Started conversation May 4, 2004 It's incorrect to say that
"gyratory system" is just the name for a roundabout that has got
too big for its boots. In fact it's the original term which was
soon displaced when they became common. I'm not sure if the term
"gyratory circus" was ever really used. There are a number of
junctions in London known as circuses after the circular range
of buildings around them. This was a particularly 18th century
fashion, so of course the most famously beautiful one is in
Bath. The OED says of "gyratory": Applied to a system of
directing road traffic round a roundabout or through a system of
one-way streets to avoid the need for one line of traffic to
intersect another. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 7 Aug. 4/2 The gyratory
principle, by which vehicles are directed into circular lines
ingeniously devised to avoid intersection. 1926 Rep. Comm.
Police Metropolis, 1925 16 in Parl. Papers (Cmd. 2660) XV. 239
Gyratory systems for the circulation of traffic, after years of
discussion, reached the point o