Neighbors worry, but experts back roundabout for Savage

Julie Reick lives down the street from an intersection in Savage so dangerous that the county has been awarded nearly $800,000 to fix it.

But she isn't so sure that fix should take the form of a roundabout.

"I have seen them and driven them," she said, "and I think they can be very confusing to people if they don't know how to use them. For the young and inexperienced, or the elderly, they're terrible. I think a lot of people feel it's a new concept, so do it new somewhere else."

Many of her neighbors feel the same. Savage would be among the first places in the state to have a two-lane roundabout, and most of the 60 to 80 people who turned up recently for an open house on the subject were skeptics.

That's creating the potential for a clash, because engineers say roundabouts -- though certainly perplexing to many at first -- are the safer choice.

Scores of roundabouts are popping up statewide, experts say, because they offer a host of advantages, including a smoother flow, slower speeds, no waits at red lights when no one else is around, and no confusion when power is cut and traffic lights go dead.

The proliferation of roundabouts is "inevitable," said Kristin Asher, assistant city engineer in Richfield, another pioneer in two-laners. The first one-lane versions went in just a few years ago, she adds, yet today the state Department of Transportation lists on its website seven pages of existing, upcoming and proposed roundabouts in Minnesota.

"We want to make sure people are in the loop, and bring up things we haven't considered," said Joe Gustafson, the traffic engineer overseeing the project. "But it's not a popularity contest."

In fact, he said, in most places public resistance evaporates once they're in place.

"People jump up and scream at first, but once they're open, they generally react favorably. One study showed that beforehand, 45 percent were negative, and another 23 percent very negative. Afterward, though, the negatives dropped to zero. And that's 22 different locations, not just one, in 11 states. Zero percent negative."

Lezlie Vermillion, the county's public works chief, points to Woodbury as one place where a two-lane roundabout seems to have worked.

Cory Slagle, design engineer in Washington County, said the Woodbury circle did have a couple of early crashes as motorists struggled to figure out how to navigate it. "There are only three or four in the state," he said, "and they are more complicated in how they function."

Reick and other Savage neighbors worry that one strength of roundabouts -- maintaining a constant flow -- would be a weakness for them. They depend on red lights to create a pause in traffic, enabling them to exit from their driveway onto a busy street. But Gustafson said heavily trafficked streets have few pauses anyway, given right turns at red lights.

Another frequent worry is crossings on foot without lights, he said. But roundabouts slow traffic to about the same speed as cars in supermarket parking lots, full of people on foot.

All that having been said, he added, a conventional intersection is still an option.

"We're not necessarily pushing a roundabout. But everyone's questions go to the roundabout option, and we do hear a lot of misconceptions about them."