Published: July 28, 2008 11:39 pm         

Roundabouts project gets turned down

3-2 vote approves ‘change order’ for 2 of 3 roundabouts

TERRE HAUTE — The Terre Haute Board of Public Works and Safety approved plans Monday to eliminate the last two remaining roundabouts, or traffic circles, on the Brown Boulevard project.

In a 3-2 vote Monday afternoon, the board voted to approve a “change order,” which is a change in an existing city agreement. The change order eliminated the final two of three roundabouts that had been planned for the project.

“We approved a change order but we did not make the decision” to eliminate the roundabouts, said board member Robert Murray after the meeting in City Hall. “Concern about whether there should or should not be [roundabouts] should be directed to [Mayor Duke Bennett] and the engineering department, he said.

The original decision to build roundabouts in the Brown Boulevard project was very controversial in 2004, said board president Bill Lower. “Now it’s the reverse,” he said.

The Bennett administration opted to remove traffic circles from the project for several reasons, said City Engineer Chuck Ennis.

Bennett’s main concern had to do with truck traffic near the planned roundabouts, he said. The mayor also was concerned about school bus and student traffic at a planned roundabout near Terre Haute North Vigo High School, Ennis said.

Additionally, the intersection of Brown Avenue and Locust Street would need to be completely redone because it is presently a three-way intersection, Ennis said. He also said a roundabout planned at Brown Avenue and Maple Street would require that a bridge over Lost Creek near that intersection be larger than with a conventional intersection.

Building conventional intersections instead of traffic circles on Brown Boulevard will save the city around $1 million, Ennis said.

Not everyone agreed eliminating the roundabouts was the right move.

“I’m here to urge you to rethink the roundabout issue,” said Jim McKinney, profession of civil engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, who spoke at the meeting in favor of traffic circles.

Roundabouts offer fewer opportunities for traffic accidents or automobile-pedestrian accidents, McKinney said. They also cut down on exhaust fumes since cars are not forced to sit idle waiting for a traffic signal to change. “It’s also been proven the roundabouts improve vehicle efficiency,” he said.

McKinney also said trucks, ever very large trucks, can maneuver in roundabouts without any problems.

McKinney noted roundabouts have been built elsewhere in Indiana, including more than 40 in Carmel. Plainfield is about to open its second roundabout, he said. “Are we going to go along with the rest of the state of Indiana and bring ourselves into the 21st century or are we going to continue to be business as usual?” McKinney asked.

The change approved by the Works Board on Monday will reduce design fees on the Brown Boulevard project by more than $5,000, according to the change order. The contract being altered is between the city and the firm of Hannum, Wagle and Cline Engineering.

“It’s not that the administration is dead-set against roundabouts,” Ennis said. In fact, the city is contemplating building a roundabout on the planned new section of Margaret Avenue near the east Wal-Mart, he said. Building it there would avoid heavy truck traffic and avoid land acquisition costs associated with building traffic circles on Brown Boulevard.

Works Board president Lower said he voted against the change order even though the board is not a policy-making body. The Board of Works does not make policy or engineering decisions, Lower said. “But our role is also not to approve everything that is brought before us. In approving the change order, I saw us making a change I was not in favor of,” he said.

Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.