Richmond Goes With The (Traffic Circle) Flow

"How many years does it take to change a traffic pattern in Richmond? Try 114. Plus a few months to figure out if the old one was better. For the first time since the erection of the Robert E. Lee statue in a tobacco field 114 years ago, Richmond officials have decided Monument Avenue traffic should yield to vehicles already in the circle. 'There's going to be a learning period involved here,' said one dweller on the famous circle's periphery to a background noise of chirping horns and brakes. Progress may be realized slowly in Richmond, but it is inevitable.This brings Lee Circle traffic patterns up to speed with traffic circles in the rest of the United States and most of the Western Hemisphere north of the Equator... 'There were too many accidents, as many as 20 a year,' said city spokesman Bill Farrar, noting that the circle may have been the only one in the nation where cars traveling around the circle had to yield to cars entering it."