Anecdotally, I also think the way roundabouts get built in the US is better now than a decade or two ago. It used to be that roundabouts (being unfamiliar) were just treated as a cookie-cutter object to plunk into the roadspace blindly.
Nowadays I often see the designers making conscious decisions like:
* what radius?
* what angle do we need so it doesn't even make sense to try to turn left?
* hard curb or drivable curb?
* central pit, flat center, or raised center?
* full roundabout, or teardrop-shaped (common on both sides of a highway bridge)? Apparently peanut-shaped is also a possibility though I haven't seen one.
* one-lane, two-lane, or a mixture (potentially including partial three-lane) depending on what part of the circle (common when there's a "major" road meeting a minor one)?
This is all of course ignoring the fact that drivers are also more aware of how to use them nowadays.
Americans still can't understand the passing lane. I'm skeptical that they're going to make effective use of roundabouts (although I do believe in their merits).
I fully believe that roundabouts work because they look dangerous and they force people to pay attention. There are other traffic management techniques that are overt about this inequality; you can design highways so it looks like you'll run into things you couldn't possibly hit and thus you slow down.
If left to voting instead of public policy, we will pick "feels safe but isn't" over "doesn't feel safe but is" which is why someone has to put their big boy pants on and build them anyway.
The data cited in the article is based on usage by American drivers. So you can drop your skepticism, they already work.
Anecdotally, they’re converting a number of intersections here in rural, Northern MN to roundabouts and they are _very_ effective at reducing fatalities and injuries.
I guess that depends on your definition of "work." Do they reduce delays? I believe (and have seen) that they can. But I've also seen traffic circles implemented with stop signs in the U.S., a failure.
But hey, I'm down for more to be built in the USA and let's give it a shot.
This is the reason on that traffic related infrastructure is so insane in the US: here we have evidence that roundabouts save lives, but the only thing the American can wonder is how fast they can get through it (to work no doubt).
Nowadays I often see the designers making conscious decisions like:
* what radius?
* what angle do we need so it doesn't even make sense to try to turn left?
* hard curb or drivable curb?
* central pit, flat center, or raised center?
* full roundabout, or teardrop-shaped (common on both sides of a highway bridge)? Apparently peanut-shaped is also a possibility though I haven't seen one.
* one-lane, two-lane, or a mixture (potentially including partial three-lane) depending on what part of the circle (common when there's a "major" road meeting a minor one)?
This is all of course ignoring the fact that drivers are also more aware of how to use them nowadays.