The Connecticut Department of Transportation has identified hundreds of intersections that could be transformed into traffic circles. Could that be the key to lowering motor vehicle accident rates in the state?
WSHU’s Ebong Udoma spoke with CT Mirror’s Tom Condon to discuss his article, “Four Corners no more: CT turning some intersections into roundabouts,” as part of the collaborative podcast Long Story Short.
WSHU: Hello, Tom. Traffic circles have been around forever. How come the renewed interest in Connecticut, and why did you decide to focus on them for this story?
TC: There's a difference between traffic circles and modern roundabouts. The earliest traffic circle I could find was in 1905, Columbus Circle in Manhattan, which we all know is kind of chaotic. But the modern roundabout is a radical rethinking of the traffic circle. Now for one thing, traffic approaching it has to slow down because they have to yield to cars that are already in the rotary. So you have to slow down. Now there are also what are called “splitter islands” going into a modern roundabout. You have to make a right turn and then follow the circle counterclockwise until you decide which exit you're going to take. And that will be another right turn. But these splitter islands are again, they're split. So traffic is only going in one direction.
WSHU: Why did you decide to focus on this story?
TC: I saw the trend. I was driving through Salem one day and I saw the roundabout there. And I know that intersection, I've known it for years, and it has been very unsafe. That's the intersection of Route 85 and Route 82. And what happens there is the state never finished the Route 11 expressway. So this is now the highway to nowhere. Cars have to get off at Route 82, and some of them just speed into that intersection. There have been a lot of accidents there. So going through that I said, wait a minute, this is different. And then I went through the one in Granby, which is just on this side of the Mass. border. And I thought, we're doing something different here. And I wanted to find out if it was working. So I looked up the data. And it is.
WSHU: You turned to the Connecticut Department of Transportation. They say that they're looking at up to 8,000 intersections in Connecticut right now, because of the studies. And could you just tell us what the study showed? As far as I know, 2022 was a very bad year for accidents in Connecticut, so there's been a renewed interest in that.
TC: The spotlight intersections is a study done by the Capital Region Council of Governments. And what they were trying to do was identify intersections that would benefit from roundabouts, intersections that had a lot of accidents, intersections that were awkward. If it was one of the five corners in Ellington, you know, it was a very awkward intersection. So they were trying to identify the intersections in the 38-town region that would benefit from roundabouts. They have identified at least three in every town, in Hartford they’ve found 48, the towns with more intersections tend to have more that they would benefit from than roundabouts.
WSHU: And you know, having more roundabouts means drivers have to know how to navigate these roundabouts. Is there any special effort to make that happen?
TC: There is signage, but I would like to see more of a public education effort. Because when drivers get used to them, there are fewer accidents. But you know, years ago, I was driving in France and I came on a roundabout. There are a lot of these in Europe, as you know. I thought, what do I do now? And I kept driving around the circle, and I finally figured it out. There have been intermittent efforts to do this, but there really should be a stronger public education process, public service ads, things like things like that. Everyone has an opinion, but I think when people get used to it, most people will see the benefit. There was initial opposition almost all around, and then people got used to it and now the reaction is generally very positive.
WSHU: Does it also improve traffic flow?
TC: Oh, absolutely. There is no question. Basically, traffic doesn't stop like it does when you have a stoplight. When roads are busy, traffic can back up for a long way. And here the traffic keeps flowing. Now it goes slower when there's more traffic, but it keeps moving. That has a lot of benefits, saving time, and less pollution. It does improve traffic flow.
WSHU: This has been going on, people have been pushing for more roundabouts in Connecticut for the past almost 40 years now, why has it taken so long for the concept to gather steam?
TC: I've wondered that myself. This is the land of study habits. But once there was actually an engineer in the Department of Transportation who studied European models, and who really pushed it, and then there was a Hartford city planner who kept pushing it. And so, these things don't come out of thin air. It's because people advocate for them. It took longer than it should have, but we're finally there. We're moving.
