Moses Lake City Council members received an update on the upcoming installation of a traffic circle at the intersection of North Grape Drive and state Route 17 during the council’s Dec. 14 meeting.

“This project will replace the current signal at the intersection of state Route 17 and Grape Drive with a multi-lane roundabout and it is funded through the (Washington Department of Transportation) Collision Reduction Program,” said WSDOT Assistant Project Engineer Justin Hammond.

The cost for the project is about $2.3 million, Hammond said, and is anticipated to begin in early April of 2022. He estimated completion would come in early August of next year. The project, which will take place primarily in the space the roadway already covers, will cause changes in traffic patterns for both vehicles and pedestrians. During the first six weeks of construction, Hammond said vehicles traveling northbound on state Route 17 will be detoured onto North Stratford Road, West Valley Road and North Grape Drive. During that same period, southbound traffic will be routed onto North Grape Drive, Maple Drive Northeast and Stratford Road Northeast.

After the first six weeks, an additional eight weeks of construction will occur with flaggers and other precautions in place, Hammond said. The traffic circle will be open as a single-lane throughway while the construction of the remaining lanes is completed.

Hammond said the primary reason for the change from a lighted intersection to a roundabout is to reduce the number and severity of crashes at that intersection. During a study spanning from 2011 to 2015, the intersection saw three times the number of crashes found at similar intersections, Hammond said. The WSDOT website indicates that 19 of those accidents resulted in injuries. During the monitoring period from 2016 to 2020, that number increased slightly to 54. That brought it to the top of the study’s priority list, he said.

“When we compared what it would cost to construct a roundabout there it provided a higher safety benefit than other intersections, potentially, so that is why it rose to the top and got funded for this project,” Hammond said.

Traffic circles have been studied from a statistical perspective by the Federal Highway Administration, Hammond said. During that research, the federal organization found that roundabouts can reduce serious and fatal injuries significantly.

Deputy Mayor Daryl Jackson voiced support for the project, and he acknowledged that roundabouts put in on Yonezawa Boulevard have been beneficial. Another roundabout is being planned at Yonezawa Boulevard and state Route 17, he said, which will likely cause complaints for commuters in the city.

“I guess (my) comment is, you’re going to have (state Route) 17 pretty well tore up the next couple years. That’s quite an impact,” Jackson said.

Jackson added that the roundabout on Yonezawa Boulevard was the third in the state and while it had led to frustrations in the community during construction, it had turned out to be a “godsend” once completed.

A Moses Lake resident, Mick Hansen, said he was not in favor of the project and wished WSDOT would consider an overpass at the North Grape Drive and state Route 17 intersection instead. He said he felt that added traffic from a nearby food bank and other factors would make it a dangerous situation for pedestrians and motorists. He also said his niece had already been hit by a car at that intersection a few years ago and he did not want anything to make the situation more dangerous there.

Hammond explained that an overpass would create more opportunities for accidents, especially those with serious injuries or fatalities in comparison to a roundabout. Additionally, he said, an overpass is considerably more expensive than a roundabout. However, he did say that the intersection’s crash activity would be continuously monitored and other plans may be implemented if they are found to be more feasible over time.

“If it ends up being a hot spot, that would be something that we would continue to work out in the future, so it can be an incremental solution, if necessary,” Hammond said.

For more information on roundabouts, visit https://bit.ly/FHARoundabout.