Neighborhood Reaction Mixed on
Lower-Cost Traffic Circle
November 2003
One reason city councilmembers have given for the battle over the bike fund for the past several months has been that neighbors will not accept lower-cost traffic circles as a traffic calming device--and therefore only the more expensive ones will do. On October 30, I interviewed 10 residents on either side of the relatively new lower-cost traffic circle (sometimes referred to as a "semi-permanent" circle) at the intersection of Page St. and Santa Fe and Cornell Aves. This is an odd-shaped intersection that sees a lot of cut-through speeding traffic. While just about everyone I talked with said they are glad the traffic circle has been effective in slowing traffic down and making motorists more aware of the unusual intersection and the fact that it has stop signs, the reaction was mixed about the circle's appearance. There was general agreement that more traffic circles would be a good thing, and I did not find the kind of mass uprising against the lower-cost circle I was led to expect.
"We've noticed that traffic has definitely slowed down, and it has slowed down people coming off of the stop sign at the traffic circle," commented one Santa Fe Ave. resident. Phil Delancie, a neighbor across the street, agreed. "I do think it has helped make people aware that they are in an intersection where they need to actually stop at the stop sign," he said. Scott Zimmerman, a neighbor who has spent the last year working to get the traffic circle installed, summed it up by saying, "I think it is doing what it's suppose to do. It is slowing traffic down and addresses a lot of other problems with traffic in general."
Not everyone was so favorable about the look of the traffic circle--perhaps understandably, given that part of the circle is sagging and the large planters are now slightly atilt as a result. One neighbor said she loves it, another woman hates it, and I heard just about every reaction in between. No one, however, wants to see the traffic circle removed. "I like the fact that it's visually very nice and I like the flowers and their color a lot," said a Santa Fe resident. Another commented that "they did a really poor job designing the traffic circle. It could have been a lot nicer, but I'm sure this design is a lot cheaper."
Several landscape architects who live on the street want to see the design improved. "My husband is a landscape architect, and we'd rather have some kind of tree and taller vegetation, and we're not crazy about the planters, which are a little uneven," said a Santa Fe Avenue resident. Scott Zimmerman isn't sure where the planter boxes came from. "One day, they came and put the planters in and drove off and didn't say anything to anybody about who was responsible for it, but I assumed it was the city," he said.
The city has posted photographs of several of its installed traffic circles on its web site, including the one at Santa Fe / Cornell / Page discussed in this story.
Return to the BFBC traffic circle page.