The Magic Roundabout
Monday, 18th June 2007 by James Turnbull
Last week I started working in the nearby town of Swindon, where I asked my colleagues about the local sights. The unanimous answer to the best Swindon has to offer was "The Magic Roundabout".
It may be saying something negative about the town if its most notable feature is a traffic junction, but the Magic Roundabout is truly a wonder of the world. And by "wonder" I don't mean "wow" I mean "I wonder why they built such a stupidly complex junction".
You see, the Magic Roundabout is in fact 5 small roundabouts surrounding one large centre roundabout. For the benefit of our non-British visitors I shall do my very best to explain...
In the U.K. we drive on the left hand side of the road, so on approach to a roundabout you give way to traffic coming from the right hand side. You then go clockwise around the roundabout, exiting where you see fit.
The Magic Roundabout complicates matters in that the moment you leave one roundabout you are at the junction of another. So, by aiming right on each roundabout you would actually traverse the central roundabout in an anti-clockwise manner. At least that's the idea.
The roundabout was officially renamed from "County Islands" in the 90s because no-one used it official name, and roundabout fans Swindonweb even sell "I survived The Magic Roundabout" T-shirts.
Thanks: Sfac, Russ, Jonathan Rawle, Arno Beckmann, Luke Sleeman, Stephen, The Red Max, Hans, John DeRoo, AndrewAnorak and my workmates.
Hemel Hempstead’s got one as well, made up of 6 mini roundabouts. Sorry, dunno how to link to it, but someone I’m sure will oblige. 🙂
Easy ! View Placemark
Good ole Wikipedia tells me Colchester also has one – View Placemark
There’s a branch of my office in Swindon.. wankers.
Swindon’s own never-as-popular-as-they-should-have-been pop band, XTC, recorded a song on their “English Settlement” album about this roundabout, titled (appropriately enough) “English Roundabout”. Very catchy. Highly recommended. And now it’s stuck in my head, dammit!
I cant believe you havent mentioned http://www.roundaboutsofbritain.com/ There is something quite sinister about the whole thing but very silly at the same time. Only in England eh?
the Hemel Hempsted one has a creek running under it!
Ah well, in the States we have to deal with Spaghetti Bowls every now and then, so I guess we’re even:
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/2005/04/20/spaghetti-junction/
Round Abouts are great, but greater traffic planers tend to complicate them. Karlsruhe got a round abaout for a 4 lane road that turns by 90 Degrees at the round about: View Placemark Normally in round abouts the circling traffic has the right to pass, here not. Here it is the big road from east to south and vice versa. So strange things (accidents) happens here often. Some time after building they changed to traffic lights, some time ao the turned the traffic lights off, cause of no positivie effect, now there are two traffic lights that stop the incoming traffic from time to time to give the circling traffic and bicycles in different directions than the main road a chance. If you take a clear look you can see that you even need to change the lanes sometimes while circling.
Says something about our great nation I believe. Compare to the wonderful anarchy of the “first come first served” Arch de Triomphe massive 12 street French version of the roundabout. Or the American diplomatic 4 way stop crossings (the English would wait for hours at these) or the Neapolitan traffic lights (purely there to decorate the street)
That must be the roundabout I passed through on my way from Oxford to Bath 12 years ago – it really left an impression. Thanks for refreshing my memories! Here in Fribourg, inofficial capital of the roundabouts of Switzerland, we have a double roundabout that is already complex enough for newcomers…
Italians are slowly adapting to it, too… here’s a small example in my city, Padova (from live.com since google has no hi-res data here): http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=rk2m93hznx0h&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=10535250&encType=1
Andy mentioned the very similar one in Colchester, England. The big difference with that one is that I don’t believe anyone would point you towards it when you ask them about the local sights. Conclusion – Colchester doesn’t have a lot to shout about, but we have far more than Swindon does 🙂
What were they thinking???
