h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That looks like a pretty standard roundabout to me (although I am used to the anti-clockwise persuasion)

It could be much worse. I am thinking of the magic roundabout (two way big ring with smaller regular roundabouts at all the exits) or the Keizer Karelplein in Nijmegen (Six-way roundbout of up to five cars wide with no dividing lines and traffic on the roundabout has to give way to traffic entering it. Can be found at ///oddly.manual.exposes).

There's probably more places with names that X would block (and the Filther as well). Usually the ones where the signs are stolen on a regular basis

And I think cloverleaves are bad.

They work for me. Unless they have a squeeze lane (double lanes that have to merge into the main lanes where the left (faster) lane ends between two slower lanes)

Good point! They do work - I think I said that badly. What I meant was, compared to roundabouts in terms of taking up space, making weird patterns, etc.

I agree about the space requirement. cloverleafs are only used on highways around here (and they have alternative patterns that take up less space). Roundabouts are usually used on local roads, to passively reduce speed and save on traffic lights.

More space here, of course, so more wasted a lot of the time. We have a joke about really small towns - that it's front-page news when they get a new traffic light.

Where I live now is very rural, and hilly, which means that a lot of travel is over two-lanes that go up hill and down and around and around. Also, the speed limit varies from 55 mph to 35 mph as you go through small towns and villages. The village of Lamartine enforces the speed limit very strictly, so everyone knows to hit the brakes when they pass the big yellow barn...

To add to the fun, a lot of these roads were originally Indian trails and/or logging trails, later enlarged to wagon roads or corduroy roads...

We don't have any Indian trails around here (it is only recently that a significant number of people from India have come to work here and they use the existing infrastructure). After the second world war, a lot of former local rail- and tramways have been turned into two-lane roads. (the rails had already been removed to help in the war effort and the ground was already strengthened)

Now, that's interesting - I didn't know that! We have a lot of abandoned railroads/tunnels/bridges in this country, sadly.

The latest trend is to turn abandoned railways into long distance cycle paths. Very nice if you don't like steep grades.

Last summer in the UK, we followed an abandoned railway as a shortcut during our hike. All went well up to the point where we came across a small bridge with big unfriendly bright yellow signs saying 'Danger! Unsafe bridge, do not cross!'. This was very close to our final destination, so we eventually managed to find a way to scramble around it. In the end we came up to a gate with a 'No Entry' sign on the other side. There wasn't one on the side we originally came from, so that could be disregarded safely.

I see.

There's a bike trail like that along the Allegheny River. The Hoggetts went on it with their kids back in the day. They wanted to take me but my legendary inability to ride a bicycle prevented this.

We recently did the Vennbahn trail, from Aachen (Germany) to Troisvierges (Luxembourg). It is a 125km cycle route, entirely over abandoned railway bed. Of course we took the die-hard option of going up. (it has an average gradient of 2%)

I'm impressed.