Does Minnesota Have More Traffic Circles Than Any Other State?

Minnesota is known for over ten thousand lakes, ice fishing, snow, cold weather and roundabouts. Ok, that last one isn’t something that many people outside of Minnesota know about that is prominent here.

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When my wife and I moved to St. Cloud last September from North Carolina, this was something that we weren’t expecting. “The Minnesota Stop Light” as many people call traffic circles or roundabouts, they seem to appear out of nowhere, it the middle of nowhere.

On a recent drive to Cambridge, we encountered several traffic circles and that got me thinking, and honestly, I’m surprised I hadn’t thought about this before, “does Minnesota have the most traffic circles of any state in America”?

And the answer to that is, NO. Not by a long shot actually.

According to the 2023 article I found from “The Hill”, Florida actually has almost three times as many roundabouts as Minnesota with over 1,460 which is hands down the most in the country.

California has the second most with over 815. Texas reportedly has more than 760, followed by Washington state with over 670, Indiana has more than 640 and Colorado has over 620.

Those are seven states that have more traffic circles than we do, but there’s one more in front of Minnesota, at least according to the 2023 data from The Hill.

Wisconsin had 554. In October of this year, the Minnesota Department of Transportation say the state has around 530, which is 9th most in the country.

One of our neighbors has the fewest roundabouts in the country, that’s South Dakota. In 2023, they only had 16 for the whole state.

North Dakota only has 55, and our neighbor to the south Iowa, has 151.

The hope is to offer safer travel for motorists and the state says that fatal crashes and serious crashes have been reduced by 80%. The design is to keep the flow of traffic moving, but we’re still relying on drivers to make good decisions, which as we all know can be the biggest challenge of them all.