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Richmond’s Department of Public Works is installing new yield signs to clear up confusion at more than 40 traffic calming circles in the city.

“Once the changes are implemented over the next several months, all drivers will know to yield to the circulating traffic, whether in a roundabout or a traffic circle,” the city said in a news release Tuesday. “The change will make the smaller circles, designed to reduce speed, operate in a similar fashion as the larger roundabouts, designed to replace traffic signals.”

The department said the signs were added “as a result of changes in the Code of Virginia that mandate the same treatment for roundabouts, traffic circles and rotaries,” all collectively classified as “circular intersections.” That includes the seven circles installed as part of traffic-calming measures for the Floyd Avenue Bike Boulevard project at 28 intersections between Thompson and Laurel streets, a $900,000 project largely funded with a federal grant that began construction late last fall.

In general, the city previously “installed traffic calming circles with the main street (i.e., the higher volume street) having the right of way and the side street (i.e. the lower volume street) yielding the right of way to the main street,” Sharon North, a spokeswoman for the Public Works Department, wrote in an email.