I used to drive this roundabout every morning to work, its surprising how easy it gets to navigate after one or two attempts.
Similar roundabouts in High Wycombe (although the cent[er|re] is a little larger:
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=1477&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=51.562869,-1.770912&z=17
and Hemel Hempstead:
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=1477&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=51.562869,-1.770912&z=17
Sorry! Somehow managed to make both my links wrong!
High Wycombe here: https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=51.626949,-0.75016&z=18
Hemel Hempstead here: https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=51.746412,-0.473206&z=18
Reminds me of a trip to Portland, OR – recognising what I thought was a roundabout I powered through. Only to look in my rear-view mirror realising there was actually traffic lights on all the entry points to the circle!
There’s another 5-way at High Wycombe.
http://whereiveben.blogspot.com/2006/08/high-wycombe-roundabouts.html
there’s another “magic roundabout” in Cork city in ireland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N25_road
“The Southern Ring runs east, through the Kinsale Road Interchange, a grade-separated interchange, and often referred to as the Magic Roundabout.”
There is another one on the A13 near Basildon. Google doesn’t yet show this in decent resolution, so you will have to take my word for it.
View Placemark
Roundabouts, known as traffic circles in the US, are interesting, and not always in a good way. People who aren’t used to driving on them have virtually no idea what they’re supposed to do, which screws everyone else up. (If people just thought of them as zippers, with those entering the circle and those exiting it coming together seamlessly, that might help.)
Most states don’t have them, but New Jersey’s had them for ages – and now, ironically, is getting rid of them as other states are adding them.
And there’s another at Hatton Cross on the south east corner of Heathrow Airport
I find English roundabouts very confusing – going the wrong way aroung 😉 In Germany thousands of roundabouts have been built in the last years – after removing in the 1950s in favor of traffic lights.
We have been getting many new roundabouts out here in the western U.S. They confuse the locals something awful. That should not be surprising, because the rubes have plenty of trouble with the four-way stops that have been in place for decades. If we had something like the Magic Roundabout, we would also need a permanent tower crane in the middle, to efficiently deal with the debris.
haha the magic round about is funny and i cnt belive its wat people come to swindon for its silly swindon is the s**test place ive ever lived im so glad im got out of there!!!!!
I’m a musician by trade. Every year, we go over to the U.K. to tour. It’s hard enough to get used to driving on the left side of the road. So imagine our surprise when while looking for the place we were playing in Swindon, we found ourselves caught in the “Magic Roundabout”. The locals at the gig later had a great laugh at our expence. I think they call it the “Magic” roundabout because once you’re in it, you might just vanish.
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/2007/06/18/the-magic-roundabout/comment-page-1/#comment-147092 Re: the aove and the photo that goes with it… I would suggest your have another look at the “Magic Roundabout”…. it has changed completely!!!
The aerial photo shown is at least 10 years out of date!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A new layout exists and half of the former Kodak HQ building has been knocked down with extensive new structures on 3 out of the 6 ‘mini-roundabouts (entry/egress points.). One has been re-sited!!! Please update your information and Satellite Image URGENTLY!!!!!!
Here’s the Hemel Hempstead “magic roundabout” from the kodak development currently being demolished:
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o260/yaz37/579ab71c-1.jpg
I though climbing the crane would be a perfect opportunity to get sme shots of Hemel, Link to the rest of the photos are here:
http://onetwotwofour.blogspot.com/2008/03/fourty-seven.html
You might be interested to know that the man who invented the mini roundabout and the ring junction ‘magic roundabouts’ recently died. You can read some of his obituaries here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/jun/21/6
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/frank-blackmore-traffic-engineer-who-invented-the-miniroundabout-856107.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4131930.ece
The images are old, so you can’t see it, but on hybrid or map view you can see the first roundabout that I know of in Alabama.
View Placemark
Oh, if you view it in google earth and go to June 14, 2006, you can see it. Why would they have an older map as the main one?