MBTC 1099, APPENDIX 6a
BUSY INTERSECTION TO GET 'ROUNDABOUT' REROUTING
by Karen Sottosanti, Staff Writer
Manhattan (KS) Mercury, 9/8/97 (reprinted with permission)

After construction workers get done with the intersection of North Manhattan Avenue and Claflin Road in about two years, local drivers will still be able to get through -- just in a more "roundabout " way.

The Kansas Department of Transportation has awarded Manhattan money to build what's called a roundabout - a circular intersection -- at that intersection in 1999, according to city engineer Jack Messer. The North Manhattan/Claflin roundabout will function without traffic lights or stop signs, Messer said; the city will remove the traffic light currently at the intersection.

There will probably be only one lane circling the roundabout, but Messer said the roundabout will be big enough for motorists to see approaching traffic -- the outside diameter of a comparable roundabout being built at the intersection of Candlewood Drive and Gary Avenue is 84 feet.

Messer said roundabouts shouldn't be confused with traffic circles, which the city has also installed in several places to slow down traffic. Roundabouts are put at higher-volume intersections and are designed to move traffic more efficiently.

The city picked the Claflin/North Manhattan intersection as one in need of special attention from the state. The city regularly tells the state which are its most accident-prone intersections. The state then picks which projects it wants to pay for.

Jerry Petty, director of public works for the city, said roundabouts are safer than conventional intersections. With a roundabout, no one has to make a left turn. Head-on and right-angle collisions are also eliminated, and decision-making by drivers is reduced to one direction.

Roundabouts are also considered more environmentally sound than conventional intersections, City Manager Gary Greer said, because there will be less delay at intersections. That means less starting and stopping and thus less noise and vehicle emissions. There is also no electricity bill or costs associated with changing signal bulbs at roundabout intersections.

City commissioners will discuss roundabouts -- particularly the Claflin/North Manhattan project -- at a policy session Tuesday at 5 p.m. at City Hall.

KDOT has estimated the cost of the roundabout at $250,000; KDOT will pay 90 percent and the city 10 percent, Messer said. The city is also responsible for the costs of design engineering, right-of-way and inspection costs that top 15 percent of the construction costs.

Messer said that he doesn't yet know if the city will have to buy private property to make room for the roundabout.

The state money for the project comes partly from the Surface Transportation Program-Safety Program, established by the Federal Highway Administration and programmed by KDOT.

Manhattan has received STP-Safety Program Money for other intersections in the past; the 11 projects funded since 1990 include the intersections at Kimball and Tuttle Creek Boulevard, Fort Riley Boulevard and Westwood Road, and 11th St. and Bluemont Avenue. KDOT shelled out around $4 million for those improvements, Messer said.

KDOT has awarded money for several local projects beside the North Manhattan/Claflin intersection that will be constructed in 1999, including the intersections of Sunset Avenue and Anderson Avenue, and 17th Street and Anderson Avenue.

In most cases, the money has paid for the addition of a left turn lane and the modernization of signal systems, Messer said.

Manhattan is also building a roundabout at the intersection of Candelwood and Gary, officials said, but the city is footing the bill as part of improvements leading to the Linear Trail. That intersection should be open again the week of Sept. 22, Messer said.

MBTC 1099, APPENDIX 6b
STRAIGHT AHEAD FOR A ROUNDABOUT
by Karen Sottosanti, Staff Writer
Manhattan (KS) Mercury, 9/10/97 (reprinted with permission)

The city plans to go ahead with its plans for a "roundabout" intersection at Claflin Road and North Manhattan Avenue -- despite concerns expressed by residents and city commissioners Tuesday about the safety of pedestrians.

With a roundabout -- a circular intersection around which all traffic goes in the same direction -- there would be no stoplight or stop signs. Several commissioners and residents expressed concern about the safety of pedestrians at the intersection, especially since several Greek houses and Kansas State University dormitories are near the corner.

"It's something we better look at," Commissioner Karen McCulloh said at Tuesday's commission work session.

