If you care to thumb through this week’s Seven Days, you’ll find a little story about the hipsterfication of Winooski. Well, not exactly. It’s more about how the tiny city is leveraging the talents of its newest residents — young creatives — to make itself rad. (Read: hipsterfication) Leading the charge is Jessica Bridge, Realtor, tattoo studio owner, lady about town and president of the WInooski Community Partnership, the downtown business group charged with upping the city’s awesome quotient.
When I talked with Bridge for the story, we spent a lot of time gabbing about the 10-ton elephant in the middle of the street — the rotary. Actually, it’s technically not a rotary; it’s a roundabout, or so says the city manager. But who can trust those people? Can you call it a traffic circle? What about a thoroughfare oval? A vehicular infield?
Anyway, here’s what Bridge had to say about the roundabout: Get over it. Literally, that’s what she said. I should put that in quotes so you know I didn’t make it up. Since the roundabout was constructed six years ago as a way to make traffic flow more efficiently, people have used it as an excuse for why people don’t come to Winooski and why businesses don’t set up shop there. But, argued Bridge, the roundabout is not the cause of the city’s issues. So get over it.
The roundabout serves a function. It wasn’t meant to be anything but a traffic calming device. That it was even landscaped in the center is a bonus, regardless of whether or not the city’s residents take advantage of the 14 benches scattered inside the roundabout. As Bridge said, it’s not going to be a skatepark or an amphitheatre or an ice skating rink, so get over it. Though it might be a sculpture park, if the WCP gets its way.
Despite its being such a huge part of downtown ‘Noosk’s built landscape, I’ve hardly given a thought to the roundabout. I used to live in the UK, which I’m pretty sure invented the roundabout in some quaint thatch-roof cottage in the Cotswolds, so I’m pretty familiar with how to navigate them. Winooski’s has never seemed all that exceptional or problematic. But perhaps that’s because I don’t live there and don’t tend to think about things that do not immediately or directly affect me. Like Kim Kardashian’s ass. Or third world debt.
But, since I’m a bangin’-ass journalist and all about “participant observation,” I figured I needed to actually witness the impacts the roundabout has on the city. And what better way to do that than by hanging out inside the roundabout?
I figured I would stay there for an hour — it was a beautiful day, and I could work on my tan while getting paid. (Really, let’s not kid ourselves — I’d have to camp out there for three years to get any color). I sat on one of the benches, applied some SPF 3000 and began observing.
And really, there was nothing to see. At least not inside the roundabout.
Every so often, a person would walk past me, crossing from one side of the roundabout to the other. None of them tarried in the space, despite the soothing water feature and swaths of green grass just begging to be sat upon. By my count, 15 people walked through the roundabout in an hour, en route to somewhere else. There were a couple of college-aged folks shuffling to Spinner Place, a pair of kids on scooters and a father/daughter combo carrying fishing poles and a tackle box. Cute.
After about 15 minutes of observing, I was cooking on that bench and decided to move to some shade. I parked it under one of the roundabout’s many trees and resumed my “reporting.” I will tell you that watching traffic is an acquired taste, like okra or men with hairy backs. It’s generally pretty boring. Cars sped around the roundabout’s curves, one after another, in an endless stream of metal and rubber. I tried counting the vehicles, but my efforts were futile. Plus, counting traffic is stupid. Unless you’re Rain Man.
But, while I was trying to count, I witnessed a highly entertaining exchange between the respective drivers of a Ford F-150 and a Honda Civic, which I will recount for you below.
In this production of “Roundabout Road Rage,” the role of Maniac will be played by the late Macho Man Randy Savage, while snapping into a Slim Jim. The role of Pencil Neck will be played by that guy who played Lewis in Revenge of the Nerds.
Maniac driving the F-150 (to the Honda Civic): “Stay in your fucking lane!”
Pencil Neck operating the Honda Civic: “Fuck off!”
And scene.
Wow. High drama at the roundabout. Sadly, that was about as interesting as it got. Flags fluttered, seagulls turned, the occasional plane roared overhead. But no more road rage. Soon I was lulled to sleep by the swaying of the tree branches above me. I woke up to three high school kids staring at me like I had a nipple for a nose, which I do, but that’s a story for another day.
What I learned about the Winooski roundabout during my reporting was this: Despite the cacophony of the traffic sounds and the somewhat intimidating crossing situation, the roundabout is a pleasant place to be. And, love it or hate it, it’s going to be there for some time to come. So get over it.
Photo via Winooski Falls.
This article appears in Jun 15-21, 2011.
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This pretty much sums it up. Big ups to the guy who created this page 😉 http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Winooski-Rotary/116357248426874
I don’t mind the roundabout when I’m in my car. It’s still totally weird, but I’m pretty used to it, and I’ve learned to avoid Route 15 around rush hour, lest I get stuck in a backup all the way to the train tracks (which I think would happen with or without a roundabout). I do think that signage could be improved, though, because that thing totally vexes out-of-towners.The roundabout is pretty scary on a bike, though, and there’s no real way around it since Winooski actually enforces their “no bike riding on the sidewalk” ordinance. The bike lane just disappears once you’re in the roundabout, and next thing you know you’re stuck between two cars that each want to merge into the other lane…yikes.
