You’re traveling through Austin when you reach an intersection with an unknown object in the center. No stop sign. There is no traffic light. Just a huge circle of concrete. Do you give way? Shoot it? You’re not the only one who has wondered this.
In an effort to increase safety, more junctions in Austin are being converted to roundabouts. If everyone knows what to do, cars should theoretically continue to move. Drivers are required to yield to traffic that is already in the circle. Indeed, that encompasses pedestrians and cyclists using crosswalks.
There are 47 roundabouts in the city. The most recent one appeared at Terri Road and Pleasant Valley Road in April.
This month, work on roundabout number 48 between Evergreen Avenue and West Mary Street is starting. Next year, Bluebonnet Lane at Del Curto Road will see the construction of the city’s 49th roundabout. The intersection of Rutland Drive and Parkfield Drive is being designed as what might turn out to be the 50th.
Roundabouts are becoming more and more popular in Austin as part of a larger initiative to lessen collisions, particularly the most serious ones. According to government engineers and transportation academics, roundabouts completely prevent head-on collisions and lessen right-angle crashes, sometimes referred to as T-bones.
According to Ruth Steiner, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Florida, the decrease in collisions is noteworthy. Because of the slower traffic, the severity reduction is frequently even more significant.
There are up to 32 places where cars can cross tracks at conventional four-way crossings. These points of contention are reduced by 75% thanks to roundabouts. Because they make automobiles slow down, they can also help pedestrians.
However, drivers who are unaware that they must yield to vehicles already in the traffic circle may become confused by roundabouts. Cycling may become much riskier as a result of this misconception. Some roundabouts are more difficult for people with visual impairments to navigate.
Blind pedestrians are among the populations who have expressed concerns over safety around roundabouts, according to Steiner. They rely on the sound of cars coming to a stop at an intersection. And it never stops in a roundabout.
Roundabouts are not inexpensive. According to a city bond document, the roundabout between West Mary and Evergreen Avenue was designed and constructed using $1,316,655 from the city. Voters authorized a $720 million mobility bond in 2016 to provide the funding.
In contrast, installing a traffic light in Austin usually costs around $500,000. However, they don’t let drivers continue to drive or offer the same safety advantages. Roundabouts operate without power, in contrast to traffic signals.
At least since 1999, Austin has experimented with roundabouts, installing a few traffic-calming circles in Hyde Park. However, things didn’t really get going until a roundabout preacher arrived in town.
Gary Schatz, a former city traffic engineer who now owns his own consulting business in Katy, stated that in addition to his interest in roundabouts, he was also a member of an international roundabout committee when he arrived in Austin in April 2010. I kept thinking, “That kind of wants to be a roundabout,” as I saw various crossroads around Austin.
Austin’s circular junctions were not built to contemporary standards at the time. Schatz claimed that they frequently lacked elements that direct traffic onto the roundabout, such as little splitter traffic islands. In order to remedy that, he began by working with departments and developers.
According to him, we were aware that well-designed and executed roundabouts were safer, more effective, better suited for all users of the road, and excellent focal points or gateways for the community.
Schatz was instrumental in establishing several of the early roundabouts, including Davis Lane at Leo Street and Todd Lane and St. Elmo Road.
There was opposition. Schatz remembers a real estate developer who was severely reprimanded by city officials and even his own business for including roundabouts into the layout of a residential area.
He claimed that we are afraid of the unknown or the strange. God forbid, what if I make a mistake? What happens if I enter and make a mistake or do something incorrectly? What happens if I’m bumped into?
Schatz, however, claims that the internal conflicts contributed to the cultural change. Traffic circles are now accepted by the city’s traffic engineering team.
We really started pushing for roundabouts a little more in 2013 or 2014, according to Mario Porras, a city supervising engineer.
According to Cody Stone, his transportation department colleague, the team began identifying trouble spots where people were getting wounded.
According to Stone, roundabouts reduce collisions that result in fatalities and injuries by around 80% when compared to intersections with stop signs or traffic signals. Our goal is to accelerate them.
The city continues to encounter opposition, particularly when designing a roundabout necessitates cutting off corners from private land. There is a limit to how many roundabouts may be constructed while bond revenues are running low. However, as drivers adjust to the design, support is increasing, according to city engineers.
According to Stone, roundabouts have garnered a lot of favor due to their safety advantages as well as the fact that some of them minimize traffic or delays. Some residents do get in touch with us and ask, “Have you all looked at a roundabout here?” I believe it would be fantastic.
As part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting collaboration with KUT, this story was created.
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