By Kirsten Palardy
Published: April 04, 2012 7:57 AM
Monday night’s council meeting saw lengthy debate over the effectiveness,
cost, and benefits of two roundabout intersections on 32nd St. at Spruce Dr. and
one at 32nd St. and 40th Ave.
Council ultimately voted against the proposed roundabouts at both of these
intersections.
During the meeting, councillors heard from Engineering Services Manager Frank
Colosimo who said extensive research had been done in the viability of a
roundabout option instead of a traditional signalized intersection.
“One thing we found about the roundabout improvements was that roundabouts
work better than a conventional intersection because of a few key turning
movements that failed at the traditional intersections,” said Colosimo.
However, the concern of many councillors was safety as well as whether or not
there would be a cost savings if the City were to go ahead with the roundabout
option.
Colosimo did explain that there would be a long-term benefit of roundabouts
functioning better at the 110,000 population mark for the City but that after
that point other changes would need to be made.
“Somewhere between the 110,000 and 180,000 population mark a roundabout and a
traditional intersection would both fail without other improvements to the
roads. But a roundabout failure would be worse.”
Colosimo explained that the line up of cars for a roundabout versus a
traditional intersection would be almost three times as long if the intersection
were to fail to uphold the traffic capacity.
City Manager Craig Curtis said one of the things he saw being a hazard was
the loss of a crosswalk at 32nd St. and 40th Ave.
There would be no way to signalize a crosswalk at a roundabout style
intersection, making it a large issue for many of the councillors.
“I appreciate the work done by the department in finding that roundabouts
would work but I just don’t see them in these locations,” said Curtis.
Colosimo did say, however, that roundabouts are actually proven through
research to be safer intersections.
“We were able to compare the number of collisions as well as the severity and
found that there are no right angle collisions, instead they’re lower impact
side swipe type accidents where fewer injuries result,” said Colosimo.
Council ended up voting against the roundabouts in these locations but Curtis
said with the time and effort that was put into the study of the roundabouts
that they could potentially be established elsewhere in the City.
“We would have to educate the public before implementing any roundabout
because perception is that people are not ready for roundabouts,” said Colosimo.
kpalardy@reddeerexpress.com
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