For Kevin with Love!

Here is one for Lakeshore Lament's Kevin!

I am in full concurrment with the letter. Roundabouts are very good where they are appropriate.

Found in the Appleton Post Crescent. I have nothing to add other then the above comment.

Letters: Roundabouts nothing for motorists to fear


While I empathize with Robert Malinoski’s unfortunate experience (The P-C, July 9), he is incorrect in his comparison of traffic circles and the roundabout proposed by the City of Neenah.

Many circular intersections in the eastern U.S., such as Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., are traffic circles, not roundabouts and confusion is common.

The only similarity between a traffic circle and a roundabout is that they are both circular in shape.

Roundabouts are designed to be driven at slow speeds. Based on the layout of a roundabout, vehicles physically can’t drive faster than 15-20 mph. This alone increases the safety of the intersection just by slowing drivers down. Due to their large size, traffic circles encourage vehicles to increase their speed.

Roundabouts have traffic entering the intersection yield to traffic inside the roundabout. Traffic circles function just the opposite and cause the vehicles inside to stop to those entering, which causes them to stop functioning when volumes are heavy.

A common concern heard is their proximity to schools. Brown County has constructed roundabouts in front of De Pere and Bay Port high schools and the City of West Bend has a roundabout within a mile of its high school. These communities have received favorable responses regarding these roundabouts, especially when school is dismissed.

A roundabout can easily accommodate semi-trucks when properly sized. Brown County constructed a roundabout along Scheuring Road near the Fox River Fiber Corp., featured in the Green Bay Press-Gazette on July 28, 2004, with positive comments from Fox River Fiber Corp. and Schneider National.

Roundabouts are not some alien “thing.” It’s just an intersection, made of concrete or asphalt with curb and gutter put together in such a way that makes it a whole lot safer for us to get from point A to point B.

Sandra Carpenter, P.E.,