Idaho Falls residents get questions answered about proposed roundabout

IDAHO FALLS — The City Council chambers hosted toy cars on Wednesday night as part of an open house aimed at teaching drivers how a new roundabout at Birch Street and South Boulevard will work.

City Engineer Jon Knowles said he heard mostly positive feedback on the roundabout from those who attended.

“This evening, what we’re hoping to teach people, or help them understand, is that roundabouts are a great option for an intersection like this,” Knowles said.

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He said the intersection, which is currently controlled by a stop sign on Birch Street, gets pretty busy at 5 p.m. and people in the area have reported multiple crashes there.

As the intersection is now, Knowles said someone may be stopped at Birch Street and waiting for a gap in traffic on South Boulevard, get impatient, and make a poor decision, speeding into traffic. On top of that, he said, traffic on South Boulevard may be going a little faster than it should, as drivers want to get home.

Knowles says a roundabout in a three-approach intersection like this one is safer because it reduces the number of “conflict points,” or places where a car crash can occur. Three-approach intersections have nine conflict points, he said, while a roundabout at the same intersection reduces the number of conflict points to six.

The roundabout also “reduces the severity of crashes as people are slowing down to go through and curve around the roundabout,” Knowles said.

According to a news release from the City of Idaho Falls, staffers are still taking feedback on the roundabout. Knowles said the project still can be tweaked a bit. Those who were not able to attend Wednesday’s open house can email their feedback to ifeng@idahofalls.gov.

Knowles also pointed out that once the roundabout is created, there will be new medians on Birch Street and South Boulevard that will prevent left turns from an alley, from 6th Street and from North Ridge Ave. Instead, motorists will need to adjust and, in some cases, make a right turn, go around the roundabout, and then keep going in their originally intended direction.

Two attendees, Mya James and Mike Quinn, said they live in the area and came to the open house to see how the changes to the intersection would affect their day-to-day lives. They said they got all their questions answered and the roundabout “sounds good.”

“They’re going to keep traffic open both ways through most of the project,” Quinn said. “That was our biggest concern.”

“It shouldn’t affect your daily commute too much,” James said.

Another attendee, Canon Browning, said he attended partly because of a government class he’s taking in high school, and also because he drives it every day to get to school.

Browning said he has heard concerns that the day care and other businesses near the intersection will be impacted by the project, and it might be harder for them to navigate around the medians, but it will be OK for him.

“I’ll be able to get to school OK, which will be nice,” Browning said. “Personally, I think it’s a good idea.”

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