Yuzhi Chen

This project is dedicated to all whose lives have been cut short by America’s transportation system, and all who have suffered great loss on our nation’s roads and streets. May this work reduce your pain.

Selected Roundabout Photos

Project Statement:

I started to pay attention to these interesting man-made traffic control landscapes called roundabouts around the spring of 2022 when I drove through one of them in Santa Clarita. At the time, I didn’t get it, I was just in awe. What an amazing structure! But why there are so few roundabouts built? I had many existential questions about roundabouts in the United States. Being an urban planning and automobile nerd, I started to study it systemically. Like any other man-made landscape, roundabouts do not exist as a standalone structure, but they serve as an intersection of a larger network, a network of roadways. Of these roadways, some are small streets and country roads, and some are enormous multilane urban freeway monstrosity. Altogether, they connect the entire continent. 

Human has been making circular objects for a very long time but modern roundabouts is a relatively new one, and it has its origin from Europe since the 1960s. Roundabouts are proven to be a safer and more cost-effective alternative than signalized intersections and stop signs. It reduces the likelihood and severity of collisions significantly by reducing traffic speeds while minimizing head-on collisions and T-bones. It makes traffic flow better thus less fuel gets wasted. It does not need power to operate or constant maintenance like signalized intersections. This is why developed nations built a lot of roundabouts. France has more than 42,000 roundabouts, the United Kingdom has more than 25,000 roundabouts. Roundabouts in the United States are in an interesting position, physically and politically. The United States as a nation on wheels, with its urban planning forces everyone to be car-dependent, however, roundabouts here are few and far between. The United States has come to the roundabout party late. It is hard to promote the idea of roundabouts when an extensive network of roadways is already built. People do not understand roundabouts so every time a roundabout gets built or gets proposed, they freak out, they want to stop the construction of this strange foreign object in their well-established network. But how can people understand roundabouts if they never see one? This is the dilemma of roundabouts, it is also the dilemma of many things in this country such as the metrics system and universal healthcare. 

The solution to one problem could be the cause of another unintended or intended consequence. The construction of roundabouts indeed makes the roadway, at least at the intersections with roundabouts, safer, but that also incentivizes more road construction making Americans more even car-dependent. There is a heavy toll on this car-dependent way of living. City centres got demolished for urban freeways, public transit was left to die on its own, streets became unsafe for children to play and humans to walk, and we criminalized walking across streets and called them jaywalks. 42,795 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2022 in our nation, and I almost became one of the statistics when I had my crash on the I-405 freeway on my way to school. It is a crash, not an accident. Crashes are expected when roads are dangerous by design. Even those who have never or have not crashed, still suffer from sitting in traffic every day, paying all the fees required to make driving possible. These tolls are too heavy to ignore. 

I drove across the United States and Canada, in the summer of 2022 and 2023, in part, filming for Roundabout World. When I saw a roundabout, I would pull over and use my drone or camera to film it. At the end of 2023, I had enough images of roundabouts to make Roundabout World possible. When I was travelling, I not only filmed roundabouts but also other car infrastructures such as parking lots, freeway interchanges, and bridges. As I learn more and more about this country and its roadways, the more empathy I have for everyone living and passed away here. 

I hope one day, we don’t have to live in this unsustainable dangerous way. Every human deserves to live safely with dignity without depend on automobiles. Until this day, I hope you and your friends and family will never involved in a motor vehicle crash. Drive safely, with respect to all road users and those who have passed away on the roads.