Roundabouts make sense

Roundabouts are becoming more prevalent at intersections throughout the United States — AND for good reason.

Roundabouts are cost-effective, energy-efficient and safer. And traffic tends to remain in motion in roundabouts, making many people happy.

Planning an intersection with stoplights requires consultation and coordination that can become costly. Roundabouts, on the other hand, use signage to direct traffic, reducing planning time and costs — resources better spent to attend to a greater number of priorities that can then be spent on other community priorities. Building stoplights also requires connecting to an energy source, which often disrupts and/or damages the environment.

Once installed, stoplights also require maintenance, most notably supplying energy which often occurs 24/7 — even when an intersection remains empty. Extra expense also is incurred for repairs during power outages. Roundabouts all but eliminate these standing expenditures.

Significantly, roundabouts are safer than stoplights. Lanes of vehicular traffic do not cross in front of one another as they do in four-way intersections. And because vehicles typically travel through a roundabout at a safer rate of speed, the number of accidents decreases, as does their severity. This results in fewer traffic jams and greater traffic flow. Roundabouts also are more predictable than intersections, which users must treat as four-way stops if power is lost.

Fewer accidents imply that all users of a roundabout intersection — bicycle, vehicle and pedestrian alike — remain safer. As such, roundabouts can reduce the demand for public services, such as emergency responders and law enforcement, as well as ease pressure on the legal and health care systems. In the end, everyone saves.

People using bike lanes, roadways and sidewalks do so with the purpose of being in motion. Rather than installing stoplights (or creating a three- or four-way stop), our civic leaders, like other civic leaders throughout the United States, are encouraged to keep residents of and visitors to our community safely moving toward their intended destinations by building roundabouts.

Lori Alling is a member of the Friends of the Mill Creek Library. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Friends or of Sno-Isle Libraries.