How Do Concrete Doughnuts Cost 6 Grand?

TRAFFIC circles - those confusing concrete doughnuts that dunk intersections thoughout Seattle - have created a love-hate relationship.

Neighborhoods that have petitioned for and received the round traffic diverters love them for the slower, safer traffic they produce.

I hate 'em. Most motorists do. They are a pain in the posterior to maneuver around.

If an intersection has a safety problem, put in a plain old stop sign. At a cost of $100 apiece. Not an overpriced $6,000 traffic circle.

That's the price tag on the proposed traffic circle that has caused such a flap at Bigelow Avenue North and Lynn Street on Queen Anne Hill.

Most of that neighborhood wants one for the safety of their children. Dissenters say the circle is an eyesore and doesn't belong on a boulevard.

They say this is part of the Queen Anne Boulevard system, meant to be a lovely link with city parks - not a place to pile concrete.

Because the city has no policy regarding streets designated as boulevards, the matter eventually will land in the City Council's lap.

This dispute is a matter of safety vs. aesthetics.

Not enough has been said about the seemingly outrageous cost of such a simple concrete job. Or the relative safety and cost-effectiveness of alternatives such as stop signs or asphalt humps in streets.

You're not going to believe this, but those same rims of concrete - 16 feet in diameter or less - cost $30,000 apiece when Seattle first began dropping them in intersections in the early 1970s.

But that's when Uncle Sugar was paying for them with federal block grants. With a sweet guy like that around, there was less incentive for cost-effectiveness.

Since the city had to start paying for the traffic circles in 1979, the costs have been cut to an average of about $5,000 a copy for installation, according to Jim Mundell, manager of the city Engineering Department's Neighborhood Traffic Control Program.

``Yes, that still has the appearance of a high cost,'' Mundell said, ``but we've streamlined and cut costs considerably. Measured against the costs of accidents, the program pays for itself.''

There are roughly 300 traffic circles in Seattle. Mundell didn't know the total investment since the program began. But the city has been budgeting about $220,000 annually for the past 11 years. That's $2.4 million.

For $220,000, the city puts in 20 to 25 a year. That's about $10,000 apiece, but it includes administrative costs. Ouch.

Neighborhoods can get a traffic circle if 60 percent of the residents surrounding an intersection petition for one and the location meets the city's safety-problem criteria. If they get their oar in the water first. There are 500 requests for 1991. There are funds for about 25.

King County didn't buy into safety circles - even when there was all that ``free'' federal money out there. The county once had two, but they were taken over by Kirkland.

Let's dissect the city's cost. Construction is stretched out as City Engineering Department workers begin, leave for other jobs, and come back. But a two-worker crew takes roughly two days to complete a project, according to Mundell. At eight hours apiece each of the two days, that's 32 hours. Figure $15 to $20 an hour. That's $640 labor at the top amount.

But wait. Mundell says 50 percent has to be added to pay for fringe benefits of those workers. OK. That makes the labor cost a maximum of $960.

In the Yellow Pages, you can call and have concrete poured for an average of $50 a cubic yard. Mundell wasn't certain how many yards the circles take, but estimated it would be 5 or less. So make it $250 worth of concrete. Add labor, and that's $1,210.

So where's the other $4,800 going on a $6,000 concrete doughnut? Steel reinforcing, drilling out the center for beauty bark, and landscaping. You can buy a lot of beauty bark and trees for $4,800. No matter how you slice it, those are very high-priced concrete doughnuts. I suspect some contractor would salivate to put them in for that kind of money.

``It's not a question of what's cheapest, but of what's best,'' Mundell says.

Can you put a price tag on the safety of residents - particularly children? No.

But what about those stop signs at $100 apiece? Most of that is travel time for workers. Putting in four at the same time at an intersection probably would be closer to a total cost of $200, as against $5,000 to $6,000.

Mundell says statistics show traffic circles reduce accidents by up to 90 percent. For stop signs there are estimates of a 70 to 80 percent reduction. That's not a big difference in accident reduction. It is in cost.

Traffic circles aren't popular with the Fire Department, whose trucks have to slowly squeeze around them.

Neighborhoods love them. But some of those same people aren't as enamored when they have to drive around them away from their homes.

Most of the city is served by stop signs. The county manages without traffic circles. Other cities throughout Puget Sound solve safety problems without them.

I strongly suspect that the original free federal money for traffic circles unleashed a costly monster that has taken on a less-than-needed life of its own.

Don Hannula's column appears Wednesday on The Times' editorial page.