I can't help thinking that Milton Keynes was designed using the modern equivalent of the same process by which mediaeval monks illustrated bestiaries; you know, someone drew something which someone else described from someone's best guess at the meaning of someone's corrupted text from someone who'd had an eyewitness interview with someone who'd met a hippopotamus.

Only in the case of Milton Keynes it wasn't a hippopotamus, it was somewhere like the Beltway, but they hadn't worked out that if you are trying to recreate American suburbia, roundabouts have no place.