Caltrans Will Try Out New Traffic Circle Device in Ojai

To the uninitiated, it looks like just another traffic circle: a round, rotary intersection that whizzes motorists through a kind of automotive revolving door.

But to the state Department of Transportation, it is a modern, British-style roundabout: a subtly, but significantly, improved version of the circular intersection that the agency hopes will revolutionize the way Californians drive.

On Tuesday, Caltrans unveiled its first conceptual drawings of the roundabout to a sometimes skeptical crowd in Ojai, where the device has been proposed for the Y-intersection of California 33 and California 150.

If constructed, the British invention--which differs from American versions primarily in that it assigns the right of way to cars already traveling within the circle--would be the first of its kind in the state and perhaps the country.

“There’s sort of a revolution going on within our profession, and Americans are ignoring the whole thing,” said Leif Ourston, Caltrans’ consultant on the project and a former transportation engineer for the city of Santa Barbara. “We’re trying to bring the revolution that is going on overseas to our shores.”

‘Cautious Interest’

Although Caltrans, which has budgeted $250,000 for the project, is not required to obtain permission from Ojai officials, the agency has said it will not proceed without local support.

In a letter sent last month to Caltrans, Ojai Mayor Frank McDevitt admitted that “something as new and different as a roundabout naturally, and justifiably, creates some apprehension” but nonetheless he expressed “cautious interest” in the plan.

“I think any city would be dumb not to take it--if it works,” McDevitt said in an interview. “Who am I to say it won’t work?”

Some feelings of skepticism are shared even by members of the transportation profession, who have found that American-style rotaries, at least, tend to collapse into horrible gridlocks during peak hours.

“It’s going to be foreign to our California drivers,” said George Gerth, Santa Barbara’s transportation engineer. “Will Californians accept and understand and make the kinds of predictable moves that you would expect? That’s the thing we’re not sure about.”

Widely Used Overseas

But, Ourston said, the British-style intersection, which is being used in countries from England to Norway to Iraq, offers a simple solution to many of California’s seemingly insurmountable traffic problems.

The Ojai proposal--which features a 56-foot-wide island in the center of the intersection with a clearance of about 40 feet between the island and the outside of the circle--would increase traffic flow, reduce congestion and lessen the pollution created by stop-and-go driving, Ourston said.

Moreover, by eliminating overhead signals and the hazard of head-on traffic, roundabouts have typically reduced all accidents by about 40% to 60%, and fatal or serious-injury accidents by 80% to 90%, he said.

“They could and should be used in thousands of places throughout the state,” Ourston said. “And I think they will.”

Three key factors distinguish the British-style roundabout from the oft-disparaged American variety, such as those found in Long Beach, Bakersfield and numerous East Coast cities.

By far the most significant, Ourston said, is the British right-of-way rule. Unlike most American rotaries, which permit entering cars to merge directly into the flow of traffic, approaching motorists will be alerted to yield by warning signs and a broken white line.

“Under capacity, the old-style traffic circles just lock up,” Ourston said. “In the British style, the entering traffic must yield. That keeps the middle part moving, so that you’re always getting maximum performance.”

Secondly, in the roundabout, traffic is forced to slow down by entering at a nearly perpendicular angle, cutting sharply into the circle only at the last minute. In most American versions, cars often enter at a gentler angle, allowing motorists to maintain their speed and seize the right of way from the circulating traffic, Ourston said.

Finally, the lanes feeding to a British roundabout flare out three to four times wider just before they merge into the circle, thus increasing capacity by permitting several cars to enter simultaneously at peak traffic hours.

“If it is installed in the right place and designed and controlled the right way, a British-style roundabout will do everything we want an intersection to do,” Ourston said. “It is the key to unlocking our streets.”

The 50 Ojai residents who gathered at Jack Boyd Community Center for three hours Tuesday night were not all convinced.

Most had concerns about specific issues, such as the impact on bicyclists, pedestrians and nearby intersections. Others expressed uneasiness about being used as the American testing ground for the invention.

“I just feel like we’re being made guinea pigs,” said Dennis Bisek, whose wife owns Ojai Woman, a clothing shop at the intersection. “And I don’t think there’s that much to gain from it.”

But some, such as William Noack, who said he has driven roundabouts on vacations to England over the last several years, extolled their virtues.

“I’m quite sold on them,” said Noack, owner of the Time Portal book store. “It’s so much better than just stopping and sitting and waiting. . . . I never had any problem catching on.”

Not all traffic engineers, however, are quite as optimistic that American drivers will adjust.

Thomas Brahms, executive director of the Institute of Transportation Engineers in Washington, applauded Caltrans for pioneering the project but said he is unsure whether American motorists would accept the necessary changes in driving habits.

“In the United States, the traffic stream is used to more regimentation,” said Brahms, whose organization represents 9,000 traffic engineers in 74 countries. “Traffic signals and stop signs provide a much more precise assignment of right of way.

“But when you come to a rotary, you have less precision and start to have more ambiguities,” he said. “It’s always an interpretation of who entered first.”

Wolfgang Homburger, assistant director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California, Berkeley, expressed similar reservations.

“To Californians, it will take a while,” Homburger said. “There’s going to have to be a relearning. It will be very interesting to see if in Ojai--if they do good publicity and tell the citizenry how it works--whether they’ll learn.”

But Ourston’s adviser, British traffic engineer Frank Blackmore, who is considered the father of the modern roundabout, is hopeful that the Ojai project will demonstrate what he says are the advantages of England’s right-of-way rules.

“The roundabout is based on drivers’ controlling things themselves,” Blackmore said in a telephone interview from his home in Wokingham, England. “The big advantage is that drivers take their cue from other vehicles; they have their eye on the source of danger.

“When you’re looking at traffic lights turning from red to green, you’re looking at quite indifferent and quite detached objects,” he said. “You don’t have your eye on the thing that is most important.”

England’s first roundabouts were developed in the 1950s, but it was not until 1962, after Blackmore had joined the British Transport and Road Research Laboratory, that the circular intersections became institutionalized in the country’s roadways.

Over the last 25 years, Blackmore has helped develop hundreds of other roundabouts throughout 10 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

“I’d very much like to contribute to Leif’s revolution, if that’s what he calls it,” Blackmore said. “Certainly, many countries have already taken to it in a big way.”

Ourston, who for years has been advocating the British design for the state’s highways, finally sparked Caltrans’ interest in 1985. After a warm reception from Ojai officials in October, 1986, Ourston was awarded the contract for the project by the state agency earlier this year.

“None of us in Caltrans have had any experience with these things,” senior traffic engineer Al Maas said. “But the only way to gain experience is to put one in. Hopefully, it will serve as a learning experience for traffic engineers throughout California.”

In September, Ourston, Blackmore and Caltrans officials first presented the concept--without any visual diagrams--to a crowd of about 50 people at Ojai’s Matilija Junior High School, where they were given an icy greeting.

Condition of Support

“They blew it last time,” Mayor McDevitt said. “They didn’t have much of a drawing to show what they were proposing”

In his letter last month to Caltrans, McDevitt said that as a condition of support from the city, the state agency would have to guarantee that the intersection would be restored and the signals returned if the roundabout is not successful.

Caltrans agreed to the stipulation in a letter to McDevitt this week.

After fielding questions from residents Tuesday night, Ourston said he would revise his proposal to meet community concerns about pedestrian and bicyclist safety.

Another public meeting was scheduled at the community center for Dec. 10 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss those revisions.

“There’s no way it will be jammed down your throats,” Ourston said.