For pedestrians’ sake traffic will go ‘round
Santa Monica’s first-ever roundabout is planned for what some describe as a dangerous intersection in a northeastern neighborhood.
City officials found that pedestrians were traveling well out of their way to avoid crossing 26th Street at its intersection with Washington Avenue, so they ordered traffic engineers to rework traffic flows.
“It was problematic because kids cross there to get to the Franklin Elementary School,” said Santa Monica City Councilman Kevin McKeown. “And it’s not like you can go around it because it's almost two miles between traffic lights where people can safely cross.”
The city council approved $498,000 for the roundabout and other pedestrian improvements for the intersection last November. A city traffic engineer said the department hopes to have a contractor and city approval to begin construction by June.
In the center of the proposed roundabout will be an island around which traffic entering from 26th Street and Washington Avenue will yield. Once entering the loop, vehicles will have the right of way until they reach their exit.
Since vehicles traveling through the streets will have to yield to traffic in the circle, said Beth Rolandson, a city transportation planner, adding that pedestrians would be given ample opportunity to cross safely.
A 1999 traffic study found that over 18,000 vehicles travel through the intersection of 26th and Washington daily. Because of the high volume, city officials said they could not put up four-way stop signs.
And if the city erected a traffic light, daily commuters would likely use the street as a way to bypass Wilshire Boulevard, over-running the residential side streets with traffic, a city traffic engineer said.
“With the roundabout, people would drive slower through the intersection, giving pedestrians the ability to cross the street while still allowing traffic to flow freely through the area,” Rolandson said.
“With the roundabout, people would drive slower through the intersection...” — — BETH ROLANDSON Transportation planner
Right now, east-west traffic traveling along Washington Avenue backs up at the stop sign at 26th Street. The busy through traffic on 26th Street makes it difficult to make left turns or cross the street from Washington.
“Sometimes this can be a very dangerous place to cross,” said Emrani Heydar, an elderly area resident. “I have to be very careful of all the cars when I’m walking around here.”
The city has said it will study traffic levels when the roundabout opens and six months afterward to check for traffic volume increases. If problems still exist they pledged to develop more “traffic calming measures.”
Santa Barbara recently installed roundabouts successfully, and city officials say they are following that municipality’s example.
“There's going to be a confusion factor in the beginning — there always is,” McKeown said. “But we plan on doing a educational program to let people know how this works.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 14, 2002. Read the original PDF.