oops, wrong quarry!

There's one in Nashville around the Musica statue at the confluence of Division, Demonbreun, and Music Row.

Three years gone, and people still are figuring it out.

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If we heard mortar shells, we'd cuss more in our songs and cut down on guitar solos

Actually, Knoxville has a roundabout too. Midpark Drive off Middlebrook Pike has one. I believe it connects to Matlock Drive at that point. I'm fuzzy on the names of the roads, but I could drive right to it!

Real roundabouts. They've got one in Asheville now, and it seems to be working. That town has far more than its share of bad drivers.

I thought the plan was very impressive. There is a lot of vision and creativity, very little intrusion on residential property (plenty on industrial property), and respect for the character and history of the place. The primary objections came from residents worried about losing their view of the river (Hargreaves had a slide showing the riverfront buildings under the line of sight from Phillips Ave) and from rowers concerned about too much motorized boat traffic. That's a pretty good backdoor endorsement. Check out the links and the flyover video.

Do you mean roundabouts in terms of proper traffic calming roundabouts

The traffic calming thingys are just little circles in the middle of a low volume road, often retrofitted into an existing roadway -- we had a bunch of them in my neighborhood in Arlington, and they were very effective in slowing down traffic speeds.

A real roundabout (or, as a friend of mine who was obsessed with them used to drop into nearly every conversation we had, "modern" roundabouts), on the other hand, is a fairly elaborate construction, involving flared and deflected entrances, usually with yield signs rather than traffic signals, low speed circulation, and no interweaving of entering and exiting traffic.Or something like that -- I don't remember all of the details. Anyway, I think traffic calming isn't the primary goal, per se, although it is a benefit -- the real value is that they supposedly reduce the number and severity of accidents significantly, and supposedly reduce traffic congestion.

They get a bad rap, but they're nothing like most of the traffic circles in the US -- I went through Dupont Circle a couple times a week for three years, and I never fucking figured that one out.
Even on my first day of driving on the wrong side of the road in England, though, I mastered the system after one go around. And I'm a crappy driver. I'm a huge fan of them -- they really work great. If the city puts them in, hopefully they won't screw them up.

No specifics on financing. The planners have just finalized the scope of the project and wanted to make it sure it met approval before tackling cost estimates and such. To give you a sense for how fresh the plan is, there is a pedestrian bridge across the river in the flyover video that was scrubbed from the plan and not mentioned in their presentation.

Obviously the city will have to pay for reconfiguration of  roads. The riverwalk and other public facilities on the water will probably require some public funds, but there should be opportunities for private partnerships and philanthropy. Since it's a redevelopment district, various grants and tax incentives are in play, and I think they are hoping that will lure private developers to bid on the various components of the plan. The only Phase I component that is not clearly in the public domain is the office park on the Conley property at the foot of the South Knoxville Bridge.

Well, the JWP is a state project, and they are about to redo the EIS on it (and good thing, too, since the one they have dates from the 70s).

I hate to be dumb, but where is Meadow Circle Park?

Actually, I found the roundabout on the Avenue des Grandes Armees (around the Arc de Triomphe)  a breeze compared to small, cobbled one way streets in smaller towns like Dijon, where a massive Citroen would come through just as you took a wrong turn.

The problem is, Americans can never remember that on roundabouts, those coming onto the roundabout have the right of way, while those already in the roundabout are supposed to yield. Granted, it gets a little exciting around Arc de Triomphe because a) it is still somewhat cobbled, b) it is about 10 lanes wide, and c) there are no lines. But I don't think any Knoxville roundabouts would be quite that ambitious.