>but for pedestrians roudabouts are way better than traffic lights.

This is ignorant texbook thinking.

As a pedestrian it's far easier to safely time a light, even one without a cross signal, than it is to cross through the un-broken streams of traffic that are entering/exiting a roundabout. You basically have to cross a ways back from the roundabout where the traffic is more like "just crossing a normal road". Which sucks if it's 4-lanes or really busy or fast or there's no sidewalk provision for that (like in the case of roundabouts at highway ramps) and is just a lot more walking to begin with.

For roundabouts that wouldn't be deserving of a light (i.e. the ones replacing 2/4way stops) it's a lateral move.