But city staff and a Kansas Department of Transportation representative assured the commissioners and the public that roundabouts don't cause more pedestrian-vehicle accidents than normal intersections. In fact, they said, roundabouts lower the number of accidents at intersections.

Jim Tobaben, state traffic engineer with KDOT, said accidents at the corner of Claflin and North Manhattan are usually "right angle" accidents -- what are sometimes known as "T-bones" -- and that over half the accidents at the intersection are injury accidents. The existing intersection has 32 "points of conflict" -- or places where cars (and pedestrians) could collide; roundabouts have only eight points of conflict, he said.

States such as Maryland and Florida have reported a 60 to 70 percent drop in accidents at intersections converted to roundabouts, Tobaben said.

The city tagged the intersection as one of Manhattan's most dangerous and submitted it to KDOT in 1995 with six others in the hopes of receiving state money for improvements.

KDOT agreed to fund improvements through its Surface Transportation Program-Safety Program, which Tobaben said has funded over 100 projects statewide since its inception in 1978. The improvements, which have cost the state $784,000 over the years, have reduced accidents at those intersections by 33 percent, he said. He also asserted they saved the state about $13.6 million in costs of dealing with accidents.

"The benefit to cost ratio in this program is extremely good," he said, adding that most improvements done with money from that fund have consisted of traffic signals and other improvements.

KDOT has estimated the cost of the North Manhattan-Claflin project at $250,000. The state will pay 90 percent of that cost and the city the rest. The city will have to pay for design engineering, right-of-way and any inspection costs beyond 15 percent of the construction cost.

Roundabouts are a new idea in the United States, although Europeans cities have used them for years, Tobaben said. Unlike traffic circles, which are placed in low-volume intersections and are used to slow traffic, roundabouts are built at high-volume intersections and are used to move traffic more efficiently and reduce accidents, according to Jack Messer, assistant public works director and a city engineer.

"It really operates like a series of right turns," Tobaben said.

Traffic circulating in the roundabout has right-of-way, while motorists approaching the intersection look for a gap in the traffic and then join the flow. There are no stop signs or traffic signals at roundabout intersections, although there usually are yield signs.

Tobaben said the traffic signal at Claflin and North Manhattan would be removed when the roundabout is built, probably during the summer of 1998.

Tobaben assured the commission and several audience members who were worried about pedestrian safety that roundabouts slow traffic to about 15 or 20 miles per hour. Pedestrian crosswalks will also be provided a few feet from the intersection on all corners, he said.

McCulloh, other commissioners and several audience members said that motorists didn't stop for existing pedestrian crosswalks at the intersection -- or elsewhere in the city -- and that pedestrian needs should be taken into account when building the roundabout.

Several members of the public, who did not identify themselves, asked why the intersection at Kimball and North Manhattan was not selected for improvements; that intersection, at which at least one traffic fatality has occurred in the last year, is more dangerous, they said.

Messer and Tobaben said the intersection had not come up as one of the city's most dangerous during the last traffic study and had not been submitted to KDOT. But that intersection will be submitted next summer, they said.

MBTC 1099, APPENDIX 6c
KIMBALL ROUNDABOUT? CITY FAVORS ONE, BUT FEARS YOU WON'T
by Ned Seaton, News Editor
Manhattan (KS) Mercury, 3/10/98 (reprinted with permission)

City administrators want to turn the intersection of North Manhattan and Kimball avenues into what's called a "roundabout," saying that would be safer than either the current intersection or one with stoplights.

But they acknowledged Monday they're having a tough time selling the public on another planned "roundabout," and they may have to kill the idea as a result.

North Manhattan and Kimball is one of the city's most dangerous intersections, according to traffic and accident studies. It's busy -- with 18,500 vehicles in the intersection per day -- it's at the crest of a hill, and traffic on Kimball goes through it at high speeds. There have been 53 accidents there since 1991, city figures show, including one fatality.

The city had planned to spend about $103,000 this year to put in stoplights at the intersection, but public works director Jerry Petty says city officials reconsidered that idea.

"It's not a very good location for a traffic signal," Petty said, citing the steep hill and limited sight lines.

