Saskatchewan has adopted a European concept for the new overpass near Balgonie.
The government has opted for traffic circles, or roundabouts, for each end of the overpass. It’s a departure from what you would normally see. In fact, they’re the first traffic circles to be employed in this province for some time.
These are a popular, and seemingly efficient, means of taking care of traffic flows in Europe. They have been around for decades, and European motorists are used to them.
For many North Americans who have never been to Europe, and have never seen a traffic circle, our strongest memory of them might be the classic movie National Lampoon’s European Vacation, when Clark Griswold completes numerous laps in one, despite his family’s eventual annoyance.
These roundabouts are finding their way to North America, and are becoming more common in larger centres as a means to regulate traffic. They are cheaper than traffic lights, more efficient than four-way stops at busy intersections, and relatively easy to use if you’re used to them.
In fact, there was faint talk of having a traffic circle for the junction of Highway 47 and Estevan’s truck bypass. We’re pretty happy that option wasn’t pursued.
If the Balgonie experiment pans out, we wonder how long it will be before they are employed elsewhere in the province, and if they would ever find their way to Estevan.
We can think of a few areas where a traffic circle might prove to be an effective option, such as the entrances for Walmart on Kensington Avenue.
It’s a busy area, but there likely isn’t enough traffic to warrant traffic lights. There are some heavy trucks that use those intersections for deliveries, but not a lot. And it would be easier to use a traffic circle than to turn left onto Kensington Avenue.
Other viable options might be Wellock Road and Souris Avenue North, and Perkins Street and Souris Avenue South.
Obviously, some reconfiguring of these intersections would need to happen for the traffic circle to be effective, but it might be worth a look.
At the same time, traffic circles require motorists to adapt, and we’ve seen recently that local motorists don’t always do a good job of making changes.
Just look at how people were confounded by the traffic flow changes near King Street and Bannatyne Avenue. You thought people’s failures to adapt to that situation were ridiculous?
Imagine how tough it would be for some people to navigate a traffic circle for the first time.
Or imagine the rage that would permeate social media if someone wound up going in the wrong direction because they couldn’t quite grasp the concept of the roundabout.
Maybe we’ll just have to accept traffic patterns the way they are, and leave the roundabouts to Europe and overpasses.
