Roundabouts gaining acceptance

LEHI — Carl Mellor admits it can be scary heading into the roundabout on Lehi's Main Street the first few times.

Mellor, well-known for his librarylike knowledge of Lehi's history, is convinced the European-style interchange was the key to solving persistent traffic jams that plagued the intersection just west of the railroad tracks.

Now if folks could just get used to it.

"Most people don't move directly into the traffic flow. They stop and wait until the whole circle is empty," Mellor said.

Mellor's home and business are just a block away from Lehi's roundabout, so he knew firsthand the traffic headaches that grew when a two-lane Main Street in a country town in a matter of years because the main corridor to three growing cities.

Engineer Kyle Comer said the Lehi roundabout — designed to handle up to 16,000 cars a day — seemed like the perfect solution to two major problems: Cars needed to be funneled through the intersection faster, yet motorists needed to slow down.

The campaign to gain approval for the roundabout's construction was bumpy, he said. Westerners simply aren't used to such a road design.

"Typically, roundabouts are put in locations where traffic conditions and pedestrian conditions demand it," Comer said. "This one is extremely lively. I don't think it's perfect, but the traffic accidents we have there are not as severe as what we were seeing.

Comer said modern roundabouts should not be confused with a simple traffic circle.

"There's more attention paid to how the cars come in, and they are significantly more thought-out," said Comer, who works for Civil Science Engineering.

Roundabouts are gaining popularity. It seems there's a roundabout at nearly every turn.

Eagle Mountain, Lehi, Alpine, Cedar Hills, Lindon and Utah Valley State College — which last week was given $1.6 million by the Utah Transportation Commission to build an extra lane to connect to the I-15 onramp — all have solved intersection issues with roundabouts.

Orem and Provo, Utah County's largest cities, also have started building roundabouts.

Deseret News graphic Using a roundabout Requires Adobe Acrobat.

Lindon's city engineer City Engineer Kevin Smith says roundabouts aren't a cure-all to traffic ills.

Take, for example, two in his city. One — at 400 South and 600 West — operates just fine. Another at 400 East and 400 North, however, couldn't handle the large-truck traffic.

Eventually, city officials gave up and tore it out.

"It was not an improved street. It was not widened. It was a retrofit," he said. "That one just didn't work," Smith said.