After a series of tragic car crashes downtown, KMOX has explored how the city might curb traffic violence with structural fixes. Transportation engineer Randy McCourt joined KMOX last week to talk about some traffic calming strategies that could be implemented.
One thing McCourt mentioned was traffic roundabouts — and one Midwestern city has put that to the test. Carmel, Indiana's mayor James Brainard tells KMOX how implementing roundabouts instead of signals has affected traffic. He said he started looking into them after spending some time in England.
"What we quickly found out is that, you know, the human error rate doesn't change much; it's pretty constant," Brainard said. "The difference is, what type of crash is there going to be when someone makes a mistake?"
The national average for traffic fatalities, he said, is roughly 12 per 100,000 people each year. After implementing roundabouts, Carmel got their number down to just over two per 100,000.
"And over a period of time, that's a lot of people too — we don't know who they are, but we know it's safer. And you know, the basic things that cities should do is create safety from crime," he said. "But also, we have to be able to move goods and people around safely and efficiently. The roundabouts are also more efficient — so, we don't have to widen all the roads. They move 50 percent more cars per hour."
Brainard pointed out that it's better for the environment, too — it prevents idling and congestion. And, he said, the project was shockingly cost-effective.
"One of the things that just astounded me when I became mayor was that a traffic light installed — without moving the pavement or changing the lanes or moving underground utilities out of the way, just the light itself — cost almost $400,000," he said. Converting a four-way stop to a roundabout is much cheaper, though converting an intersection with lights can be more expensive, at up to $1-2 million per intersection.
"But then you look at the gas savings from the drivers, the taxpayers, we make that back cumulatively, within usually a couple years."
While there was a learning curve at the beginning, Brainard said they made sure to provide residents with plenty of educational material especially to students in drivers ed. Hear more from Carmel Mayor James Brainard on the switch to roundabouts:
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