Having lived in Boston during College, I’ve seen traffic circles in use where 6 or more streets intersect and a circle is the only way to manage the interface. They are 3, 4 and as many as 5 lanes of traffic in the circle. They work better than other solutions in that situation. In a situation where we had traffic light on two streets intersecting, they are a silly attempt at traffic calming. The traffic circles in Rocklin are the dumbest thing I’ve seen in years. They replaced infrastructure that worked to spend money on unnecessary traffic circles that make it harder to get around town. The circles orphan bicyclists and pedestrians are left wondering how to transit the intersections. These are just plain stupid. The City of Sacramento put a number of these in and finally added stop signs on the minor sides of the intersection, esentially making the circles a speed bump for through traffic. What a waste of money…. Little Ricky, our former city manager said at the state of the city a few years ago, that at least they didn’t use local money. As if, wasting tax payers money is different when it is state or federal tax dollars.
Traffic circles are stupid. They create collision opportunities and cost to much. Sacramento figured this out and has put stop signs on most of their traffic circles. Our third tier planning team should talk to top tier planners when trying new stuff.