Published Sunday, May 03, 2009
Roundabout accident free during first six months
The Times-Herald
The naysayers said it would be a disaster and a waste of money. Some said Cowetans could never negotiate it and predicted traffic backups and frequent accidents.
Instead, in the six months it has been open, Newnan's roundabout has been more successful than anyone could have ever imagined.
"To tell the truth, it has exceeded our expectations," said Cleatus Phillips, Newnan's director of community development, and a driving force in bringing the roundabout to the intersection of Lower Fayetteville Road, East Broad Street, Greison Trail and East Newnan Road.
"We were confident it was going to work, but we never expected the results we have gotten out of it," he said.
So far at least, the circular intersection hasn't been the site of a single accident, said Newnan Police Chief Buster Meadows. Not even a tiny fender bender.
Meadows said the biggest problem with the intersection is some people think they need to come to a complete stop before entering the roundabout.
Before the roundabout, getting through the intersection in the afternoons was an exercise in frustration. Especially on the East Broad Street side, traffic could back up far enough to cause waits up to 10 minutes, Phillips sad.
Now, at peak times, "there may be three or four cars lined up, but within 20 seconds, you are through the intersection."
Phillips drives through the roundabout just about every day going to and from work. "We knew it was going to improve the traffic flow in rush hour, but we didn't expect it to completely wipe out the delay," he said.
He's tried to find backups -- by going to the roundabout just after 5. But there haven't been any.
Phillips thinks that opposition to the roundabout being built was mainly based on a fear of the unknown. "It is not your normal traffic improvement," he said.
During the roundabout discussion, The Times-Herald was full of editorial page opinions from people who said Cowetans could never figure out how to drive through a roundabout.
Another big concern was whether large trucks and school buses could navigate the intersection.
There was quite a lot of design and engineering work done to solve that problem. The roundabout is actually wide enough for two lanes. The inner portion is a slightly raised concrete median that provides ample space for trucks to get through. Phillips said the inner portion is raised because he didn't want people thinking it is a two-lane roundabout, but it allows for trucks to "get around it without running through the grass or up on the curb."
And just to make sure, the planning staff marked out the roundabout in tape in a parking lot, and had a truck driver go through it. "We watched the truck maneuver and made a few modifications based on that test," Phillips said. One of those modifications was making the raised median almost twice as wide as originally suggested.
Not only did the roundabout end up costing about 40 percent less than a traffic light, it works a lot better than a signal ever would.
"There are certain situations when a roundabout is going to have definite advantages over a signalized intersection, and this intersection fit those parameters almost perfectly," Phillips said.
So will there be more roundabouts in Newnan's future?
There aren't any plans on the books now, Phillips said. But "any time we have a potential intersection project, we will definitely evaluate whether a roundabout is feasible," he said. "I'm not saying it is going to work perfectly because this one works perfectly -- you've got to have the room to put it in, you've got to have the traffic parameters."
But, "I think the chances are pretty good we may build another one at some point in time."