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In the 90s, many roundabouts were removed especially in the northeast. I don’t think this is true. In New Jersey alone I can remember seven or more very large r

• peatmoss 6y ago
  Those that you’re thinking of were likely “rotaries” which have some major design, functional, and qualitative differences as compared to roundabouts. Size, travel speed, and enforeced entry angle are the main differences between rotaries and roundabouts. And then to confuse matters further “traffic circles” are common as traffic calming devices on the west coast. These are also round, but are very small and do not have a splitter island preceding. They usually sit in the middle of small residential intersections. Also, sometimes rotaries (the largest, fastest, and most dangerous of the trifecta of round traffic things) are sometimes called traffic circles, which are otherwise the smallest / slowest traffic device. If all that is confusing, well, you’re not alone. My feeling is that roundabouts and traffic circles are good, but rotaries are just highway interchange supercolliders. Removing them from the northeast was very good.