As the city starts work on its 48th roundabout, officials say they reduce crashes, but the public is still warming up to circular intersections.
One of the city's largest roundabouts, at Todd Lane and Pleasant Valley Road, opened in 2016. Austin is fast-approaching having 50 city-built traffic circles . You're driving through Austin and come to an intersection with something unfamiliar in the middle.
No stop sign. No traffic light. Just a giant concrete circle. Do you yield? Gun it? If you've wondered this, you're not alone. More of Austin's intersections are being turned into roundabouts as part of a safety strategy. In theory, vehicles keep moving, if everyone knows what to do. on roundabout number 48 at Evergreen Avenue and West Mary Street. The city's 49th roundabout is coming next year to Bluebonnet Lane at Del Curto Road. What could become the 50th is being designed for the intersection of Rutland Drive at Parkfield Drive.Construction on Austin's newest roundabout is scheduled to start this month the T-shaped intersection where Evergreen Avenue dead ends at West Mary Street in the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood. Austin's growing embrace of roundabouts is part of a broader effort to reduce crashes, especially the most dangerous ones. Government engineers and transportation researchers say roundabouts reduce right-angle crashes — also known as T-bones — and eliminate head-on collisions entirely. "The reduction in crashes is significant," said Ruth Steiner, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Florida."Often, the reduction in severity is even more important, because ... you have slower traffic." Traditional four-way intersections can have up to 32 points where cars cross paths. Roundabouts cut the number of these conflict points by 75%. They can benefit pedestrians, too, because drivers are forced to slow down.Roundabouts reduce the number of locations where vehicles cross paths with other vehicles or pedestrians. But roundabouts can bewilder drivers who don't realize they're supposed to yield to those already in the traffic circle. That confusion can make it even more dangerous for cyclists. Some roundabouts are harder to cross for the visually impaired. "One of the groups that's been concerned about safety around roundabouts has been blind pedestrians," Steiner said."They depend upon hearing traffic stopping at an intersection. And in a roundabout, it never stops." Roundabouts don't come cheap. The city dedicated $1,316,655 to design and build the roundabout at West Mary and Evergreen Avenue, according to a city bond document. The money is coming from a $720 million mobility bond approved by voters in 2016.in Austin. But they don't provide the same safety benefits or allow drivers to keep moving. Unlike traffic signals, roundabouts work without electricity. Austin's flirtation with roundabouts goes back at least to 1999, with a few"traffic calming circles" installed in Hyde Park. But it wasn't until a roundabout evangelist rolled into town that things really got moving. "When I came to Austin in April of 2010, along with having the interest in roundabouts, I was also on an international roundabout committee," said Gary Schatz, a former city traffic engineer who now runs his own consulting firm in Katy."I kept seeing different intersections in Austin and thought, 'That kind of wants to be a roundabout.'" At the time, Austin's circular intersections weren't designed to modern standards. Schatz said they often lacked features like small"splitter" traffic islands that route vehicles into the roundabout. So he started with working developers and other departments to change that.Modern roundabouts, like the one at Pleasant Valley Road and Todd Lane, include traffic islands to direct vehicles and allow pedestrians a safe place to stop while crossing the street. They also may have"aprons," shown here in green, that let larger vehicles make wider turns over the traffic circle. "We knew that properly planned and implemented roundabouts were safer, more efficient, better served all roadway users and made great community gateways or focal points," he said. Some of the first roundabouts Schatz helped bring about were at Todd Lane and St. Elmo Road and Davis Lane at Leo Street. There was resistance. Schatz recalls one real estate developer took"an absolute beating" from city staff and even from his own company for including roundabouts in the design of a residential neighborhood. "We fear the unknown or the unfamiliar," he said."Oh my God, what if I screw this up? What if I get in there and I go the wrong way or I do the wrong thing? What if somebody runs into me?" But Schatz says those internal fights helped shift the culture. The city's traffic engineering staff has come to embrace traffic circles. "Basically around 2013 or '14 is when we started really pushing for roundabouts a little more," said Mario Porras, a supervising engineer at the city. His colleague in the transportation department, Cody Stone, said the team started identifying problem intersections where people were getting hurt. "Roundabouts show about an 80% reduction in fatal and injury crashes" compared to an intersection with stop signs or traffic signals, Stone said."We're trying to speed them up." The city still faces resistance, especially when roundabout design requires slicing off corners from private property. With bond dollars dwindling, only so many roundabouts can be built. But city engineers say support is growing as drivers get used to the design. "We've gotten a lot of support for roundabouts, not only because of the safety benefits, ... but also some of them provide reduced congestion or less delay," said Stone."We do hear from some residents where they'll reach out saying, 'Have you all looked at a roundabout here? I think it would be great.'"Nathan Bernier is the transportation reporter at KUT. He covers the big projects that are reshaping how we get around Austin, like the. He also focuses on the daily changes that affect how we walk, bike and drive around the city. Got a tip? Email him at nbernier@kut.org. Follow him on XThe biggest roundabout in Austin will open at the intersection of the southbound frontage of I-35 and 51st Street on Sunday. But first TxDOT will have to…This is the first story in our series, The Road to Zero, which explores traffic deaths and injuries in Austin and the city's plan to prevent them.One…Car lanes are getting cut. Bike lanes are being expanded. Bus stops are being moved. Take a tour of the changes.More than a dozen streets in Austin are about to be invaded with bulldozers whose mission is to re-shape them. Once the streets are re-worked, the hope is…
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