Anchorage Daily News

Nearly eight years after Anchorage's first roundabout baffled drivers, we're getting the hang of them.

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Good thing.

The newest roundabout, at Huffman Road and the Old Seward Highway, should open this week. Counting it, Anchorage now has seven in five locations around town. Two are doubles, shaped like a dog bone.

And more are coming. The state plans three additional roundabouts along Huffman, and the city intends to put one in at Klatt Road and C Street.

They're being constructed in other parts of the state, too: the Mat-Su, Fairbanks, Douglas Island and Sitka.

"You can get much more traffic through, much more safely, through a roundabout," said Rick Feller, a Department of Transportation spokesman.

For motorists sick of getting caught by the light at Huffman and Old Seward, the newest roundabout should shave time off travels. That's one big benefit -- no red lights.

Still, roundabouts have their problems. The DOT is tweaking the complicated double roundabout at Dowling Road and the Seward Highway. Crashes rose dramatically after it opened in 2004 though the numbers more recently have been dropping. Work being done this weekend is supposed to slow drivers down and better guide them.

"We said from day one there were would be a learning curve," said Ron Martindale, DOT's highway safety improvement program coordinator.

Dowling aside, drivers have come to accept roundabouts here, just as they do around the country once they get over initial skepticism and gain experience, he said.

"We're not looking back," Martindale said. "Our experiences have been positive enough."

Even residents in the Bayshore area, home to Anchorage's first roundabout in 2001, have come around. That circle got a makeover the next year because too many vehicles spun out of control with the original design.

"If everybody plays nicely in the circles, the traffic does flow better," said Bob Hoffman, president of Bayshore/Klatt Community Council.

THE DOWLING DILEMMA

Roundabouts have become immensely popular around the country. Experts say they are safer and keep traffic moving better than old-style intersections with stop signs and traffic lights. And they're cheaper to maintain.

The basic rules: Go slowly. Yield to vehicles already in the circle. Don't drive side-by-side. Figure out the proper lane ahead of time by reading the signs.

Not everyone gets it, especially on Dowling, where workers were fine tuning the double roundabout over Labor Day weekend.

The Dowling circles are small and difficult to maneuver, DOT officials concede. Dowling's complicated spiraling design, with the outer lane peeling off as a new lane begins inside the circle, confuses unfamiliar motorists. They also are the busiest roundabouts in Anchorage.

Some drivers, especially those going east and west on Dowling, flew through at 30 mph or faster even though the advisory speed for those circles is 15 mph, Martindale said. Others trying to enter the roundabouts struggled to find a safe gap; traffic backed up more than it should have, he said.

Workers are adding what's known as "speed tables," sort of like a wide speed bump with a flat top, to slow down drivers.

Crews are grooving in the roundabout stripes and arrows a half-inch deep to guide drivers around the circles. They also are putting in new curbs, where there were yellow markings, to direct drivers into the correct lane in a couple of tricky spots, Martindale said.

Most crashes in roundabouts are minor sideswipes or fender benders. Studies cited by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety show that when intersections are converted to roundabouts, injury crashes usually drop by 75 to 80 percent and all crashes drop by about 40 percent.

While Martindale has photos proving a double-semi truck can oh-so-carefully negotiate the Dowling circles, most truckers stay away because of the tight curves, said Aves Thompson, executive director of the Alaska Trucking Association.

DOT officials say they expect the crash numbers for Dowling to drop further with the changes. They aren't changing the design -- they are trying to get motorists to drive it the way they are supposed to.

SUCCESSFUL ROUNDABOUTS

Like most drivers, truckers love the big roundabouts at C Street and O'Malley Road, which were designed with big rigs in mind.

"That's worked out quite well because of its size," Thompson said. "Some of the drivers think it's pretty slick because they don't need to stop."

In fact, the success of the C Street roundabouts turned around skittish residents who might have lined up in opposition to the Huffman project, said Berni Bradley, president of the Old Seward/Klatt Community Council and owner of the Bradley House bar and restaurant.

"The volume of traffic that goes through there -- it just flows through," Bradley said.

Before the highway overpass and C Street roundabouts were constructed, that was a dangerous intersection. In 1996, a 19-year-old drunk driver plowed through a flashing red light there, into the path of a pickup truck. Three of her friends riding in the back seat were killed. That sort of wreck can't happen at a roundabout, DOT officials say.

A TRAIN MOTIF

The newest roundabout will be similar to those on C Street, said Shaun Combs, the DOT project engineer.

It's a single circle where Huffman Road dead-ends at the Old Seward Highway.

The intersection has been closed since Aug. 21 while crews grade, pave and landscape the circle, Combs said.

The roundabout was constructed as part of a $28.5 million road-widening project on Old Seward from Brandon Street to O'Malley Road. More than 90 percent of the funding is federal.

The project adds a center turn lane; two new traffic lanes for most of the section north of Huffman; storm drains; curbs and gutters; and a 10-foot-wide multi-use path on the west side of Old Seward plus a 5-foot path on the east side. The prime contractor is QAP.

The additional lanes are needed to ease rush hour and Saturday traffic snarls, said Jim Amundsen, design project manager. Along the busiest stretch, from Klatt Road to O'Malley, an average of 24,000 vehicles pass through each day. At times, Old Seward would get so backed up that drivers couldn't even make a left turn onto it, said Bradley, who has been pushing for the road to be widened for years.

All spring and summer, "it's been a scheduling dance," Combs said. A lot of the work, like the moving of utility lines and a new drainage system, isn't visible to the public. Big new storm pipes are being installed along Old Seward and Brandon to capture water and divert it from the roads. That should prevent the gigantic, car-damaging potholes along the Huffman-Old Seward intersection.

The finished roundabout includes landscaping and will have extra touches, some that play off the nearby train tracks: Steel cutout panels with images of a train going over an old-fashioned trestle will be installed around the edges of the concrete planter in the roundabout's center.

A concrete barrier wall at the far edge will be topped with more steel cutouts resembling passengers on a train. Cute green light poles will illuminate the cross walks and bus stops.

The landscaped center of the roundabout is tilted; Combs said it's designed to follow the grade of the road.

Drivers should find the new roundabout easy to navigate, Combs said. Basically, get in the left lane if you want to turn left; stay to the right to go straight or turn right.

Crews worked all night paving over the weekend. Now the asphalt needs to cure and the lanes need striping.

Weather permitting, the roundabout should open Friday.

Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.

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