New roundabout aims to make Hwy. 9 safer in growing Marysville
By Mike Lindblom, The Seattle Times | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
A new
Throughout the corridor, sprawl is changing
State data show 125 crashes there since 2001, and officials are predicting an increase of 22,000 daily car trips by 2035.
Safety is the main goal in installing roundabouts, says
There are roughly 290 roundabouts in the state, 110 of those on highways, Walsh said. Data on their effectiveness is limited, because while they have been around for decades in
Early findings in
"Overall, it's a safety plus," said
The institute says roundabouts reduce crashes by half. But its national numbers skew toward single-lane layouts, not the multiple-lane kind where drivers are exposed to sideswipes.
These are very distant cousins of the more than 1,300 tiny traffic-calming circles on
There are no roundabouts on
Construction havoc
The change on
The crossing's record of one serious injury in the past six years is hardly enough to justify the cost to rebuild the intersection, he argues. The area's worst crash, , happened in 2009 a mile north of the crossing, and was caused by a drunken driver.
"We've got bridges that need to be repaired, we don't have money for. We've got expansion joints in
Two weeks of roundabout construction caused its own havoc, by blocking east-west access. Diverted motorists have been making U-turns on
The project follows a two-lane roundabout in 2012 at
State officials justify spending millions in
"Roundabouts force drivers to pay attention to what's going on," Rader said.
Drivers face a long learning curve.
At the 2-year-old
"It's fun, because you've got everybody playing chicken," she said. "If you're not here doing it every day, you're lost, and you almost end up crashing." Occasionally someone goes the wrong way, and a few fast drivers "drift" the circle by spinning the rear tires, she said.
Dump trucks and boat trailers straddle two lanes. That's unavoidable, said Rader, because a design big enough for trucks would enable too-fast car speeds.
Meanwhile, WSDOT says demands will grow, from 45,500 daily trips to 67,600 trips in 20 years. The state has a track record of guessing high, but
"We are building for the future and to keep traffic moving," said project spokeswoman
Roundabout success
Walsh points to the state's first multilane roundabout, built for
He said it used to take 20 to 40 minutes for drivers to leave the parking lot after school, but now it takes 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 minutes. However, noninjury collisions increased eightfold, to one a month.
"A lot of people are nervous," admits
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