Rod King, For KPC Media Group
Roundabouts, whether you like them or not, are here to stay and they’re proliferating. Nearly 20 of them are sprinkled throughout Fort Wayne and Allen County, along with a few located on private property. The city has another one on the drawing board for the intersection where Goshen Avenue, Sherman Boulevard and Lillian Avenue come together.
The county plans to construct four along Bass Road. According to Bill Hartman of the Allen County Highway Department, roundabouts will be built in 2018 at Bass and Hadley roads and Bass and Flaugh roads, and construction on the two at Bass and Thomas roads and Bass and Scott roads will begin in 2019. In addition, he said bids would be taken in November for a roundabout at Tillman and Minnich roads. One planned for the West County Line and Liberty Mills roads will also get underway next year.
They’re not new by any means. The first one is believed to have been built in Bath, England, in 1768. England has them all over the place. France has 30,000 of them, including probably the craziest one of all situated at the Arc de Triomphe where seven Paris streets converge on the landmark.
One of the most recent roundabouts built in Fort Wayne is at the intersection of Auburn and Wallen roads. City Engineer Shaun Gunawardena said “there was a great deal of concern and skepticism when we met with area residents and St. Vincent De Paul Catholic Church and School officials. We demonstrated how it would keep traffic flowing safely around the central island and actually improve the flow of traffic in the morning and at the close of school by eliminating stopping and starting.
“This roundabout turned out to be particularly cost-effective, because to relieve the congestion at that time we would have had to construct two turn-out lanes and a new bridge on Auburn Road. With the roundabout, only two lanes are necessary and we didn’t have to build a new bridge.
“In addition, it’s well lit, pedestrians can safely cross at marked areas and the island is decorated. At first some people had concerns about the landscaping because they couldn’t see across to the oncoming lane. That’s exactly why the island is decorated, so drivers don’t become confused and think they can drive directly across instead of around the island. It also has a wide truck apron so long vehicles can safely maneuver around it.”
A roundabout opened recently at Landin, Maysville and Trier roads to meet the specific challenge of roads that do not align. Maysville comes from two directions, and at a diagonal, and Trier and Landin come in from northeast and south directions. Those factors made the intersection a candidate for a roundabout rather than a traditional all-way stop of traffic signal, the city said in a statement.
Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry, New Haven Mayor Terry McDonald and the city of Fort Wayne’s public works division officially opened the Maysville Circle with a ribbon-cutting and celebration of the transportation improvements that link the two cities.
Standard intersections won’t vanish soon. “The city is not going to turn every intersection into a roundabout,” Gunawardena said, “especially in the downtown grid. We’re looking at intersections where there are more than four streets coming together. Superior Circle with Superior, Ewing and Wells streets coming together just north of the railroad elevation is a good example. Other good candidates for roundabouts would be streets that come into an intersection at an angle that create a poor line of sight.”
A Federal Highway Administration study of roundabouts shows that they increase traffic flow capacity by 30 to 50 percent, and a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety came to the conclusion that they reduce injury crashes by 75 percent over stop sign and traffic light intersections. Head-on collisions and T-bone accidents are minimized because traffic speed is reduced to 15 to 25 miles per hour. And if there is an accident, it’s usually a glancing blow. Gunawardena pointed out that roundabouts are not affected by power outages. “And,” he said, “we’ve even found that property values are generally higher near roundabouts than at traditional intersections.”
Gunawardena said that by drivers keeping momentum through a roundabout, their vehicle’s engine will not have to work as hard to regain initial speed after completing the maneuver. “This has the potential of greatly reducing engine emissions. In addition, slower-moving traffic produces less noise than stop and start traffic at traditional intersections,” he said.
Carmel is the roundabout capital of Indiana. City fathers there are determined to control vehicle emissions by eliminating vehicles idling at intersections and, in turn, keeping their city healthy and green. To date they’ve constructed more than 110 roundabouts and have more planned.