The music goes round and round

On Tuesday, September 5, the Goochland Board of Supervisors voted 4-1—with Susan Lascolette, District 1 in dissent—to build a roundabout at the intersection of Fairground and Sandy Hook Roads in Courthouse Village and unanimously passed a resolution to apply for revenue sharing associated with the project.

Lascolette said that her constituents prefer a signalized intersection and expressed skepticism at contentions that roundabouts are safer than signalized intersections.

The roundabout will be part of the extension of Fairground Road to Rt. 6 west of Goochland Elementary School, which has been in the conceptual stage for quite some time.

Right now, the intersection is dysfunctional at best, especially during peak travel hours. It is not usual for vehicles to pile up as motorists try to turn onto Sandy Hook Road. During a public comment that was part of the supervisors’ discussion of the matter, District 2 Planning Commissioner Matt Brewer commented that he sat at the stop sign at the intersection for the duration of an entire song on his radio while waiting to turn left in midafternoon.

According to the documentation on the matter, see http://www.goochlandva.us/DocumentCenter/View/3980, this intersection is number eight on the top ten hit parade of crash prone areas in Goochland. As Courthouse Village grows, congestion there will get worse.

The notion of a roundabout, which keeps traffic moving, albeit slowly, through an intersection, has been around for a while and was approved in 2008, but funding evaporated during the recession.

The cost to build a roundabout, $3.9 million will be split evenly between the county and VDOT. (The presentation shows that Goochland and VDOT will each chip in $1.9 million. GOMM’s liberal arts math skills adds 1.9 and 1.9 and comes up with $3.8 million. Guess the extra $100K  is for contingencies?).

A roundabout requires more land than an enhanced signalized intersection and costs an additional $300 thousand. The ballfield on Sandy Hook Road will be relocated to the Central High School complex on  Dogtown Road.

Construction for either option is expected to take about a year, and be completed  in 2022. 

A roundabout keeps traffic moving, while vehicles stop in each direction during a signal cycle at a traffic light. As the wait at each “arm” of the traffic signal grows with the number of vehicles, impatient drivers will be more likely to “run the light” paving the way for increased wrecks.

Heavier traffic will require more “storage”  lanes on all sides of the intersection. At some point, traffic  will back up to the entrance to  Courthouse Commons Shopping Center creating gridlock. Vehicles do not stop when negotiating a roundabout, so it would not need to be enlarged as traffic volume grows. The roundabout as planned is expected to handle anticipated traffic flow through 2043.

Opponents of roundabouts contend that they confuse drivers and lead to more wrecks. They also argue that large trucks may be too large to negotiate a roundabout. VDOT and the Timmons Group engineering firm insist that the roundabout template  used in the computer aided design (CAD) software will be large enough to accommodate log, chicken, and perhaps most important, emergency apparatus. Goochland Fire-Rescue Chief Bill MacKay has allegedly endorsed the roundabout option because it enables continuous free flow of traffic.

However, this roundabout will be built by VDOT—the state agency whose motto is “Oops!”—the  same bunch whose engineers used too tight a turn template when designing the Manakin/Broad Street Road improvements. This caused several large trucks to get stuck turning that corner. While the error was eventually fixed at VDOT’s expense, the money  could have been used on another project.

Should a traffic signal pole be damaged during an accident, one engineer said, it would need to be completely rebuilt from its foundation up. By contrast, damage caused by accidents in roundabouts tends to involve curbs and vegetation. Another distinction is that roundabouts do not shut down during power failures and eliminate waiting for green lights when there is no other traffic.

Pedestrians  negotiate roundabouts by crossing only a single traffic lane, not the entire intersection. Splitter  lanes include clearly marked walkways. Drivers yield to pedestrians in the crosswalks. Detectable warning surfaces that signal a change from concrete to asphalt  help the visually challenged realize that they are entering a crosswalk. It is incumbent upon the motor vehicles, by Virginia law, to stop in advance of the roundabout.

The hashed lines on the "arms" are pedestrian crosswalks. 

Experienced bicyclists have a choice of dismounting and walking through the crosswalks, or riding with traffic at the 20 miles per hour speed. Bicyclists on  pavement are considered vehicles and must yield to pedestrians.

Lascolette pointed out that cyclists are not required to obtain any sort of training. She asked if there was any data to compare intersection safety before and after conversion to roundabouts. In the last five years, a VDOT engineer said, roundabouts have gotten  much better, but was not aware of any data supporting  this contention.

Lascolette said that she received at least 70 comments from her constituents and businesses in the area preferring the traffic signal. She said she has been unable to find studies supporting the contention that the roundabouts are safer.

Assistant County Administrator Todd Kilduff and the VDOT engineers contended that there are fewer crashes in roundabouts than in signalized intersections and those that do occur are of the less serious sideswipe variety versus angle crashes.

Kilduff dispelled the notion that the entire intersection would be closed for a year during construction. Instead, he said, lanes may be closed, but traffic will still be able to move through the intersection. The first few weeks will be critical as motorists adjust to new conditions.

Manuel Alvarez, Jr. asked if the county could change its mind if the ultimate cost came in significantly higher. Kilduff said the cost estimates are based on future values. Goochland County Administrator John Budesky said that if costs increase the county and VDOT will need to appropriate additional funds or scrap the project.

Remarks by VDOT on other subjects gave little cause for comfort.

Later in the meeting a VDOT engineer explained the complexity of the approved and funded “fix” for the Broad Street Road/Rt. 288 interchange. There are 95 separate tasks and “450 days of engineering” needed to complete that project.

However, he also indicated that “plan” has already changed eliminating a second exit lane and eastbound traffic signal. This partially explains why it will take up to five years get this work done. This is all too reminiscent of the decade or so during which VDOT held meetings to explain in detail how Broad Street Road in Centerville would be widened, only to have the final product look nothing like the initial concept.

The success of a roundabout, or more complicated signalized intersection for that matter, depends on the behavior of motorists.  Goochland has its share of bad drivers. No road improvements can prevent people who ignore speed limits and recklessly disregard rules of the road from causing accidents. We all need to be a little more careful when we drive, especially on Goochland’s narrow roads, to  get where we’re going in a safe and efficient manner.

May the roundabout be built with minimal disruption and function as promised