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A detour around left-turn problem
Chesco opened its first roundabout. They were part of an option for Route 202 in Montco.
Before a cheering crowd of about 100 residents, local officials and other dignitaries, transportation history was made in Chester County this week.
The county's first roundabout, a vastly improved version of the old traffic circle, opened for business at Route 82 and Doe Run Road near Unionville Tuesday.
"We were ready to put in a light," said Cuyler Walker, chairman of the East Marlborough Township supervisors. "A friend suggested this, our engineers investigated, and they said it would be quite feasible."
It also is cheaper and more efficient, and has a longer lifespan than the conventional light and turn lane, say members of the engineering team from Traffic Planning & Design who designed the roundabout.
But safety was what persuaded Supervisor Robert F. Weer. "The thing that sold me was the severity of the accidents." With roundabouts, there will be "no head-on crashes, but we will probably have fender-benders."
Chad Dixson, the roundabout expert at Traffic Planning & Design, said their real benefit is the elimination of left turns. "They are what causes congestion at intersections," he said.
Tony Dougherty of the Traffic Planning & Design team said a signal and turn lane would have cost about $400,000 because of the need to acquire additional land to accommodate the extra lane. The roundabout came in at around $275,000, he said.
Project manager Bob Stone, a self-described "signal guy forever," said that when he first started work on the plan, he drove to Maryland to observe roundabouts in action.
Because of the lack of congestion, Stone said, he didn't think at first that a lot of traffic was going through them – until he started counting vehicles.
"My concept was totally different from the reality," he said. "I was surprised I misinterpreted what was there." He said roundabouts differed from traffic circles in a number of important ways.
"The older circles were very large in diameter, and all the vehicles kind of interacted within the circle," he said. "The roundabout is very compact, the speeds are slower, and the vehicles entering yield to the ones within."
Instead of allowing drivers to fly into the roundabouts at high speed, approaches are designed to slow traffic down. About 14,000 vehicles a day pass through the Chester County intersection.
Despite their popularity in Maryland, Florida, California and other states, roundabouts have been slow to catch on in Pennsylvania.
Rich Kirkpatrick, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, said roundabouts were included in the two-lane option proposed for a stretch of Route 202 in Montgomery and Bucks Counties. He said 10 roundabouts are being planned across Pennsylvania for state-owned highways.
Peter Graves, spokesman for the New York Department of Transportation, said 14 roundabouts were open on state-owned roads, and more were planned.
For the last five years, New York state policy has required that roundabouts be at least considered for all new intersections or intersection reconstructions, he said.
"They are an extraordinarily safe alternative," Graves said. He cited statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showing an 89 percent reduction in fatal or incapacitating accidents, and a 76 percent to 86 percent reduction in personal-injury accidents.
In Chester County, a roundabout also is being planned for the intersection of Route 52, Wawaset Road, and Unionville Lenape Road in Pocopson Township, Supervisors Chairman H. William Sellers said.
Recently, Chester County donated $500,000 to that project to cover its share of improvements needed because of increased traffic to the prison, and to the juvenile detention center now under construction.
London Grove Supervisors Chairman Tom Houghton said the township was in negotiations with PennDot to build a roundabout at Route 41 and Old Baltimore Pike. Developers are building others in the township, he said.
Richland Township in Bucks County opened a roundabout at Station Road and Old Bethlehem Pike last fall.
"I like it," township receptionist Diane Lane said. "The intersection was so bad before, and it was so hard to make left turns. This seems to keep things moving."
Contact staff writer Nancy Petersen at 610-701-7602 or npetersen@phillynews.com.
