Shirlington Circle

38°50′26″N 77°5′6″W

Shirlington Circle is a roundabout interchange connecting I-395 (Shirley Highway) with several surface roads in two Virginia suburbs of the United States capital of Washington, D.C.—Arlington County and Alexandria. Although the circle is named after the Arlington County community of Shirlington, roughly half of it is located in Alexandria. The circle resembles roundabout interchanges common in the United Kingdom and Ireland but rare in the US.

The circle includes multiple access points including ramps (slip roads) to and from I-395 (Exit 6) both north and southbound as well as a reversible direction ramp that provides access to and from the reversible high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes that run in the center of I-395. Four surface streets intersect with the circle; going counterclockwise (in the direction of traffic) from the north, they are:

• Shirlington Road, which forms the border between Arlington County and Alexandria to the north of I-395. (The road, however, enters Arlington County just to the north of the interchange.)
• Campbell Avenue (formerly 28th Street South) in Arlington County.
• Quaker Lane (State Route 402), which forms the border between Arlington County and Alexandria to the south of I-395.
• Gunston Road in Alexandria.

Traffic generally follows roundabout rules, i.e, traffic inside the circle has the right-of-way and traffic entering the circle must yield. However there are also traffic lights and stop signs regulating traffic flow and the I-395 off-ramps enter the circle from the interior of the circle, requiring a left merge into the traffic circle.