Carmel roundabouts were supposed to reduce crashes. It hasn't worked out that way.

[Muda69]

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/hamilton-county/carmel/2019/12/01/roundabouts-carmel-indiana-traffic-safety-crashes-increase/2312652001/

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The booming city of Carmel has overhauled its identity in the past two decades, in part through its relentless construction of roundabouts, earning it the unofficial title of “roundabout capital” of the country.

Since 1998, the city has built 128 roundabouts at a cost of between $500,000 to $3 million apiece, and Mayor Jim Brainard has touted them as being safer than intersections with traffic lights and stop signs.

The mayor routinely cites national studies that have found car collisions — especially those that cause severe injuries — are much lower at roundabouts than standard crossings. One study repeatedly cited by Brainard and other roundabout advocates reported a roughly 40% reduction in crashes overall and an 80% drop in wrecks with injuries.

But an IndyStar investigation found that crashes in Carmel have increased, not decreased, often drastically, at many major intersections after they changed from lights or signs to roundabouts. And roundabout crossings are consistently the most crash-prone in Hamilton County, rivaling some of the most dangerous intersections in Indianapolis without them.

Among the findings:

• The number of crashes at some major intersections jumped after roundabouts were installed and have stayed high since, suggesting drivers are not adapting to them.
• Five of the eight intersections in Hamilton County with the most accidents in 2018 and 2017 were roundabouts, four of them are in Carmel and one is in Fishers.
• The overall accident rate and injuries in the city has risen faster than the rate of population growth in the last 10 years as roundabout construction expanded.
• The mayor’s assurances that roundabouts significantly reduce accidents have been based largely on a 19-year-old study of 24 roundabouts across the country that experts say might not apply uniformly to cities.
• The mayor has underplayed the relative cost of building roundabouts compared to traffic signals.

 

Despite the rise in crashes, the injury rate has decreased even as traffic volume increased at most of the intersections examined by IndyStar, indicating the crashes are not as severe.

But those intersections saw few accidents with injuries in the immediate years before the roundabouts were built — usually fewer than five a year — and virtually no auto fatalities. The city has averaged less than two deaths a year on all streets for the last decade.

....

The IndyStar crash findings mirror at least two studies in other states with relatively high numbers of roundabouts. A University of Wisconsin study found a 31% increase in accidents in a statewide analysis of 56 roundabouts. The Minnesota Department of Transportation found that accidents jumped 50% in a study of 144 roundabouts across the state.

The authors of those studies, nevertheless, concluded that the switch to roundabouts was beneficial because of the reductions in fatalities and serious injury accidents, though the reductions were much larger in those states than Carmel. 

....

The most accident-prone intersection in Hamilton County — the roundabout at 116th and Pennsylvania streets — showed a steep rise in crashes after a roundabout was built. In the five years before, the most accidents at the intersection was 13 in 2014. But in 2016 — a year after the roundabout was installed — the number had jumped to 50. In 2017, it increased to 68, and it was 68 again last year. 

 

That intersection is not an anomaly. Three other intersections with high accident rates — 116th Street and Keystone Avenue, Rangeline Road and Carmel Drive and Keystone Parkway and Carmel Drive — all have seen their number of crashes increase since they were converted to roundabouts.

...

A spike in crashes might be a cause for concern for city leaders and drivers, but it's not necessarily bad for business. At least some businesses.

At Abra Auto Body in Carmel, so many damaged cars limp into the garage that the front desk staff laughs about it. At Carmel Auto Collision, the side swipe victims are “pretty much everyday.”

And at Butler Auto Collision, the city’s devotion to roundabout construction has been an unexpected mini-bonanza.

“Most of the accidents are sideswipes but cars can still get totaled in those," Ken Wycoff, Butler’s director, said. "I worked on a car that had $12,000 in damage.There are too many roundabouts of all different kinds and people still don’t know how to use them.”

....

In the insurance industry, the prevalence of accidents at roundabouts has been an open secret for years.

“You can talk to 100 insurance agents in this town and they will all tell you accidents are way up.” said Daniel Weaver, an agent in Carmel for American Family Insurance who has been in business for 47 years and handles about eight roundabout accidents a year. “The frequency of accidents is way, way up but the severity is way down.”

....

The primary study that Brainard and other roundabout champions often cite for their effectiveness was an examination of 24 roundabouts across the country prepared for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in March 2000.

The researchers from the Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto and the University of Maine studied the roundabouts in eight states, which were a mix of urban, suburban and rural.

They found a reduction of 39% for all crashes and 76% for injury crashes. At the time there were very few roundabouts in the United States so the choosing was thin.

...

The debate over roundabout doesn't end with accidents and injuries. There is also cost to consider.

Brainard often says that roundabouts are cheaper than signalized intersections but the opposite is true, especially in the short term, transportation officials said.

The average costs of roundabouts in Carmel is between and estimated $1 and $2 million, city officials said, with the cheapest being for single-lane traffic circles and the most expensive for multi-lane roundabouts that require more land be purchased and underground utility relocation. 

The Carmel mayor’s office did not supply the IndyStar with an itemized list of roundabout costs but the treasurer’s office provided the cost of 17 roundabouts built since 2015. The total: $36.2 million, at an average of $2.1 million per intersection.

The most expensive roundabout was at Executive Drive and Range Line Road, a one-lane roundabout with three spokes that cost $3.7 million and was built in 2017. The cheapest, at Carey Road and 136th Street, was $1.4 million and was also a single-lane, three-spoke roundabout.

An Indiana Department of Transportation spokesman said the average cost to install a new traffic signal is between $250,000 to $500,000 depending on the complexity of the intersection, with annual operating and electricity costs of $5,000 to $8,000. Brainard said the average cost in Carmel is about $300,000 with electricity bills of between $3,500 and $5,000 per year.

Even so, it would take decades of electrical bills to reach the cost of a $1 million roundabout.

....

Twice in the last few years drivers have crashed into the fountain at the center of the roundabout at Main Street and Fourth Avenue West. After the first crash, the city sued the driver for $25,000 in damage.

Sometimes, a roundabout is so dangerous it has to be rebuilt completely. Fishers spent $2 million on a roundabout a few years ago at Olio Road and Southeastern Avenue but saw 68 crashes in 2018 and 72 in 2017. The city sought a state grant to rebuild the roundabout, which was approved over the summer. The cost to rebuild: $3.8 million. The grant will make the approaches to the roundabout easier to navigate for drivers.

Brainard said the city is continually learning what works and what doesn't as it constructs roundabouts. About 1 ½ years after the city built its first two — on Hazel Dell Parkway at 126th Street and Mains Street — engineers made changes to the roundabout. He said the angle of approach was too straight, which encouraged drivers to keep a high speed as they approached and caused accidents.

The city changed the angle of entry so drivers had to slow down to make the turn and that reduced accidents.

Besides introducing his ordinance to require a lower speed limit entering roundabouts, Brainard said he would look at the approach angles as 116th Street and Penn and other roundabouts.

Looks like Mr. Brainard and the Carmel City Council jumped on the "new hotness" and it is still costing drivers and taxpayers.

 

[swordfish]

Same thing in South Bend/St. Joe County and Elkhart County.  Haven't researched traffic stats, but not a lot of love for the new round-abouts......