Cedar Rapids council member Vernon doesn't want roundabout near Washington

Cedar Rapids City Council member Monica Vernon wants the city to shelve a proposal to build the city's first roundabout on a city street at the intersection of Cottage Grove Avenue SE and Forest Drive SE outside of Washington High School.

The intersection is in Vernon's District 2 council district, and Vernon said on Wednesday that she has fielded numerous citizen objections to the proposed roundabout since the City Council decided last week to accept a $514,160 state clean-air grant to pay much of the cost of the roundabout.

Last week, Vernon emphasized that the council's vote was a move to simply position the city to obtain the grant funds and was not a final decision to transform the four-way-stop intersection into a roundabout.

On Wednesday, she said that the reservations she had last week had turned into opposition to the proposed roundabout at the proposed site.

"I think we're trying to solve a problem we don't have," Vernon said.

On the nine-member City Council where five of the seats are district seats, a district council member's opinion about what happens in a district can matter. Just last September, for instance, the city dropped a proposal for a raised, plant-filled median on First Avenue East between 27th and 40th streets after businesses along First Avenue East complained and Vernon objected.

On Wednesday, Vernon said she has lived near the Cottage Grove Avenue-Forest Drive intersection for most of her life, and she said the intersection turns into a "pinch point" of traffic congestion around 8 a.m. during the workweek, but otherwise the intersection works well. High school students leaving for the day don't conflict with people coming home from work in the late afternoon, she said.

Easing congestion and reducing starts and stops and so reducing vehicle emissions has been cited by city officials as a key justification for the roundabout at the intersection.

Vernon said residents of senior-living communities near the intersection and from the Sutherland Square neighborhood next to it have contacted her to voice objections to the roundabout, which would require motorists to yield to traffic coming from the left.

At-large council member Ann Poe, who also lives near Washington High School, said on Wednesday that neighbors in the area have contacted her as well to register their objections. As of now, Poe said she opposes the roundabout proposed outside the school.

"I just think it makes traffic go a lot quicker through that intersection," Poe said. "And with all the pedestrian traffic, the older people and students in the neighborhood, I'm all about slowing people down not making them go faster through there. So I'm not in favor as of right now. …"

Vernon and Poe said they expect the council committees on which they sit to take up a review of the roundabout proposal in the near future.

Vernon said she initially thought that the proposed roundabout could fit into the existing right of way of Cottage Grove Avenue and Forest Drive, but she said she now realizes that the city will need to acquire more property, though no homes for the project. She doesn't like that idea.

She also noted that the state clean-air grant requires city to contribute $128,540 to the project cost. She said the city should use those local funds to resurface problem streets.

At the same time, Vernon said she supports the concept of the roundabout elsewhere in the city because a roundabout does not have the ongoing utility costs and maintenance costs of traffic signals at intersections.

The city also is looking to install a roundabout at Kirkwood Boulevard SW and 76th Avenue SW, which Vernon said might be a better spot for the first roundabout on a Cedar Rapids city street. Kirkwood Community College has installed a roundabout on its campus.