How do roundabouts accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists?
At a roundabout, pedestrians should be accommodated with a sidewalk around the entire perimeter of the intersection, and pedestrians should not cross the traveled way to enter the central island. Most roundabout design guidelines recommend offsetting the pedestrian crossing by one to three car lengths in advance of the roundabout yield line, which not only shortens the crossing distance but allows motorists approaching the roundabout to yield to pedestrians in the crossing before they are at the roundabout merge line. Pedestrians only have to cross one direction of traffic at a time, with the splitter island in the median providing refuge, and traffic approaching a roundabout is moving at relatively slow speeds. Roundabouts have fewer conflict points than traditional intersections, and left turns are eliminated. For all of these reasons, roundabouts, particularly single-lane ones, offer significant safety advantages for pedestrians over other types of intersections.