That thing stinks, particularly the unexpected bottle neck. “Get over it” perfectly captures the Stalinesque character of central planning.I have gotten over it, I take I-89 around Winooski where I used to drive it daily and, shop and dine there.
I used to live in Winooski and went through that intersection every day. Usually at 7 and 4. Never once had an issue with back ups, at least not as a result of the intersection. If it was backed up it was usually due to some idiot driver. At least at those times anyway. I dare say whether its a conventional intersection or the rotary at 5-5:30 it’s going to be backed up regardless. Maybe someday they will complete all three legs of the circ and that will alleviate traffic snarls. But my guess it we will have personal hover crafts before that happens. Like the jug handle, if people actually obeyed the “DO NOT BLOCK INTESECTION” signs traffic would flow fine.
I gotta say, I love the roundabout. I’ve never thought there was something to “get over.” I drive through frequently — I’ve lived a few blocks north of downtown for 8 years — and I walk through several times a week when I take the bus, or go to Cupp’s, or to the library. I think it’s much safer for pedestrians. I try not to cross in the middle, but at one of the spots along the top, so that I’m walking around it rather than through it. That way, I’m only crossing one lane of traffic at a time. But I’ve only felt endangered maybe once or twice over the years while crossing in the middle. And as a driver, I have no complaints. The intersection that was there before had people backed up farther and more frequently than the roundabout. Do people really not remember how bad that was?
I adore the rotary. My morning and afternoon traffic challenge. It makes me feel alive. I look forward to finding out who is a dick for not allowing folks to merge from West Allen Street and who dares to test the timing by merging from East Allen Street….Glory be to Winooski for making the traffic circle something for Mario Andretti wannabes to play on….
It’s there, and that’s that. Get over it? No I don’t think so. Remember it so that the next City Officials decide to do something intellectually challenged you can stand up and say wait a minute, hold on here. This country in general is way to passive about shit. Get mad, get angry, hold public officials accountable for doing dumb shit. On another I agree that the main issue is the pedestrian cross walks, it defeats the entire purpose. Round about, rotary, traffic circle….I’m not sure it meets the definition of any of these. As for traffic flow it probably made it worse as now traffic has to filter on to the narrow tiny side streets to get on to Mallet’s Bay Ave or even go to the fricken post office. But whatever, it is what it is and it isn’t the reason for Winooski’s trouble developing it’s downtown area. That falls to other reasons. A particular restaurant I visited the other day seemed to be more concerned with charging insane amounts to prove they are a hip posh place to eat. Food was terrible, service was terrible, and the price was unreasonable. They will be out of business shortly. 15 minutes to get a beer, and we were literally the ONLY table in the place. Outside of that, whoever the utter moron was that went and patched all the concrete ought to be kicked down the road. Here you have a brand new “rotary” that they went and dug, up and patched it like it was a High School building trades class. But Hey, with all the “hip” new people flooding in I guess they have enough funds to not worry about things being done in a professional manner.
IIRC the Winooski roundabout was originally built with two lanes all the way around but for some unknown reason they changed it within the first year, before folks even had a chance to learn how to navigate it properly.
I have to agree with Slim — yep, people need to get over it, but that doesn’t mean it was built correctly. I recently moved away from Vermont, but I lived in Winooski for seven years prior. My beef with the rotary is that it’s DANGEROUS, particularly for pedestrians — and, I should know because I nearly hit a half dozen of them while trying to look behind me, to the side of me and all around me to make sure my car wasn’t going to get clipped by other drivers who were doing the same thing.My understanding of a roundabout is that it’s designed to keep traffic moving — but the Winooski roundabout has cars stopping every 50 feet for pedestrians (sometimes with traffic lights, sometimes not). The circle is simply too small to have traffic lights — as I’m stopping, the guy behind me is still looking in his blind spot to ensure he won’t crash (thereby not noticing a line of cars stopped in front of him).So, I understand the sentiment: Get over it. But, c’mon, you can’t ignore safety issues.
It’s true, everyone needs to get over it. The road is built, and it’s a done deal. I will say however, that this particular roundabout was built incorrectly. The roundabout needs two lanes around the entire circle. At the top of the circle, everything bottlenecks. This is why it doesn’t work very well. Every rotary or roundabout in the world has two or three lanes inside the circle. This allows cars to flow smoothly in, keep moving, change lanes if necessary, and then flow out, all without stopping. Roundabouts work flawlessly all over the world, and in many parts of america. The problem in winooski is that the traffic still comes to a stop. Bad design.http://walimemon.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/roundabout-.jpghttp://www.civil.iitb.ac.in/tvm/1100_LnTse/126_lntse/plain/img1.gif