Orléans Star
Published: Friday, July 16, 2010

Roundabout in Orléans

Last fall, we first heard that the St. Joseph / Orleans Boulevard intersection south of the 174 was slated to be transformed with a roundabout and consequent street-scaping improvements. A public meeting was held earlier this year – where reaction was lukewarm, at best – and the project plan proceeded through city council bolstered by the fact that federal-provincial infrastructure funding was part of the package which made it more attractive from a municipal finance point of view.

Note to self: Check with local candidates if they understand that money from Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Harper isn’t a windfall, it merely comes from my paycheque on a bi-weekly basis. If they don’t get it, sorry, no vote from me, but I digress.

Yours truly has written in the past that roundabouts for single-lane traffic may work, and our limited Ottawa experience seems to beat this out, to ease traffic flow and lessen commute and frustration times. But I have been, and remain skeptical as to the utility of roundabouts as replacements for major multi-lane intersections.

And last weekend we learned that that the original $2.5 million budget for the roundabout and St. Joseph improvements will now be swallowed up entirely by the roundabout – seems city planners underestimated the costs (are we surprised?) – with an additional $800K needed for other boulevard work.

The main arguments in favour of roundabouts are that they allegedly reduce traffic collisions and are more environmentally friendly as they reduce stoppage and idling time for vehicles.

However my research over the past few days, especially from the State of California, is yielding a common conclusion: roundabouts are not desirable in urban environments as collisions remain about the same and are inconsistent with other policies that encourage more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly transportation options.

Sadly it seems that work on our roundabout will commence later this month and finish this fall, although delay deep into several snowfalls and further cost over-runs wouldn’t surprise me. And when it is all completed, here is what will likely transpire.

The footprint of the roundabout will be much bigger than the present intersection. Traffic will still be stalled and slow with the number of cyclists on the roads and the need for pedestrians to still navigate this major intersection of two arterial roads in our community.

As well, the number of accidents will remain constant but they will be harder to adjudicate and find fault given the lack of traffic signals and the fact that right-of-way determination will be more subjective based on driver interpretations of speed, clearance distance to merge, etc.

To be fair, I have witnessed the effective use of roundabouts in parts of upstate New York and Florida for highway interchanges where speeds are maintained, the merging-turning-and exiting radius are easy to discern and accounting for pedestrians and cyclists is not a factor.

Like so many other local political files, this one is destined to go around, pun intended, in circles with no improvement.