The next one down looks like they might be attaching a street to it.

I really don't like these because they are two-lane roundabouts without proper pavement markings or signage, which could lead to an accident.

[NE2]

I know we had this thread a few years ago.

[1995hoo]

Lorton, Virginia, near Laurel Hill Golf Club. I assume the intent was to extend the one road someday.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.7233373,-77.2493012,782m/data=!3m1!1e3

Edited to add:

Eisenhower Avenue at Holland Lane in Alexandria, Virginia, near the Patent and Trademark Office, is another fairly pointless one. While this roundabout does have a street providing a third leg off the roundabout, that street gets very little traffic and it probably would have made more sense just to make Eisenhower to Holland (and vice versa) a regular thru movement with the third leg just having a stop sign. More than 95% of the traffic through the roundabout connects between Eisenhower and Holland. (I have the labels turned off....if they don't display for you, Eisenhower is the street to the left of the roundabout and Holland is the street off the top of the roundabout. Extending Eisenhower east is not an option due to the cemetery. The label on the map referring to the black cemetery refers to a one-acre plot with graves from the 1800s. I don't know whether it was a slave cemetery, but the slave market was less than a mile to the northeast of there on Duke Street.)

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8008523,-77.0588736,835m/data=!3m1!1e3

[doorknob60]

Reed Market Rd. in Bend: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0407335,-121.3278429,203m/data=!3m1!1e3

Used solely for the purpose of turning around (for people leaving Farewell Bend Park heading East).

[kphoger]

Flower Mound, Texas;
https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.990524,-97.066162&spn=0.006344,0.012392&t=h&z=17

The northern one had a street attached recently, but was a non-intersection roundabout for a long time.
The next one down looks like they might be attaching a street to it.

I really don't like these because they are two-lane roundabouts without proper pavement markings or signage, which could lead to an accident.

It appears from satellite view that the ROW has already been cleared for a street shooting off to the west from the southern one.  I'd say it's likely that was the intent for both of them from the beginning.

I agree that proper lane striping on multi-lane roundabouts is crucial.

[jakeroot]

- Great for extending roads in the future without having to build a brand new intersection later
- Easy way to slow traffic
- Great place to U-turn when roads are separated by a hard median

They seem pointless, but they have a use.

I really don't like these because they are two-lane roundabouts without proper pavement markings or signage, which could lead to an accident.

Sometimes drivers, when faced with a "hairy" situation, become more cautious. I would be surprised if more accidents occur at the Flower Mound intersection than a typical painted roundabout.

[Mergingtraffic]

NY-55 has some for store driveways between Pawling and Poughkeepsie. 

[Duke87]

NY-55 has some for store driveways between Pawling and Poughkeepsie.

So I don't recall there being any last time I drove it but I just looked at Street View and wow. LaGrangeville just got a massive overhaul.

The area in question is here. Formerly, each of these roundabouts was a signalized intersection (including the one that only serves two shopping mall driveways). One more former signalized intersection was cut off with the side street rerouted to meet a nearby roundabout and the remainder converted to a dead end. Meanwhile NY 55 now has a hard landscaped median along this stretch that cannot be crossed except at said roundabouts. All this has also accompanied a drop in the local speed limit from 40 to 35.

I suppose the idea here is:
1) Keep traffic moving because no more red lights to wait at
2) Calm traffic so no one can go flying through because roundabouts make them slow down
3) Increase safety

The level of traffic calming involved seems to me to be a bit overboard for an area that's not urban and doesn't have much pedestrian traffic, but then I don't know what the accident rate in that area was prior to this project, maybe it was abnormally high. Or maybe they just wanted to plant flowers in the median to make it look fancy.

[jeffandnicole]

http://goo.gl/maps/G56EW

At the Fort Dix base in NJ.  Previously a normal circle with 4 legs to it, the SW leg was removed completely, and the SE leg is barricaded from use. 

[1995hoo]

Found the following roundabout on Google Maps. No idea why it's there.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.7463204,-77.1883667,414m/data=!3m1!1e3

[texaskdog]

Probably a lot like when streets are constructed with driveway stubs, or freeways are built with ramp stubs too years before the connector is ever built.

[texaskdog]

http://goo.gl/maps/G56EW

At the Fort Dix base in NJ.  Previously a normal circle with 4 legs to it, the SW leg was removed completely, and the SE leg is barricaded from use. 

and to stay on 616 you have to go way out of the way

[HandsomeRob]

Found the following roundabout on Google Maps. No idea why it's there.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.7463204,-77.1883667,414m/data=!3m1!1e3

That looks like a bus stop on the curb there. Perhaps the roundabout is there to make it easier for busses to turn around?

[theline]

There was once a useless roundabout in South Bend, where High St. from the north intersected with the unnamed drive to the east:

It was about where I've drawn the red circle at Menards front door. It was a Zayre's discount store when Erskine Plaza shopping center was built. They ripped out the roundabout to build the SC.

