VTrans eyes major shift for traffic circle as Main Street work wraps up

April 1, 2021 | By Igor N.Tern 

Chevron directional arrows can be remounted to point in the opposite direction if VTrans proceeds with plan to redirect the Waterbury roundabout. Photo by Gordon Miller

Representatives from the Vermont Agency of Transportation are scheduled to make a presentation to the Waterbury Select Board next Monday to review final work on Main Street for the 2021 season and discuss a significant change proposed for the roundabout intersection of U.S. Routes 2 and Vermont Route 100.

Following public comment, the first agenda item reads: "Main Street Reconstruction Final Phase / Roundabout Redirection" with Transportation Liaison Barb Farr listed as introducing the topic to the board.

Town Manager William Shepeluk said the discussion will cover the remaining punch list for the Main Street work such as the finishing top layer of asphalt, installing the remaining new street lamps, and striping crosswalks and other safety features.

The roundabout item falls under the latter category, Shepeluk said. "As VTrans directs the contractors to complete the lane markings, crosswalks, and parking spaces, they have shared with us an additional phase to the project for new signage at the roundabout," he said. "Apparently, they have done a study that says the traffic pattern should be changed."

VTrans project engineer Ray Wright said the agency last fall collected data using traffic surveillance cameras trained at the busy traffic circle. The study was done following a Vermont State Police report to agency Secretary Joe Flynn that found that after five years, a significant number of motorists are still entering the roundabout and traveling to the left - clockwise - rather than to the right in the counterclockwise direction the original design called for.

"No one anticipated drivers' reflexive response to naturally want to proceed to the left, rather than the right," Wright said. "We couldn't find any evidence in the transportation planning literature that would have had us design it that way."

The work to install new signage and repaint directional lines will be an add-on to the contract already in place for this summer's Main Street work, Farr said. "Some new signs will be needed, some can be reused," she explained. "Those chevron signs can just be remounted pointing in the other direction."

VTrans highway planners also view the step as a pilot project. Wright explained that results of the switch to the left at the Waterbury roundabout will be evaluated and used to determine whether traffic circles in Manchester, Winooski, Hyde Park and Morrisville should undergo a similar shift. "We're not sure it will be necessary in all of these places," Wright said. "We haven't seen as strong a pattern for turning left rather than right in these other locations." 

For now, state transportation officials will brief the select board Monday with a request to schedule a public hearing sometime in May to both explain the data and rationale, and to hear from the public.

Select Board Chair Mark Frier said he expects that the board will still be meeting remotely in May. "We may have to upgrade the municipal Zoom account before this," he said. 

 Igor N. Tern is an April Fool’s Day correspondent for Waterbury Roundabout.