Proposal talk:Roundabout Priority

Please use this page to discuss the proposal for Roundabout Priority.

• Misconception. I think this proposal is based on a misconception of what junction=roundabout means. To quote from Roundabout (my emphasis):

  A roundabout is a road junction  where the traffic goes around an island in the middle, and the traffic on the roundabout has right of way. 

Roads which are circular but do not have the above priority rule are NOT roundabouts, even if traffic is oneway. They can be described with the US English term Rotary, or the french term Rond Point. Wikipedia FR points out[1] : Ne doit pas être confondu (rond point] avec carrefour giratoire. It appears that this point of confusion already exists in OSM (see Place Charles de Gaulle).

Therefore the objective of this proposal appears to be to fix incorrect existing tagging. Far better to resolve how circular roads obeying priorité à droite should be tagged to distinguish them from roundabouts. SK53 21:35, 27 September 2010 (BST)

I support that. The definition of roundabout in highway code is mainly to change the giveway priority. If you have "roundabouts" with the usual giveway, then it's not a roundabout. Simply use the standard tags highway+oneway (and optionally the highwaygive_way=*, see Tag:highway=give_way).

Alternative proposal

The discussion in the tagging list and in talk-nl seems to boil down to the question whether these traffic circles are a subtype of roundabout, or a junction type in their own right.

I fully support all those who suggest they are a separate junction type. My proposal was based on the premise that "most people" would see them as a subtype of roundabout. I know this to be true in the Netherlands, where the concept was deprecated in law in the 90's but there are still plenty of examples around which have not been rebuilt as a "proper" roundabout, sometimes despite major rebuilding works.

I was at a loss to find an english term for these junctions as the concept doesn't really exist in the UK, but it seems "traffic circle" might fit the bill. Would there be more support for "junction=traffic_circle"?

I believe that a traffic_circle is a different type of junction to a roundabout, and therefore I think that the tag "junction=traffic_circle" would be more appropriate.

Example

The picture linked in the example is a real roundabout (however it is traffic light controled). You can see a roundabout sign to the left of the car that has just entered the roundabout at the bottom. Plus at all the roads entering the roundabout you can see shark's teeth. --Cartinus 19:02, 28 September 2010 (BST)

You are absolutely right, Cartinus. Thanks for spotting that. It's a bad example.