When cutting through from Ireland Road to snag an Arby's RB, I was known run the wrong way around the little-used roundabout to save a couple of seconds, until I met someone going the other way one day. There was no collision, but I had learned my lesson.

[tradephoric]

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8704552,-76.8512512,614m/data=!3m1!1e3

Here's a two leg roundabout that acts like a Michigan Left.  Drivers traveling WB on Alaking CT make a right on Hampton Park Blvd before making a u-turn at the roundabout to continue SB Hampton Park Blvd.   

[cpzilliacus]

Md. 32 at Fort George G. Meade in Anne Arundel County has an interesting interchange for National Security Agency employees to access from eastbound side of the freeway here.

[kphoger]

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8704552,-76.8512512,614m/data=!3m1!1e3

Here's a two leg roundabout that acts like a Michigan Left.  Drivers traveling WB on Alaking CT make a right on Hampton Park Blvd before making a u-turn at the roundabout to continue SB Hampton Park Blvd.   

See, now, to me, that just looks like a glorified crossover. That type of modified Michigan left isn't all that uncommon in less developed nations where full interchanges aren't in the budget.

[kphoger]

^^ Actually, I'm going to take that back.  All the examples I could think of are grade-separated.  Much rarer are ones that functioned like a true Michigan left in that traffic would have to go through the intersection from the other direction.

Below is a list of some odd roundabouts along a 38-km stretch of highway in Escuintla, Guatemala; note how most of them effectively function as glorified crossovers:

Non-intersection roundabout:  http://goo.gl/maps/X4lfP
Hybrid superstreet/dogbone:  http://goo.gl/maps/ClWaO
Hybrid superstreet/dogbone:  http://goo.gl/maps/TPxfm
Non-intersection roundabout:  http://goo.gl/maps/1GlPC (factory entrance?)
Non-intersection roundabout:  http://goo.gl/maps/gJXYI
Non-intersection roundabout:  http://goo.gl/maps/OeCet
Non-intersection roundabout:  http://goo.gl/maps/rJiOk

[roadman65]

I have seen some in places where the roundabouts act as speed breakers as some neighborhoods would install them to keep people at 25 mph.  Remember we live in an era where the average driver thinks that a speed limit is 10 to 15 miles more over the limit, so 55 means 65-70, so in some areas they need to have some way of getting the people to follow the maximum speed literally.

[kphoger]

^^ Are those roundabouts installed at intersections?  If so, then its (a) fairly common and (b) not what this thread is about.

[jakeroot]

^^ Are those roundabouts installed at intersections?  If so, then its (a) fairly common and (b) not what this thread is about.

He's probably thinking of something like this: http://goo.gl/F8BqP1 (Staniland Drive, Weybridge, Surrey, England).

[tradephoric]

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8704552,-76.8512512,614m/data=!3m1!1e3

Here's a two leg roundabout that acts like a Michigan Left.  Drivers traveling WB on Alaking CT make a right on Hampton Park Blvd before making a u-turn at the roundabout to continue SB Hampton Park Blvd.   

See, now, to me, that just looks like a glorified crossover. That type of modified Michigan left isn't all that uncommon in less developed nations where full interchanges aren't in the budget.

I'm pretty much wrong.  There is no Michigan Left to speak of in my example.  Alaking CT looks more like a superstreet as drivers are forced to turn right to go left but instead of a signalized intersection for the crossover, a roundabout is used.

[roadman65]

^^ Are those roundabouts installed at intersections?  If so, then its (a) fairly common and (b) not what this thread is about.

No they are not.  That is why I posted them here.  If they were they would not be speed breakers as I meant to point out that a non intersection roundabout is used in residential areas for the purpose I mentioned.

No they are not that common, or at least as I have seen.

And yes the thread is about non intersection roundabouts.

Edit:Actually there is one in Orlando in a business park off Challenger Parkway at the end of a dead end street.  There are no other intersecting roads, but a couple of driveways leading in to it at the end for two separate office building parking areas.

[jeffandnicole]

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8704552,-76.8512512,614m/data=!3m1!1e3

Here's a two leg roundabout that acts like a Michigan Left.  Drivers traveling WB on Alaking CT make a right on Hampton Park Blvd before making a u-turn at the roundabout to continue SB Hampton Park Blvd.   

See, now, to me, that just looks like a glorified crossover. That type of modified Michigan left isn't all that uncommon in less developed nations where full interchanges aren't in the budget.

I'm pretty much wrong.  There is no Michigan Left to speak of in my example.  Alaking CT looks more like a superstreet as drivers are forced to turn right to go left but instead of a signalized intersection for the crossover, a roundabout is used.

New question though: Why are the hashmarks/chevrons paints both to the left?  On one side of the roundabout, motorists will find >, while on the other side motorists will find <.

[riiga]

http://goo.gl/maps/UW2pG Has been like this for 6 years now.
http://goo.gl/maps/YC5n5 Got a third connection a year ago or so, but a new roundabout like this one was built at the end of the new connection.