A better alternative, he said, is to put in a roundabout. The idea will be presented to city commissioners at a meeting Thursday. The cost would stay within the $103,000 budgeted for the intersection for this year, Petty said.

The city in the past two years has gone in for roundabouts, which are used at intersections as a way to keep traffic flowing smoothly. They force everyone to make right turns, rather than more dangerous left turns, and cut down the number of points at which traffic conflicts, city officials say.

They're not to be confused with traffic circles, which are the little circles installed in several residential streets to slow traffic.

The city installed a roundabout at Gary and Candlewood avenues, calling it the first modern roundabout in Kansas. City administrators also want to put one at the intersection of Claflin and North Manhattan avenues.

But commissioners in September questioned whether the Claflin/North Manhattan intersection would endanger pedestrians headed to and from the Kansas State University campus. Petty said today his staff did more research and found that the roundabout there would actually make things safer for pedestrians at the intersection. Those findings will also be presented to commissioners Thursday; Petty said he needs a decision soon on the idea.

Petty said his staff is solidly behind the roundabout plan, but the idea of putting one at Claflin and North Manhattan "is not an easily accepted idea."

Although he says he can prove statistically that a roundabout there would be safer, the public's initial reaction to the idea is "That's hard to believe."

He says he's gauging the response from informal discussions with KSU administrators, other city staffers, and citizens. If that can't be overcome, the city will have to pull the plug on the idea, Petty indicated.

City commissioners won't meet as usual Tuesday night -- they're in Washington for a National League of Cities meeting. The meeting is set for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Headquarters Fire Station, 2000 Denison.

MBTC 1099, APPENDIX 6d
ROUNDABOUTS: CITY LIKES THEM, POLICE DON'T
by Ned Seaton, News Editor
Manhattan (KS) Mercury, 4/2/98 (reprinted with permission)

Local officials are starting to sound a bit more interested in the idea of building "roundabouts" at more city intersections -- but police still object to putting one at the most controversial location.

Three city commissioners, several top bureaucrats and two Riley County Police Department officials attended a seminar this week put on by a national expert on roundabouts, which are big circular intersections designed to improve traffic flow.

The seminar, hosted by Kansas State University's Department of Civil Engineering, appeared to convince Mayor Bruce Snead and commissioners Karen McCulloh and Steve Hall that the city ought to use more roundabouts.

"I think it would work," said Hall, who is expected to succeed Snead as mayor next month.

Snead emphasized that he wants more cost-benefit analysis, but he said "the evidence appears pretty good" that roundabouts would help improve safety.

But police weren't totally convinced. They had objected earlier to the idea of putting one at the intersection of North Manhattan and Kimball because it would cause traffic tie-ups during KSU football game days.

The evidence from the seminar didn't change that stance.

"If (the community and KSU) are willing to accept much, much, much slower traffic flow coming out of the stadium, then I have no problem with it," said RCPD Capt. Allen Raynor, who's in charge of the patrol division. "Nothing has convinced me or the police department that this wouldn't create serious problems seven or eight days a year."

Raynor didn't attend the seminar, but he got a briefing Wednesday about all the evidence presented. Raynor said he has no problem with roundabouts elsewhere, and that the evidence from the seminar showed them to be useful if they're done properly.

Manhattan has installed one roundabout at Gary and Candlewood avenues, and has discussed putting them in at two intersections along North Manhattan Avenue -- Claflin and Kimball. Both were put on hold after commissioners two months ago expressed reservations.

McCulloh, Snead and Hall all said they were impressed by the information at the seminar, which featured Michael Wallwork, an expert on roundabouts from Jacksonville, Fla. State road officials from Kansas and Missouri, plus city traffic engineers from around the state, attended.

McCulloh said she was impressed by a video from Vail, Colorado, showing that traffic delays off the interstate had been chopped from a half-hour to nothing because of a roundabout.

"They work," she said. "They really work."

The next task, commissioners said, is to convince the general public that they're a good idea. To that end, they suggested some kind of information campaign.

Snead said he wants city administrators to do further financial analysis on the idea. The subject, with that analysis, will probably come up at a City Commission meeting in May or June, he said.