Here’s what’s behind the roundabout-ification of Minnesota roads

The Minnesota Department of Transportation wants to make a deadly stretch of Highway 7 in the west metro less dangerous.

Many intersections along the 18-mile stretch from Hopkins to St. Bonifacius have concerningly high crash rates, including head-ons and T-bones that can leave people severely injured or dead.

One option being studied to fix it is “roundabout corridors,” bringing as many as 11 circular intersections to the roadway.

“The roundabout corridor really scores high for safety,” Bolton and Menk Senior Project Manager Paul Glaser said in a recent public meeting to discuss options for the western segment of the stretch. “It probably has the highest safety benefit of any alternative.”

In recent years, conversations like this one have launched the roundabout from relative obscurity to a common feature of Minnesota roads, numbering roughly 550 by one count from transportation engineering firm Kittelson and Associates.

Roundabouts are in every corner of Minnesota. There are roundabouts in Sartell, Mankato, Richfield, Elko New Market and Lakeville. There are so many in Woodbury that a local news newsletter is named for them. A roundabout helps drivers navigate a farm field crossroads outside New Ulm. One in Northfield incorporates a muraled pedestrian tunnel.

But while the rise in roundabouts is heralded by traffic engineers as a major safety improvement, it remains polarizing among Minnesota’s driving public.

“Court of public opinion, the jury is still out on them,” said Bemidji City Engineer Sam Anderson. “In a conversation with a stranger, it usually starts with ‘Are you Republican or are you Democrat?’, and then the next conversation is ‘Do you like roundabouts or don’t you like roundabouts?’”

Roundabouts have been in widespread use for a long time, just not here — making them prime punchline fodder in the U.S. In 1985’s “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” the Griswolds got stuck in one in London. So did the Simpsons in a 2003 episode.

Modern roundabouts — the ones you find on moderate speed roads, versus the small traffic-calming circles found in urban areas — began to catch on in the U.S. in 1990, and Minnesota added its first in 1995. Ever since, the number of roundabouts in Minnesota has grown.

Kyle Shelton, the director of the University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies attributes the rise in roundabouts to their effectiveness — and a rising traffic safety crisis.

“My guess is that the majority of that comes from the recognition that, A, they are really effective, and B, the growing crisis of traffic safety and traffic fatalities and injuries,” he said. That, and engineers are a chatty bunch and like to share ideas.

“People follow what works, and they have these networks, and they talk to each other,” he said.

Research shows roundabouts do improve safety: A MnDOT report found they reduce serious and fatal crashes by more than 80%.

They do this by slowing cars down before they reach an intersection, and by changing the angle at which cars interact.

“Crashes happen at more of a sideswipe-type of an angle rather than than the T-Bone,” said Tony Kutzke, the city engineer for Woodbury, which has 22 roundabouts and counting.

They’re also an improvement for pedestrian safety, because they reduce the number of lanes walkers and cyclists cross at once.

“They’re oftentimes crossing one or two lanes at time rather than a wide intersection with many turn lanes and multiple approach lanes,” Kutzke said.

Compared to stoplights, roundabouts can reduce delays at intersections by keeping cars flowing — both at high- and low-traffic times.

Bemidji has several roundabouts on a main road near its high school. Anderson, the city engineer, said that helps keep the bursts of before- and after-school traffic moving, but it also means no waiting when the road is empty.

“At 2 a.m., it’s really nice to have a roundabout because there’s usually nobody else on the roads,” he said. “Sometimes a traffic signal is staged where it just flips from red to green. There’s no signal timing, and so you get stopped at a red light and there’s not anybody even awake.”

Roundabouts lessen fatal and serious crashes, but they seem to increase the number of annoying interactions drivers have with others who are still learning to use them. That’s one reason they remain polarizing, traffic engineers said.

Rachel Lahlum of Ramsey had one such interaction at an Anoka roundabout recently.

As she was waiting to enter the roundabout, a woman driving around it stopped, yielding to her — despite having the right of way, as all vehicles inside a roundabout do.

“She gave me a nice, friendly wave. She’s clearly trying to give me my turn to come in,” Lahlum said. After Lahlum shook her head “no,” the driver beckoned more insistently before getting agitated, pointing her finger at the yield sign and yelling. The woman drove off — through both lanes of the roundabout.

“I had to laugh. I really do think she was trying to be nice, but stopping in a roundabout is like stopping at a green light,” Lahlum said.

The experience prompted Lahlum to post a link to MnDOT’s roundabout guidance on the local Facebook page for anyone who needed a reminder. After all, she said, Minnesotans are notoriously still learning to zipper merge.

To paraphrase the rules of roundabouts here, drivers should slow down when approaching roundabouts, yield to pedestrians and yield to drivers who are already in the roundabout. Wait until it’s safe, then merge into traffic.

In multi-lane roundabouts, drivers should choose a lane based on where they will exit the roundabout, with the left lane generally for U-turns or left turns.

Cyclists may bike through roundabouts as if they are cars or use crosswalks.

Lahlum said she likes roundabouts, but acknowledges they come with a learning curve and not something everyone learned about in drivers ed — including her.

Lahlum, 35, said her North Branch driving instructor told the class to learn about roundabouts for the written test, “but then you can ignore the rest of it because you’ll never see one here.”

North Branch now has two roundabouts with a third expected by the end of the year.