Directing traffic in a roundabout way
Drivers across the state are learning the ins and outs of roundabouts, an international trend in traffic design that could be making its way to an intersection near you.
In a nutshell: Yield on the way in, drive counterclockwise and then turn right to get out. If you miss your turn, don't worry. Just circle around and try again.
"A friend said she went around two or three times before she figured it out," said Pat McAnaw, a salesman at a Chevrolet dealership overlooking Snohomish County's first roundabout, which opened in August at a Highway 522 interchange in Monroe.
At least 600 roundabouts have been built in the United States since 1990. But the modern incarnation of traffic circles is still a novelty in this state, where the first two opened in 1997 in the Bellevue and Tacoma areas. Now 25 are in place, with many more in the works.
Roundabouts are much larger than traditional traffic circles, such as those Seattle has built in hundreds of residential intersections. While circles feature a small obstacle in the middle of the road, forcing motorists to slow down to maneuver around, roundabouts direct traffic into a circular pattern, with streets radiating from the center like spokes in a wheel.
Once they get the hang of it, drivers usually like the modern roundabouts, pioneered in England in 1963. Other types of traffic circles date to the early 1900s, but these are different because they are engineered to slow down — but not stop — vehicles entering the ring.
The French love them, building about 1,000 per year. An American study indicates that when roundabouts replace stop signs or signals, traffic backups are reduced by up to 75 percent while injury accidents drop an average 76 percent.
But statistics aren't always convincing. Sammamish last year planned to build four roundabouts at major intersections along 228th Avenue, but a last-minute outpouring of public displeasure caused the City Council to stop the project.
Instead, the city built a demonstration roundabout at a less conspicuous location, in a residential neighborhood at Inglewood Hill Road and 216th Avenue Northeast. Local residents endorsed the plan, and the $310,000 circle opened in January.
The result: a dramatic drop in accidents, and smoother rush-hour commutes. In the newly incorporated city's first 16 months, police had logged 19 crashes at that intersection. Only one accident, which involved a drunken driver, has happened since the roundabout replaced a pair of stop signs on 216th Avenue.
"There is very, very strong support from the local people who drive that (area) a lot," said City Engineer Dick Thiel.
While traffic signals at that location would cost only $200,000, the roundabout requires no mechanical maintenance or electricity, making long-term costs comparable, he said. Meanwhile, traffic flows much more smoothly without a signal or stop signs.
Last night, the Sammamish City Council was to discuss plans to build a second roundabout, this one in front of Sunny Hills Elementary on Issaquah-Pine Lake Road.
Now, the state Department of Transportation (DOT) wants to build one on Highway 203 in the Duvall area, where some residents are displaying a predictable amount of fear and loathing.
National studies show that communities usually oppose the idea at first, DOT engineer Brian Walsh said. "Our experiences here in Washington have mirrored that; we have had a lot of people not very happy about the idea of roundabouts, but after they are constructed, those fears mostly go away."
DOT built its first state-highway roundabout in 1998 in Port Orchard, where a triangular intersection on Highway 160 had produced 39 crashes in three years. In the first 18 months after the roundabout opened, only two accidents occurred.
In one case, a garbage truck circled too fast and tipped over, Walsh said. The second happened when a drunken driver hit the center island.
The Port Orchard project is something of a poster child for Pacific Northwest roundabouts, with many Web pages providing a link to a DOT site featuring a 15-second video clip of traffic entering, circling and exiting: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/fossc/trafficoperations/roundabout.htm .
Seattle has built more than 800 small circles — those landscaped, traffic-slowing hunks of concrete deposited in the middle of arterial streets. But so far, no roundabouts.
"They are a very efficient traffic-control tool, but they take up a lot of space," said Gerry Willhelm, Seattle's traffic engineer. Pedestrian and bicycle safety issues are important too, he added.
A Seattle consultant has studied several possible sites, including the intersection of Mercer Street, Fairview Avenue and Interstate 5 access ramps. That would require a multilane approach to the circle, Willhelm said. Willhelm has spotted a couple of sites he thinks might work, such as the junction of Green Lake Drive North, Northeast Ravenna Boulevard and Northeast 71st Street.
"I think we need to think about having them," he said.
The DOT built one of the state's first two roundabouts just outside Bellevue at Lakemont Boulevard Southeast, West Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast and access ramps for Interstate 90. An access road leading to Sunset Elementary and a day-care center provides an additional spoke in the ring.
The Bellevue roundabout is a bit smaller than most, giving drivers less reaction time.
"It's scary," said Anny Scott of Bellevue. "I'm always careful. I stop (before entering the ring). I have to make sure, let's see, is that car going this way or that way?"
The $40,000 experimental project was intended to be temporary, and the 5-year-old concrete is beginning to deteriorate.
But it's working.
"When I first heard it was going in, I thought, 'That's crazy; that will never work,' " said Phil Spady of Bellevue as he waited outside Sunset for his family to arrive for a Little League game.
Before the roundabout went in, school traffic couldn't get out because parkway traffic backed up and blocked the access road.
"Now traffic keeps moving all time," he said. "I've changed my mind 180 degrees."
Diane Brooks can be reached at 206-464-2567 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com.