Cutting corners in Marion

So it looks like 2015 will be the year of the roundabout in Marion.

Steady now. Don't get dizzy.

Marion City Engineer Dan Whitlow says as many as four roundabout projects could start rolling in 2015. That includes the granddaddy of them all, the eagerly anticpated/long-dreaded roundabout at Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street on the main east-west route through town.

Once a white-hot issue in Marion, I sense opposition to these concrete Christmas wreaths is now a slow smolder. But angst persists.

When I checked in with the Marion City Council Tuesday evening, I heard a mini debate over a 'mini roundabout.” Turns out it's in my own neighborhood, at the intersection of 29th Avenue and 35th Street, also known as the intersection I pass through repeatedly in a never-ending effort to turn my paycheck over to Hy-Vee and its helpful smiles.

It's a bear of an intersection during commute times, and locals have been calling for a four-way stop. Instead, it looks like we're getting a mini roundabout, thanks to $164,000 in state Traffic Safety Improvement funding that would cover 80 percent of the cost. The City Council is expected to take up an engineering contract tonight.

Not everyone is feeling big excitement about this mini roundabout. Council member Mary Lou Pazour questioned whether '$400” worth of stop signs would be better. She also insists the project is pricier than advertised because the city is buying two homes at the intersection to make room.

Mayor Snooks Bouska is worried that heavy traffic on 29th Avenue will strand 35th Street drivers at the roundabout's mouth. 'Who's going to allow people on 35th to get into the process?” Bouska asked.

'That is kind of the magic of a roundabout,” Whitlow said. He then explained how motorists entering the roundabout tend to briefly 'pause and hold,” leaving time for others to enter the flow.

Whitlow says a four-way stop won't work because lined-up traffic would block residential driveways. Traffic signals would cost $500,000. And those two houses at issue were going to be purchased anyway, because the city knows that, eventually, the intersection will need to be expanded. Traffic flow will increase as development blossoms to the north.

In fact, in 10 years, Whitlow said our mini roundabout could become a full-sized one. They grow up so fast.

Whitlow said two other roundabouts are slated along Sixth Avenue, one at 15th Street and the other near 27th Street as Sixth Avenue expands eastward as part of the Central Corridor project. Another future roundabout is in the works for Alburnett Road and Echo Hill Road in far north Marion.

Some folks love them, some hate them, and a few think they're a U.N. plot. But I expect once they're in place, most people likely will shrug, slow down and drive on through. Even that slow smolder may be snuffed out, although 2015 is a big city election year. Roundabouts have become shorthand for concerns over all sorts of changes, initiatives and pricey projects being pursued in the name of growth and improvement. So this debate may keep going around and around.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com.