Three roundabouts proposed for Granite Falls truck route

Roundabouts will be part of the plan in Granite Falls when a new highway is built to divert thousands of gravel trucks around the city’s downtown district.

Three roundabouts were added to the planned route recently because they offer the best way to get the more than 1,000 trucks that drive through town every day around the city, said Crilly Ritz, a senior environmental planner for Snohomish County.

Roundabouts, also called traffic circles, haven’t been well accepted elsewhere in Snohomish County, and many Granite Falls residents have questioned bringing them to their town.

“I think roundabouts are downright dangerous,” said Danny Meeks, who owns Granite Falls Hardware.

Granite Falls Mayor Lye Romack looks forward to the roundabouts, noting that they have worked well in Monroe and Arlington.

“It’s going to be a new thing for the community,” he said. “I think it’s going to work fine. It’ll keep the traffic from flying through here.”

The idea, Ritz said, is to get the many trucks to slow down but not stop as they bypass downtown.

Perhaps the county’s most well known roundabout is in Monroe, a large traffic circle at the intersection of Highway 522 and Old Snohomish-Monroe Highway.

Arlington has two small roundabouts in its downtown district.

In early 2003, Stanwood fought off a bid to put a traffic circle at the newly rebuilt I-5 and Highway 532 intersection.

In Granite Falls, the roundabouts will be built at the new road’s intersections with Highway 92, Burn Road and Jordan Road. A roundabout isn’t planned at the new road’s intersection with the Mountain Loop Highway to encourage nontruck traffic to drive straight into downtown.

Like the roundabout in Monroe, Granite Falls’ circuitous intersections will be large, about 200 feet in diameter, wide enough to allow large trucks with trailers to safely weave their way in and out.

Construction on the $21.7-million bypass route is scheduled to start in 2007 and open in 2012.